What is constructivism?

Constructivism is basically a theory -- based on observation and scientific study -- about how people
learn. It says that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through
experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. When we encounter something new, we have
to reconcile it with our previous ideas and experience, maybe changing what we believe, or maybe
discarding the new information as irrelevant. In any case, we are active creators of our own
knowledge. To do this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know.

In the classroom, the constructivist view of learning can point towards a number of different teaching
practices. In the most general sense, it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques
(experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk
about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing. The teacher makes sure she
understands the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then
build on them.

Constructivist teachers encourage students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain
understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist
classroom ideally become "expert learners." This gives them ever-broadening tools to keep learning.
With a well-planned classroom environment, the students learn HOW TO LEARN.

You might look at it as a spiral. When they continuously reflect on their

experiences, students find their ideas gaining in complexity and power, and
they develop increasingly strong abilities to integrate new information. One of
the teacher's main roles becomes to encourage this learning and reflection
process.

For example: Groups of students in a science class are discussing a problem in

physics. Though the teacher knows the "answer" to the problem, she focuses
on helping students restate their questions in useful ways. She prompts each
student to reflect on and examine his or her current knowledge. When one of
the students comes up with the relevant concept, the teacher seizes upon it, and indicates to the
group that this might be a fruitful avenue for them to explore. They design and perform relevant
experiments. Afterward, the students and teacher talk about what they have learned, and how their
observations and experiments helped (or did not help) them to better understand the concept.

Contrary to criticisms by some (conservative/traditional) educators, constructivism does not dismiss

the active role of the teacher or the value of expert knowledge. Constructivism modifies that role, so
that teachers help students to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a series of facts. The
constructivist teacher provides tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with
which students formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey
their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment. Constructivism transforms the student from a
passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process. Always guided by the
teacher, students construct their knowledge actively rather than just mechanically ingesting
knowledge from the teacher or the textbook.

Constructivism is also often misconstrued as a learning theory that compels students to "reinvent the
wheel." In fact, constructivism taps into and triggers the student's innate curiosity about the world
and how things work. Students do not reinvent the wheel but, rather, attempt to understand how it
turns, how it functions. They become engaged by applying their existing knowledge and real-world
experience, learning to hypothesize, testing their theories, and ultimately drawing conclusions from
their findings.

The best way for you to really understand what constructivism is and what it means in your classroom
is by seeing examples of it at work, speaking with others about it, and trying it yourself. As you
progress through each segment of this workshop, keep in mind questions or ideas to share with your
colleagues.

Curriculum begins with the parts of Curriculum emphasizes big concepts,

the whole. Emphasizes basic skills. beginning with the whole and
expanding to include the parts.

Strict adherence to fixed curriculum is Pursuit of student questions and

highly valued. interests is valued.

Materials are primarily textbooks and Materials include primary sources of

workbooks. material and manipulative materials.

Learning is based on repetition. Learning is interactive, building on

what the student already knows.

Teachers disseminate information to Teachers have a dialogue with

students; students are recipients of students, helping students construct
knowledge. their own knowledge.

Teacher's role is directive, rooted in Teacher's role is interactive, rooted in

authority. negotiation.

Assessment is through testing, Assessment includes student works,

correct answers. observations, and points of view, as
well as tests. Process is as important
as product.

Knowledge is seen as inert. Knowledge is seen as dynamic, ever

changing with our experiences.

Students work primarily alone. Students work primarily in groups.

Key Principles

As we saw in the Explanation section, Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks offer five key
principles of constructivist learning theory. You can use them to guide curriculum structure and lesson
planning.

Five Guiding Principles of Constructivism:

. Pose problems of emerging relevance to students.

. Structure learning around primary concepts.

. Seek and value students' points of view.

. Adapt instruction to address student suppositions.

 . Assess student learning in the context of teaching.

These are applicable at all levels and stages of learning. As you work with the ideas of constructivist
learning, you will develop personal versions of these principles.

What does constructivism have to do with my classroom?

As is the case with many of the current/popular paradigms, you're probably already using the
constructivist approach to some degree. Constructivist teachers pose questions and problems, then
guide students to help them find their own answers. They use many techniques in the teaching
process. For example, they may:

 prompt students to formulate their own questions (inquiry)

 allow multiple interpretations and expressions of learning (multiple intelligences)
 encourage group work and the use of peers as resources (collaborative learning)

More information on the above processes is covered in other workshops in this series. For now, it's
important to realize that the constructivist approach borrows from many other practices in the pursuit
of its primary goal: helping students learn HOW TO LEARN.

In a constructivist classroom, learning is . . .

Students are not blank slates upon which knowledge is etched. They come to learning situations with
already formulated knowledge, ideas, and understandings. This previous knowledge is the raw
material for the new knowledge they will create.

