HDF 315 Follari Chapter 3 Constructivist Learning
Socrates
400 BC Pondered the process of human thinking, learning, and teaching.
What happens when the task is too simple for the students?
A child may become bored and not be cognitively engaged (not really having to think about what he or she is doing).
What are the stages of working within the zone of proximal development according to Piaget?
A child sees of private speech not particularly meaningful developmentally, and it was attributed to the child's cognitive immaturity.
Constructivism
A theory of knowledge and learning which posits that children actively engaged with their world - people, experiences, materials - and build their beliefs and knowledge through interaction in internal processes
Sociocultural constructivism
A theory of knowledge as socially constructed and then internalized; as such, the social and cultural environment heavily influences knowledge construction.
Describe the roles of the learner in constructivist learning.
A valued important part of the knowledge instruction process which is shaped by prior experience, learning, and beliefs. When ideas are challenged by new information, the learner interprets and make sense of the new information in the context of previous experience. This involves building a new cognitive framework that meaningfully incorporates the old and new information in bold and new ways that make sense to the learner. Exploration with materials Inner processes of reasoning Interaction with peers and teachers
When constructivist theory is applied in classroom, what activities does it involve?
Acting and answering questions Making hypotheses Testing those hypotheses Dialoguing with teachers and peers Confronting challenges to one's own and others' thinking Exploring and reflecting on results
What shaped progressive teaching practices in the early 20th century?
Active exploration and discourse as methods for learning
Know - one - how - learned (KWHL) chart or groups
Allows children to share their prior knowledge and decide what new knowledge they want to explore Teachers include statements children make about what they know, even if they are incorrect because through their own process of inquiry and exploration, they will come to see their misconception. This technique validates individual has experiences, and it empowers children to shape future classroom endeavors. Children are asked to generate ideas for how they will find out what they want to know. This places them more in control of their own learning activities.
What do number of studies by Piaget indicate?
Although Piaget proposed that formal operations develop an adolescent, in reality many adults never demonstrate formal operational thinking.
What does the most recent attention on constructivist teaching center on?
Applying the theory to teaching practice
How have new research testing element of Piaget's stage theory led to modification and expansion beliefs about how my mission is influenced by culture?
As a course of normal maturation, cognition progresses to distinct levels of processing. This new research exploring thinking is the subjects of diverse cultures - industrialized and non-industrialized societies - indicates that the unique experiences of specific cultures can greatly impact the level of cognition achieved.
1900s
As research reinforce the effectiveness of learner centered models of education, active learning how favor and educational trends. The progressive emphasis on critical thinking, shared authority, and learning within a social context paved the way for contemporary constructivist theory.
What is a drawback in using portfolios?
Aside from the time needed to gather and sort of work, is that they remain subjective. The interpretations from one evaluator (parent, teacher, etc.) to another as to rate and direction of the child's progress can vary widely.
The goal of education is to lead to increasing self-regulation and independence. What are the teaching strategies and assessment strategies recommended for this constructivist principle?
Begin by exploring new problems together; slowly reduce health as children become more capable. Use children's work samples and anecdotal records to document process toward independent task mastery. Use performance assessment to demonstrate independent task mastery.
What are some suggestions in applying constructivist theory to Early Childhood Education?
Being an active participant with children (Let's find out together) Supporting children's connections to prior experience (that looks like the bridge you were building with the long blocks last week) Empowering children as contributing members of the classroom community (that's a great idea; let's see if we can figure that out together) Facilitating children's questioning, testing, exploring, and reflecting (what do you think will happen if/when...?)
How do we "share the road"?
