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Constructivism: Theory, Characteristics, and So What?

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Constructivism: Theory, Characteristics, and So What? Constructivism: Theory, Characteristics, and So What? In identifying a constructivist approach to education aphorisms abound. The most common is that students create their own knowledge. Others include mantras such as: Learning is student centered Learning is an interactive process Learning begins in doubt Learning is the result of doing and undergoing experience Learning is experience based Discovery learning Exploratory learning Participatory decision making The teacher as a facilitator of learning as opposed to a dispenser of knowledge The education establishment is tarnished with the brush of faddism and constructivism has not escaped such criticism. Unfortunately, as a criticism of education in general, the allegation of faddism appears to have validity. On the other hand, when taken in context, the descriptors of constructivism are also valid. However, it is not true that with these two givens the conclusion can be reached that the constructivist approach to learning is devoid of a philosophical foundation and is itself an example of faddism. Such an assertion is not valid. Is Constructivism Philosophically Sound? Frequently educators apply the term philosophy inappropriately. More appropriate terms would be opinion or point of view. For example, one can have an opinion or a point of view concerning the teaching of reading be it phonics or whole language, but to insert the term philosophy connotes the lack of an understanding of the meaning of that term. The debate over the relative merits of phonics and whole language in the teaching of reading ought to be guided by authentic and non-selective research. To insert the notion of a philosophical argument into the issue unveils a lack of syntactical clarity and distinction. However, another example would be the sport of fishing. Is it possible to have a “philosophy of fishing?” From at least one point of view with a long tradition the answer is: Yes. In 1635 Izaak Walton wrote the first known book on the philosophy and delights of fishing: The Compleat Angler. The book is still in print today. If the answer of Yes as cited above is philosophically sound it would mean that the sport of fishing has an identifiable position relative to metaphysics, epistemology and axiology. I don’t think those engaged in the sport of fishing have given the matter much thought. Unfortunately the same might be suggested for more immediate educational concerns. To speak of something as being philosophical sound implies that the view is characterized by three components: metaphysical, epistemological and axiological. 1 Metaphysics has to do with ontology and cosmology. Ontology has to with the basic nature of human kind and cosmology has to do with what is real. Epistemology has to do with knowledge –What is it? Axiology has to be with values – Why do human beings value what they value? In response to these characteristics constructivism meets the test of having a defensible philosophical (as well as a psychological) foundation. In metaphysics constructivists believe that human beings enter the world neither inherently good nor evil but rather neutral in genetic orientation, behaviorally active and with free will. Prior to the scientific era and the period of enlightenment [17th and 18th centuries] the view of religionists of various persuasions prevailed. It was the then common belief that human beings entered the world either inherently good or inherently evil, and either with or without free will. It was believed that these dispositions were predetermined by God. The implication for the purpose and application in education is self evident. The purpose of education was to bring students in compliance with predetermined goals and do so in response to codified norms of behavior. In epistemology constructivists believe that while knowledge is conceptually based and has structure, it is not something that exists by divine grace, is inherent in nature or is transmitted pedantically from teacher to learner. Constructivists believe, as the aphorism asserts, that each learner discovers and constructs knowledge for self as the result of doing and interacting experientially with his or her environment. Learning is a socially interactive process as opposed to a solitary pursuit along a predetermined path [John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky]. Information and knowledge are not synonymous terms. To constructivists knowledge conveys the notion that the learner has the information necessary to proceed further in the learning spiral [Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education, 1960]. The learner has the capacity to comprehend the information, to analyze it including comparing and contrasting it with previous information, to synthesize it with other information, to evaluate its worth and effectiveness, and to apply it in real life [Benjamin Bloom, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive Domain, 1956]. As a result of this cognitive development process the learner continues on his or her quest in becoming a knowing person. In axiology constructivists believe that values are existential. Values emerge in the context of living and experiencing as opposed to having been divinely ordained or being inherent in nature. To constructivists values emerge through the social interaction of human beings as they engage in experience[(Lev Vygotsky]. Experience is an active process of doing and undergoing (John Dewey). Values have meaning in context. In Platonic terms a value held is a virtue and the virtuous person seeks the greatest good for the greatest number. 2 Does Constructivism Have a Heritage? While the term constructivism in its contemporary use is relatively new, its tenets are not. From antiquity to the present it has a long line of contributors. It has a scholarly heritage. Seeds of constructivism can be found in Aristotle. Unlike his mentor Plato who minimized the role of experience, Aristotle recognized the value of experience in the process of coming to know. Aristotle draws everything from experience…he has always been the model for all empirical philosophers [Ulich, History of Educational Thought, 1954, p.25]. Beginning with the period of enlightenment a plethora of influential thinkers emerged including several who had an impact on education. Among the many were John Locke [1632-1704], Jean Jacques Rousseau [1712-78], Johann Pestalozzi [1746-1827], and Frederick Froebel [1782-1852]. Each has had a lasting impact on education. For example, John Locke was a proponent of a “sound mind in a sound body” and of what came to be referred to as social engineering. He advanced the notion that at birth the individual mind was a blank tablet to be filled by teachers, and was influenced by experience. Locke’s beliefs related to the source of knowledge were identified as empiricism. In political thought Locke was a liberal individualist and influenced Thomas Jefferson is his drafting of the United States Declaration of independence. In Rousseau can be found seeds of developmentalism as articulated later by Piaget [Ulich, History of Educational Thought, 1950, pp 219ff]. One of Rousseau’s major works was Emile, a three volume treatise on education. Therein over and over again, he made the point that the education of children should follow the process of natural unfoldment or development. Education began at birth and is a process of habit formation. The purpose of education was to lead mankind from absolutism and authoritarianism toward freedom, independence and self-fulfillment The aphorism Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains, is associated with Rousseau. The Social Contract, his essay on politics and government associated with the French Revolution. Pestalozzsi had early insights into modern psychology that came to be associated with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. Froebel is recognized as the founder of the kindergarten movement. However, it is not uncommon for early childhood teachers today to enter the profession never having heard his name. [Ulich, pp 55-56,383, 480, and 523]. Are There Contemporary Constructivist Theorists? Constructivism is not limited to the thinking of any one individual. True to its own creed constructivism is an amalgam of the thoughts of many contributors. In contemporary times there has been a plethora of contributors to its development as a philosophically and psychologically sound approach to learning. 3 Since the latter half of the 19th century the development of constructivist thought has been associated with contributions drawn from the thinking of among others such luminaries as: William James, Charles S. Pierce, John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Benjamin Bloom, David Krathwohl, Lev Vygotsky, Howard Gardner, and Daniel Goleman. In the Metaphysical Club [2001] author Louis Menand summarized what can be identified as constructivist thinking in the work of James, Pierce, Dewy and Oliver Wendell Homes. James is recognized as the father of American psychology, Pierce as among America’s most unsung philosophers, and Dewey as America’s foremost native born philosopher. Holmes became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Menand summarizes their collective contribution as follows: If we strain out differences, personal and philosophical, they had with one another, we can say that what these four thinkers had in common was not a group of ideas, but a single idea – an idea about ideas. They all believed that ideas are not ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered, but are tools –like forks and knives and microchips – that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves. They believed that ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals – that ideas are social. They believed that ideas do not develop according to some inner logic of their own, but are entirely dependent, like germs, on their human carriers and the environment. And they believed that since ideas are provisional responses to particular and unreproducible circumstances, their survival depends not on their immutability but on their adaptability. William James is credited with giving pragmatism its name. Before the term constructivism entered the lexicon the terms in common usage were pragmatism and instrumentalism.
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