Example: An elementary school teacher presents a class problem to measure the length of the
"Mayflower." Rather than starting the problem by introducing the ruler, the teacher allows students to
reflect and to construct their own methods of measurement. One student offers the knowledge that a
doctor said he is four feet tall. Another says she knows horses are measured in "hands." The students
discuss these and other methods they have heard about, and decide on one to apply to the problem.

The student is the person who creates new understanding for him/herself. The teacher coaches,
moderates, suggests, but allows the students room to experiment, ask questions, try things that don't
work. Learning activities require the students' full participation (like hands-on experiments). An
important part of the learning process is that students reflect on, and talk about, their activities.
Students also help set their own goals and means of assessment.

Examples: A middle-school language arts teacher sets aside time each week for a writing lab. The
emphasis is on content and getting ideas down rather than memorizing grammatical rules, though one
of the teacher's concerns is the ability of his students to express themselves well through written
language. The teacher provides opportunities for students to examine the finished and earlier drafts of
various authors. He allows students to select and create projects within the general requirement of
building a portfolio 1. Students serve as peer editors who value originality and uniqueness rather than
the best way to fulfill an assignment.

1.
In a history class, asking students to read and think about different versions of and perspectives on
"history" can lead to interesting discussions. Is history as taught in textbooks accurate? Are there
different versions of the same history? Whose version of history is most accurate? How do we know?
From there, students can make their own judgments.

Students control their own learning process, and they lead the way by reflecting on their experiences.
This process makes them experts of their own learning. The teacher helps create situations where the
students feel safe questioning and reflecting on their own processes, either privately or in group
discussions. The teacher should also create activities that lead the student to reflect on his or her prior
knowledge and experiences. Talking about what was learned and how it was learned is really
important.

Example: Students keep journals in a writing class where they record how they felt about the class
projects, the visual and verbal reactions of others to the project, and how they felt their own writing
had changed. Periodically the teacher reads these journals and holds a conference with the student
where the two assess (1) what new knowledge the student has created, (2) how the student learns
best, and (3) the learning environment and the teacher's role in it.

The constructivist classroom relies heavily on collaboration among students. There are many reasons
why collaboration contributes to learning. The main reason it is used so much in constructivism is that
students learn about learning not only from themselves, but also from their peers. When students
review and reflect on their learning processes together, they can pick up strategies and methods from
one another.

Example: In the course of studying ancient civilizations, students undertake an archaeological dig.
This may be something constructed in a large sandbox, or, as in the Dalton School's "Archaeotype"
software simulation, on a computer. As the students find different objects, the teacher introduces
classifying techniques. The students are encouraged to (1) set up a group museum by developing
criteria and choosing which objects should belong, and (2) collaborate with other students who worked
in different quadrants of the dig. Each group is then asked to develop theories about the civilizations
that inhabited the area.

The main activity in a constructivist classroom is solving problems. Students use inquiry methods to
ask questions, investigate a topic, and use a variety of resources to find solutions and answers. As
students explore the topic, they draw conclusions, and, as exploration continues, they revisit those
conclusions. Exploration of questions leads to more questions. (See the CONCEPT TO CLASSROOM
workshop Inquiry-based Learning)

Example: Sixth graders figuring out how to purify water investigate solutions ranging from coffee-filter
paper, to a stove-top distillation apparatus, to piles of charcoal, to an abstract mathematical solution
based on the size of a water molecule. Depending upon students' responses, the teacher encourages
abstract as well as concrete, poetic as well as practical, creations of new knowledge.

Students have ideas that they may later see were invalid, incorrect, or insufficient to explain new
experiences. These ideas are temporary steps in the integration of knowledge. For instance, a child
may believe that all trees lose their leaves in the fall, until she visits an evergreen forest.
Constructivist teaching takes into account students' current conceptions and builds from there.

What happens when a student gets a new piece of information? The constructivist model says that the
student compares the information to the knowledge and understanding he/she already has, and one of
three things can occur:

 The new information matches up with his previous knowledge pretty well (it's consonant with
the previous knowledge), so the student adds it to his understanding. It may take some work,
but it's just a matter of finding the right fit, as with a puzzle piece.
 The information doesn't match previous knowledge (it's dissonant). The student has to change
her previous understanding to find a fit for the information. This can be harder work.
 The information doesn't match previous knowledge, and it is ignored. Rejected bits of
information may just not be absorbed by the student. Or they may float around, waiting for
the day when the student's understanding has developed and permits a fit.