Believe the principle the classroom can be communities of learners said teachers must relinquish much of the control, power, and authority endowed in them in a traditional model and be willing to have more questions than answers. There must be a mutual respect. Children affect teachers and peers, and teachers respect children, including children's ideas, prior experience, and processing of new experiences. This leads to the children being validated as having valuable contributions to make to classroom learning, they are prompted and encouraged to share. Use a simple know - want - how - learned (KWHL) chart or group Allow children to also direct the social climate of the classroom by allowing them to make their own rules through discussion and negotiation. When children are empowered to create rules, and more likely to internalize them, followed them, and remind each other of them. Use scaffolding to increase children self-regulation and the economy and social interactions and activity. Emphasize child directed experiences that include instruction when necessary.
How do educators embody the careful balance of a constructivist teacher?
By varying the degree to which she directly guides or indirectly supports the students'work and attention by teaching them strategies of artistic techniques, and at other times she steps back and let the students discuss and reflect on their own processes and work.
What does Piaget's theoretical framework of cognitive development propose?
Children interact with their environment as well as their own misconception. Interpreting this aspect of this theory in the classroom made me teachers to refrain from correcting children's erroneous beliefs. For the novice teacher attempting to embrace constructivist teaching style, the sharing of authority and jointly constructed knowledge proposes significant challenges in faced with accountability to content standards and learner assessment.
What are the stages that are internalized according to Vygotsky?
Children think out loud verbally which slowly becomes internal, private beach, which they use to organize thoughts. When children have a reasonable mastery over language (like using private speech to organize thoughts and dialogue to communicate ideas), the dynamic of the learning environment is one of collaboration among children and adults in which the group negotiates meaning and socially constructed knowledge.
What are 2 main branches that use different lenses to view the nature of learning and knowing?
Cognitive developmental constructivism Sociocultural constructionism
Piaget's influence
Cognitive developmental constructivists, like Piaget, leave the children actively construct knowledge through cognitive processing of their experiences, driven by an and eight the buyer to explore and manipulate materials and their role. More than just some of experiences or the Islam of innate ideas, constructivist view knowledge acquisition as an active, dynamic cognitive process in which children build, rebuild,, and change their ideas. He studied children's processes and abilities as they worked to accomplish certain tasks at different ages.
What does constructivist assessment focus on?
Context and individual Past changes and future potential Subjective meaning of experience and information The processes students employ to make sense of their world Learning as an active process and assessment as a tool to facilitate learning
Johann Pestalozzi
Created an early learner-centered model of education
John Locke
Created experimental learning
Children learn through guided problem-solving of challenging tasks. What are the teaching strategies and assessment strategies recommended for this constructivist principle?
Determine each child's developmental level and ZPD. Present interesting tasks and challenging problems within their ZPD and form groups to work through them collaboratively. Keep observational records of children's responses to challenging problems. Note how much help is needed at periodic points. Use labeled photographs of children's work in stages to chronicle the process.
Describe the relationship of development and learning and constructivism according to Piaget.
Development leads learning
Progressive era
Division of the learner began to emerge as an area of concern for modern educators. The belief that learning occurs through student interactions with peers, teachers, materials, ideas, and work on solving problems set the stage for modern concept of best practices in active learning.
Describe education.
Education in the field in which Syrian practice are continuously evolving through dialogue, reflection,, and experimentation.
Manipulatives
Hands-on materials that are designed to illustrate and demonstrate such concepts as shape, series, categorization, grouping, and so on.
Vygotsky's influence
His work expanded existing beliefs about constructivist theory. In the the sociocultural branch of constructivism, which believes that knowledge is constructed through active mental processes but is greatly influenced by one's social and cultural environment. The role of experience remains important, but interactions with people (such as teachers and peers) and society (cultural norms, traditions, and beliefs) are viewed as essential influences in knowledge construction. His work but particularly useful in applying constructivist principles to teaching.
Francis Bacon
In the 1500s Introduced a new way of thinking that embraced problem-solving and consideration of multiple possibilities.
Describe the learner's role in constructivism according to Vygotsky.
Interactions with their world and the people in it shape learners'knowledge.
