Constructivism is a theory of learning that says people construct their own understanding and knowledge through experiences and reflecting on those experiences. According to constructivism, learning happens best when people are actively involved in real experiences. Two founders of constructivism were Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Piaget believed children learn through schemas or organized patterns of thought and behavior developed from their experiences. Vygotsky felt social interaction and collaborative learning were important parts of constructing knowledge.

1. Constructivism
By Zach

2. What is constructivism?
 The learner learns by “doing,” so he
constructs comprehension
 Knowledge is gained by an interplay of
experience and ideas
 “We have to focus on the learner in
thinking about learning”
 “There is no knowledge independent of
the meaning attributed to experience”
(Hein)
http://www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/constructivistlearning.html

3. Jean Piaget (1869 – 1980)
 Founder of constructivism
 Said that children gained knowledge by
experiences in schemas. Early schemas are –
 Sensorimotor: learning through senses & motor
actions
 Preoperational: begin to use symbols & images, learn
through language
 Concrete operational: Logical thinking, can
understand other points of views (besides their own)
 Formal operational: concrete to abstract thinking

4. Jean Piaget (cont.)
 Adaption: a child‟s
cognitive understanding
 Assimilation occurs when
new experiences and
information are taken in
 Accommodation is the
result of combining the
new with the old to create
new meaning
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/67/Jean_Piaget_in_Ann_Arbor.png/358px-Jean_Piaget_in_Ann_Arbor.png

5. Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)
 Discovered social cognition, or that we learn
through social development
 For instance, children learn language through
social interaction, learning that certain sounds
carry meaning
 Children can learn better through „collaborative
learning‟ than they can alone
 Collaborative learning: learning in a group
setting, with someone „more advanced‟

6. Lev Vygotsky (cont.)
 Scaffolding: teachers
should discover where
students are and build
their learning experiences
from there, altering their
schemeta (the organized
cognitive mental
framework)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/images/portrait.jpg

7. What does this mean for
teachers?
 Don‟tfocus on the
material; focus on the
students
 We need to offer
students the
opportunity to –
 Interact with sensory
data
 Construct their own
http://educ6040fall10.wikispaces.com/file/view/connections.png
world

8. What does this mean for
students?
 They must experience to learn
 Learning with others will help the group
advance farther than any individual
would alone
 Students need motivation to learn!

9. Personally...
 Thismodel of learning challenges much of
the „conventional‟ education system we
see in the US today
 I would like to make use of it, especially
with guiding learning and helping to
motivate students to learn