Example: An elementary teacher believes her students are ready to study

gravity. She creates an environment of discovery with objects of varying kinds.
Students explore the differences in weight among similarly sized blocks of
Styrofoam, wood, and lead. Some students hold the notion that heavier objects
fall faster than light ones. The teacher provides materials (stories, posters, and
videos) about Galileo, Newton, etc. She leads a discussion on theories about
falling. The students then replicate Galileo's experiment by dropping objects of
different weights and measuring how fast they fall. They see that objects of
different weights actually usually fall at the same speed, although surface area
and aerodynamic properties can affect the rate of fall.

Three Constructivist Design Models

. The Learning Cycle is a three-step design that can be used as a general framework for many kinds
of constructivist activities.

The Learning Cycle is a time-honored model of the learning process that was first
used in science education. The process begins with the "discovery" phase. In it, the
teacher encourages students to generate questions and hypotheses from working with
various materials. Next, the teacher provides "concept introduction" lessons. Here the
teacher focuses the students' questions and helps them create hypotheses and design
experiments. In the third step, "concept application," students work on new problems
that reconsider the concepts studied in the first two steps. You may find this cycle repeating many
times throughout a lesson or unit.
 . Another constructivist learning design was developed by George W. Gagnon. Jr., and Michelle
Collay.

In this model, teachers implement a number of steps in their teaching structure. They:

 develop a situation for students to explain

 select a process for groupings of materials and students
 build a bridge between what students already know and what the teachers
want them to learn
 anticipate questions to ask and answer without giving away an explanation
 encourage students to exhibit a record of their thinking by sharing it with
others, and
 solicit students' reflections about their learning.

. Robert O. McClintock 1 and John B. Black 2 of Columbia University Teachers College derived yet
another design model from several computer technology-supported learning environments at the
Dalton School in New York.

The Information Construction (ICON) model contains seven stages:

. Observation: Students make observations of primary source materials embedded in their

natural context or simulations thereof.

. Interpretation Construction: Students interpret their observations and explain their

reasoning.

. Contextualization: Students construct contexts for their explanations.

. Cognitive Apprenticeship: Teachers help student apprentices master observation,

interpretation, and contextualization.

. Collaboration: Students collaborate in observation, interpretation, and

contextualization.

. Multiple Interpretations: Students gain cognitive flexibility by being

exposed to multiple interpretations from other students and from expert examples.

. Multiple Manifestations: Students gain transferability by seeing multiple manifestations of

the same interpretations.

Step-by-step Lesson Planning with Prompts and Tips

Try building a lesson plan yourself using one of the three constructivist design models we outlined --
the Learning Cycle design, of discovery, concept introduction, and concept application. In the following
pages, you will find sets of questions to consider when developing each step of your lesson plan. You
can use the blank boxes to fill in your own ideas for your lesson plan.

What big topic are you addressing?

Do your students have any previous experience with this topic?
How relevant is this topic to your students?
What connections to the students' lives can you offer? What connections do the students see?

Opportunities for Open-ended Discovery

What materials will you make available?

What stories or experiences can you relate?
What learning stations might you set up?

You may wish to review Section 4 of Session I in the "Tapping into Multiple Intelligences" Workshop.
The organization of the classroom into Multiple Intelligence Learning Centers may be a natural way for
you to provide opportunities for students to make meaning.
Plan For Using "Learning Centers"

Organize each of your learning centers so that it contains materials appropriate to the concept(s) the
students are exploring.

How will you structure students working together?

How will you foster dialogue necessary to assess your students' current thinking?

Plan For Learning

Once you have given students the time to determine what they need to know and "discover" the new
knowledge, lead them into the introduction through what Gagnon and Collay call the "bridge," as we
saw above. Introduce the concept you wish to visit by addressing their questions.

 What investigation(s) might students undertake to frame questions and hypotheses?

 Will it (they) be:
 class discussion?
 a game?

Introducing The Topic

It can be simple or elaborate. (A large multiclass project, for example, introduced the concept of
conservation and depletion by having each student in the school represent X million people. The
students were then placed on a world map that covered a gymnasium floor.)

Estimate the amount of time students will need to explore this concept(s).

Help students to scale the "size" of their investigation to what is manageable in the time allotted.

Available Time (Days, Weeks, Class periods)

Reflect on your understanding of students' readiness. Do you need to present any other information or
develop any other skill? Are there films, videos, recordings, or slide shows that might provide
opportunities for meaning-making? What Web collections can you make available? What resources can
be gathered from your library media center?
In this phase of the learning cycle, students often work on a new problem -- a problem with different
parameters, different contexts and, in general, different variables, but with similar underlying
concepts as the original problem.

As students work through the problem, help them plan appropriate ways to construct and demonstrate
their solutions.

The following list of exhibit, presentation, and demonstration methods will provide you with some
useful starting points. (They also build nicely on the Multiple Intelligence techniques mentioned in the
first workshop.)