Scaffolding
Involves the dynamic and active assistance from the more expert partner, relying heavily on verbal cues, prompts, and questions. The teacher provides clues that "nudge" the child thinking or actions involving a problem are completing a task. Be careful to give just enough help to avoid overwriting the child's own process. Scaffolding requires that teachers know how children are capable of thinking - what their developmental level is at that moment. As children become more capable, the assistance is reduced. In this way, the teacher's help act as a stronger support as children need more help and as a lesser support as they become more independently capable in the task.
Which 2 psychologists brought the theory of constructivism and the application of constructivist principles into the modern age, and were responsible for dividing 2 branches within the theoretical framework?
Jean Piaget Lev Vygotsky
Describe the view of knowledge of constructivism according to Vygotsky.
Knowledge is constructed, shaped by interaction with people, and influenced by culture and environment.
Describe the view of knowledge of constructivism according to Piaget.
Knowledge is individually constructed, shaped by processing new experiences.
Describe the relationship between language and thought according to Piaget.
Language knowledge construction connection not emphasized
Describe the relationship between language and thought according to Vygotsky.
Language promoted as strongly influencing thought
How have learner-centered theories of teaching contributed to the landscape of the classroom experience?
Learner centered theories of teaching have contributed to the landscape of classroom experiences in powerful ways that have great potential to positively shape practice.
Describe the learner's role in constructivism according to Piaget.
Learners'explorations and actions shape their knowledge of the world.
What type of learning environments have educators been attempting to create?
Learning environment that maximizes children's potential in terms of guilt, knowledge, attitudes, and lifelong habits.
How is learning viewed?
Learning is viewed as a dynamic inquiry process.
Describe relationship development and learning according to Vygotsky.
Learning leads development
Authentic assessment
Methods of assessing children's progress, knowledge, and accomplishments within a naturalistic context. Portfolios, observation, and work samples are examples of authentic contextualized assessments.
Performance assessment
Methods of evaluating what children now and can do by observing their formants and responses on authentic (real-life) tasks
Children use language to organize their thinking. What are the teaching strategies and assessment strategies recommended for this constructivist principle?
Model self talk, active listening, as well as problem-solving dialogue. Encourage children's dialogue. Facilitate children's dialogue when needed. Asked children higher-level questions (open-ended, seeking elaboration). Capture children's dialogue through transcript. Analyze their conversations for clues of cognitive processing. (For example, ask children how they arrived at a solution for observe dialogue between children as they explain their reasoning.)
Transmission models
Models in which the teacher directly shared information often regarded as contradictory to constructivist theory.
Describe the role of peer/social partners in constructivism according to Vygotsky.
More expert partner purposefully guide the exploration of ideas (active role).
Portfolios
One of the more widely used alternative, authentic assessment formats Teachers and children together decide on the samples of work to be included. This might include drawings, stories, paintings, photos of sculpture or block buildings, collages, journals, and so on. Teachers can also select observation reports, anecdotal records, notes from children's conversations, developmental checklist, or notes from family conversations. The goal is to gather key pieces of authentic work spanning a variety of activities over a period of time, a more richly detailed picture of the child's growth and progress may be captured.
Rubrics
Outline expectations for assignments and include evaluations of basic, moderate, and advanced performance or quality Expectations of what you want to see in an assignment
How are teachers and students viewed in constructivist classrooms? Why does this make constructivist learning meaningful, real, internal, interesting, and accessible to even the youngest students?
Partners in critical thinking about phenomena in their world and exploring them on a personal level. The partnership makes constructivist learning meaningful, real, internal, interesting, and accessible to even the youngest of students because personal and active involvement.
What does the widespread misapplication of constructivist theory translates to?
Passive, Laissez-faire teaching
Describe the role of peer/social partners in constructivism according to Piaget.
Peers can unwittingly provoke cognitive conflict (passive role)
Why were Piaget's tests considered bias?
Piaget tested the children that were considered intellectually gifted. He said would cover concepts but in the realm of prior experience for some children, but not all (children not attending formal schooling). There is also bias associated with early theorists'assumptions about the status of concrete operational thinking compared to formal operational thinking.
