Constructivism And Sociocultural Education Essay

According to Anthony & Walshaw, (2009) within a constructivist view, it is a teacher’s role to facilitate the learning of a child by providing a resource rich environment from which they guide a students learning. A student within a constructivist-learning environment must become engaged in the learning process by becoming a researcher, identifying a problem, collecting and analysing data and formulating a conclusion. This process of engagement provides a student with endless opportunity to develop his or her own understanding and knowledge. An educators ability to understand this learning theory as a process of construction and development provides a conceptual framework from which to build a teaching practice.

My philosophy of education is closely modeled by Jerome Bruner’s Constructivism theory. Constructivism theory allows students to choose and convert information, and build hypothesis before making decisions (Bruner, 1960). The model focuses on the construction of learning. Students will pull knowledge created from individual experiences, past knowledge, and values. Personally this gives me the opportunity to encourage students with challenges through learning, discover, and values at the student’s level. I will provide students the chance to interact socially with peers allowing each student to build confidence of their own learning ability. My approach will allow students to feel my dedication through reshaping my approaches so that all

Studying child development influenced my Philosophy of Education by giving me an insight of how children think and learn. Knowing that constructivism has roots in cognitive theory, basically the idea of how people construct their own understanding of the world (Philosophy of Education 1). Knowing a constructivist teacher will use student’s prior knowledge to create classroom lessons and use questions to encourage students to understand on a higher level (Philosophy of Education 1).

I am going to discuss and focus on Lee Vygotsky and his theory of Constructivism. One of Lee Vygotsky main theories was in fact constructivism; it is interesting to read about Lee Vygotsky view on constructivism as it is about how people learn and is based on a scientific study. One of the main meanings behind constructivism is “Constructivism is people who construct their own understanding and

Constructivist teaching. Muijs and Reynolds (2005) interpreted that the principles of constructivist teaching consider all learners construct knowledge for themselves, rather than absorbing knowledge directly from the teacher. This means that every pupil will learn something slightly differently from a particular lesson given. The assumption that pupils are active knowledge constructers has several consequences. For examples, the learners need to be active in order to construct knowledge or to learn effectively, teaching is about helping children construct their own meaning rather than training them to get the right answer without the actual understanding of the concept, and pupils learn best when new lessons are clearly related to what they already know,

The benefits of constructivism for teachers and learners, in an ideal setting include focusing on students allowing students the time and opportunity to investigate big ideas, and along the way helping them to understand concepts and skills, rather than just memorizing and regurgitating facts or ideas. Constructivism engages students’ natural curiosities to help them find answers to the questions inherent in their minds (Constructivism). Intrinsic motivation would be expected to be high when students are provided the freedom to choose their course of learning and given the time to investigate until questions are answered.

In this article the author’s discuss the area of cooperative learning and the constructivist philosophy and how they relate to each other. There are examples given of different classroom activities that involve cooperate learning and the constructivist philosophy. In these various classrooms, the students learned subject matter and developed meanings that were personalized to them and they also used prior knowledge and engaged in classroom discussions. In these examples, the teacher was the facilitator, who motivated the practice and reinforced

Constructivism powerfully informs educational practice (Brooks, 2003). Constructivism promotes active problem solving, customized teaching strategies, and integrates assessments throughout the learning process so that students are involved in assessing their own progress (Constructivism, 2011). The constructivist theory is not, however, universally accepted; some say that objectivism, rather than constructivism is far more reasonable in its implementation (Carson, 2005). This paper will attempt to analyze ------------------------

Constructivism is a type of method that has changed and continues to change with time. It has been stated that due to the fact of the ever-changing definition many have called the definition empty. According to Kretchmar (2017), “So many different definitions currently exist some scholars believe constructivism has been emptied of meaning altogether.” Sofie M. M. Loyens and David Gijbels (2008), defines constructivism as “the way in which people try to make sense of situations or, in other words, how people create meaning” (p. 351). There are two specific kinds of constructivism, cognitive constructivism, and social constructivism. Many people feel like as a teacher it is your job to only teach the text or the material. The constructivist

Dewey predicted that “if we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” (John Dewey, 1944). This made great sense to me while I was doing my observation period in January 2015. During this period I observed that every teacher has a different learning and teaching philosophy, therefore I would like to describe my own teaching and learning philosophy and by whom I was influenced. In my discussion I will elaborate on the philosopher: John Dewey with his philosophy: “Progressivism” and other philosophers: Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky with their philosophy: “Constructivism”. I am also going to elaborate on my ideas on teaching, learning and the children of the future in my class together with how Dewey, Piaget and Vygotsky influenced my thinking.

The philosophical perspective possessed by a teacher has on affects the ability and effectiveness of their teaching methods. Therefore a teacher must be one who appreciates and respects education and formalized schooling. In the following paragraphs I will give a general description of my views on education. I will describe how I view the acquisition of knowledge, common student nature, what I believe the purpose of education is and my desired method and curriculum. Future teachers should carefully consider each of these aspects.

The dilemma with Objectivism and Constructivism is that they are being regarded as bifurcating philosophies when they should be deemed as complementing philosophies. Why not employ both to create the best educational system possible? We need the Objectivism approach in order to see the global perspective of educating children and we need the Constructivism approach in order to identify the details that are failing some students and bring a sense of humanity to the school system and eliminate the factory sense, which was embedded in the educational systems by Taylor 's ideas on scientific management (Vrasidas, 2000, p.339-362). Therefore, This argument is based on the convergence of Objectivism and Constructivism in order to construct a fair and balance educational system.

Furthermore, as I read the assigned articles and viewed videos, I realized that my teachers obviously, followed Piaget’s, Vygotsky. Dewey, and Bruner constructivist view because they used the theory of assimilation and accommodation, e.g., the learning of a new experience and changing of a person’s worldview. I also discovered after deep reflection on this week’s assignment, how much of an impact my teachers had on my teaching style. Before retiring, I taught based on what my students needed. Therefore, much of my teaching mixed the theories of, Constructivism, Social Constructivism and Cognitive-Behavioral depending on the student.

Constructivism is connected to the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget believed that cognitive development occurred in four stages that have distinct developmental characteristics.  He theorised that all information is organised into ‘schemas’, and this refers to the manner in which a child organisesand stores information and knowledge received. As new information is received, it is either incorporated into existing schemas (assimilation) or new schemas (accommodation) are created (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2010).  Vygotsky’s theories compliment those of Piaget and place a greater importance on social interaction as he considered cognitive development predominately was achievedthrough social interaction.  Vygotsky believed that learning could be accelerated with the assistance of a more advanced peer or teacher.  This concept is referred to as the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and works in conjunction with the theory of ‘scaffolding’, where a teacher provides support to student and as proficiency increases the scaffolding is decreased (Marsh, 2008). Evidence of scaffolding is seen throughout the Maths video as Ms Poole provides an outline of the lesson and the goals to allow students to establish a focus.

Teachers who have a constructivist basis for their philosophy of teaching and learning are seldom satisfied to use textbooks alone. Constructivists know that students must have motivation to search for meaning and create their own understanding of the world of ideas. When students want to know more about an idea, a topic, or an entire discipline, they put more cognitive energy into classroom investigations and discussions and study more on their own.