What must constructivist teachers strive to balance their teaching style to include?
Posing engaging questions and challenging problems Giving students the necessary information Supporting students'research to find information for themselves Prompting students to try new problem-solving strategies Focusing student attention on particular aspects of the activity Observing and considering students'actions and dialogue Promoting collaboration among peers and teachers Assessing students'processing through careful dialogues
When children are interested in the tasks at hand, learning is more meaningful. What are the teaching strategies and assessment strategies recommended for this constructivist principle?
Present tasks, experiences, and materials that relate to children's individual and group interests. Keep notes during small - or large - group discussion for clues to children's interest. Asked children to identify prior knowledge and current questions. Record children's responses. Use children's prior knowledge to inform the group and connect to current experiences. Revisit the list when explorations are in progress. (Using a KWHL charts is helpful.)
What do students do during this process?
Students are not merely given answers, nor are they sent forth alone to face challenges they are not equipped to meet. Students are supported as they find ways to navigate through challenging and interesting problems and reflect on their own processing and solutions.
What must a teacher do to engage the students within their zone of proximal development?
Teacher must understand the child's current thought process in order to provide appropriate support child's process through challenging problems. The teacher must remain active and attentive during the child processing so that the form and level of existence and be continually adjusted based on the child's placement in his or her individual thing.
What do Piaget's stages promote?
The achievement of formal operational thinking at a higher level and, therefore, more desirable.
What is the purpose of this article?
The chapter presents an overview of the theory of constructivism and an analysis of the possibilities and challenges of applying the theory to educational practice. Strategies for meaningfully making the theory-to-practice leap are presented as a starting point and guide to inspired teaching and assessment.
What happens when the task provided is too hard for the student and no help is provided?
The child gets frustrated and may give up.
In keeping with the idea of ZPD and the teacher's role as scaffolder, dynamic assessment utilizes what 3 steps to how children gather information on how children complete tssks alone as well as how they respond to instruction?
The children complete any task alone. The teacher intervenes with some form of scaffolding instruction. Children then complete the task again.
20th century
The colleges us and a primary role in designing methods for teaching that would develop foster learning
How has the influences of philosophers and more recently by the psychologists been reflected in constructivist teaching?
The constructivist teaching reflect the dynamic, fluid, collaborative nature and its own development over the years. The theory was developed through new ideas for building on prior beliefs and collaboration among scholars.
Overbearing, authoritarian adult influence minimizes children's active exploration, problem-solving, and social relationship building. What are the teaching strategies and assessment strategies recommended for this constructivist of people?
The name and the role of guide and facilitator providing challenges, assistance, support, and resources as needed. Determine need by carefully observing children's activity and language. Keep the classroom climate free, allowing children to take risks, make mistakes, and share authority over making decisions. Allow children to make classroom rules in need of a group regularly to discuss children's feelings about classroom community. Reflect on the nature of instructions between teacher - children and children - children. The core group discussions to assess children's feelings about the tone of the classroom. He said his of children interacting paired with dialogue transcripts to capture children's process and progressions.
Describe working in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and the Piaget framework.
The partner may unwittingly be a source of conflicting information that the child is thrown into the cognitive conflict - knowledge construction process.
What do sociocultural rest constructivists, like Vygotsky, believe?
The social and linguistic interaction between partners is the very basis of knowledge construction. They believe knowledge is socially constructed and then internalized as opposed to being independently constructed within the individual working solely with materials
Describe scaffolding used in constructivist teachings.
The teacher acts as a guide and facilitator of students thinking and activities within learning experiences.
Describe working in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) in the Vygotsky framework.
The teacher deliberately assesses the child's level and provide interaction just beyond that however still within reach. He viewed the partner as a deliberate actor in the purposeful engagement of the child thoughts. This is an active role, one that requires expertise embedded content and teaching technique. He uses scaffolding.
Describe the role of teacher in constructivist learning.
The teacher's comments are not the same as handing out directions about where to place cotton balls or precut shapes on paper and how much would to use. Her comments, instead, include technical artistic vocabulary, thoughtful and reflective that the careful analysis of the students' work and a sharing of ideas from a more expert knowledge base. The teachers, and in questions encourage the students to become deliberate, thoughtful, and reflective about their artwork. The teacher also prompts students to discuss their work together and share decisions they made about their creations.
What has educational practice been influenced by over the past two decades?
The theory of learning known as constructivism and its recent application to teaching
What are the problems in translating theory into practice under constructivist inspired teaching?
The work of the key philosophers and psychologists mentioned previously was not intended to be taken as prescriptions for practice so constructivism emerged as at theory of human knowing, not as a method of teaching. In spite of this, for at least 2 decade educational practice teacher education program have adopted vocabulary, interpreted the spirit of constructivism, and applied it to classroom teaching. Interpretation of the premise of constructivist theory indicate that teachers do not hold the right answers and questioning students to test for the correct responses and judging correct and incorrect answers. Instead, teachers and students their collective responsibility for guiding learning so teachers are the ones with the right questions, not the right answers.
Cognitive developmental constructivism
Theory of knowledge as an individual construct built through the generation and new experiences that challenge the learners existing knowledge
What are the commonalities between Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories?
They are learner centered model of how thinking and knowledge acquisition develop. They emphasized children as active the creators of knowledge. They value the child's environment for its influence on thoughts. They view knowledge as a subjective, constructed reality. They validate the child's internal motivation to explore and manipulate his or her world as a means of understanding it.
What are the similarities between Piaget and Vygotsky?
They are learner centered models of helping you knowledge acquisition develop. They both emphasized children as active creators of knowledge. They valued the child's environment for it influence on thought. They both view knowledge as a subjective, constructed reality. They validate the child's internal motivation to explore and manipulate his or her world as a means of understanding it.
What is at the core of the dynamic inquiry process?
Thinking by students
How do teachers facilitate children's internal process of knowledge construction?
Through hands-on experiences
What does good scaffolding due in constructivist learning?
Through the balance of direct and indirect presence, the teacher fosters a community among the students and encourages them to be thoughtful and engaged with their own work and with their peers. This thoughtfulness, reflection, and deeper cognitive engagement with one's own work, as well as with one years, are hallmarks of constructivist classrooms.
Why were dynamic assessment strategies developed?
To capture children's learning and motion
Scaffolding involves using verbal cues, questions, and prompts to engender inquiry. What are the teaching strategies and assessment strategies recommended for this constructivist principle?
Use open ended, higher-level questioning. Asked children to make predictions and hypotheses, explain observations, and elaborate on ideas of self and others. Record child - teacher conversations and code for evidence of higher-level responses. Document number and complexity of responses to open ended questions.
Children's conceptions and misconceptions are all part of the knowledge construction process. What are the teaching strategies and assessment strategies recommended for this constructivist principle?
Validate children's attempt to understand and accomplish tasks. These children's heirs to access thought progress and direction. Pose questions that guide children in different directions if they are off-track. Asked children relevant questions and ask them to support their ideas with a rationale. The children themselves may discover misconceptions as they explain their thinking. Observe and record children's responses and reactions.
What should be done to avoid this?
Value children's conception even if they are misconceptions from teachers perspective Promote a collaborative problem-solving where children can generate their own answers Work in partnership with students Balance between direct and indirect instruction is key
Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
When applied to classroom environment, this translates teachers engaging the children in discussion and activities that the head of their current developmental level. Working in this zone means working with more expert help on challenging activities that are neither too easy nor too hard. Inherent in the framework, on the nature of the interaction with a more expert partner (a teacher and roll it not in title).
Cognitive conflict
When new information contradicts currently held beliefs, which then prompts the child to rethink existing beliefs.
What type of picture does authentic assessment seek to capture?
Who you are What you are thinking How you have changed Your learning process