Students can construct additional knowledge by figuring out/analyzing:

 solutions to problems in your school or community

 math formulas to explain a problem, or pose a solution
 categorization method for some plants or animals in your area based on careful observation
(perhaps a small collection, or homemade "museum")
 a plan for a scavenger hunt
 a treasure hunt (in which clues involve vocabulary from the topic)
 a collection of objects from nature
 the night sky, food chain, water cycle, or other science topic
 local, national, or international environmental concern

Students can construct additional knowledge by writing:

 poems
 short plays
 screen plays
 legal briefs
 song lyrics
 journals
 diaries
 memoirs
 travelogues
 interviews
 letters (or e-mail) to experts
 original advertisements
 new endings for stories or songs
 "what if..." thought experiments

Students can construct additional knowledge by making/inventing/designing/drawing:

 posters
 cartoons
 timelines
 models
 charts
 maps
 graphs
 board games
 concept maps
 multimedia presentations

Students can construct additional knowledge by performing/presenting:

  a play
 a concert
 role-play lecture (such as a well-known person from history)
 a dance based on literature or historical event
 collected songs about a topic from another era

Are there field experiences or other special events that can provide an extension of research
opportunities?

How will you gauge the students' understandings of the concept? What strategies will you use to
merge assessment with teaching?

See the Exploration section of this Workshop for a variety of methods for students to demonstrate
their knowledge.

Supplies, Materials, Resources

Be sure to provide plenty of time for reflection -- your own, as well as the students. Provide guidance
in how to reflect with a focus. Help students to eliminate general statements like "This was fun." Or "I
really liked the activities." Or "Writing is boring." Help students replace those general statements with
statements like "Mary told me that my question about the tone of her poem helped her gain a new
insight into what she had written." Or "Keeping track of how high the ball bounced each time helped
me to see a pattern that I didn't see yesterday when I didn't keep track of what I was doing."

Here is a list of formats for reflection that you may wish to incorporate:

 journals
 diaries
 audio tapes
 video recordings
 e-mails
 online conferences
 knowledge maps

Which of them suit an assessment of learning?

Do the students have ways to assess their imaginative growth, attitudes, skills, and content
knowledge?

Assessment And Reflection

As you are developing your lesson plans, consider sharing your thoughts and questions with other
educators.

Once you have tried out one of your new lessons, share your results with colleagues. What you learn
can help others learn too.

Investigating the nature of how human beings build knowledge is a rich and rewarding area in which
to develop your teaching.
How do I apply constructivism in my classroom?

As you have seen, there are a number of ways and styles in which the constructivist approach can be
applied in the classroom. However, Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks set forth some
guiding principles in their book IN SEARCH OF UNDERSTANDING: THE CASE FOR CONSTRUCTIVIST
CLASSROOMS.

They are:

Principle . Pose problems that are or will be relevant to the students.

In many cases, the problem you pose is or will be relevant to the students, and they will approach it
sensing its relevance to their lives.

For example, the general music class in an American middle school is a popular one -- the students
find musical composition relevant because of their interest in popular music. The fact that there is an
electronic keyboard connected to a computer on which to compose only heightens their interest.

A group of Australian middle-school students whose siblings, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers, or
neighbors are living in East Timor find issues of global peace immediately relevant. Their teacher
acknowledges their strong feelings by creating a writing unit that allows the students to write about
these feelings.

But relevance need not be preexisting for students. When connected to their Australian peers via the
Internet, the American middle-school students can empathize and sense the relevance of
peacekeeping in East Timor. The Australian students can e-mail the American students some of their
writing. The teachers exchange digital photographs of their respective classes, and the children get to
see their peers and their peers' surroundings.

Relevance can emerge through teacher mediation. Teachers can add elements to the learning situation
that make the activity relevant to the students.

For instance, the Australian and American teachers can set up an interchange where the Australian
youngsters write poetry and song lyrics about peace that the American students set to music. Both
groups then post the results on a Web page. The teachers structure the situation so that the students
gain skills in several areas (writing, music, communication, and Web-page construction) that have
increasing meaning as the project proceeds.

Principle . Structure learning around essential concepts.

Encourage students to make meaning by breaking wholes into parts. Avoid starting with the parts to
build a "whole."

For example, young storywriters can approach the concept of "telling a story" through discovery
activities. These can include a class library of illustrated storybooks, a visit by a storyteller, and some
Web activities sponsored by a book publisher. The teacher prepares the students for writing their own
stories, and introduces the idea of sequencing through visuals. Students can rearrange parts of a
known story or even digitized video material. This last activity might allow the students to reconstruct
the order in which a visiting storyteller told her story.

Or, considering the world of a terrarium might help students construct knowledge about flora and
fauna in relation to each other. Facts about mosses can make more sense in the context of
microhabitats that the students have observed.

You can define or find "essential concepts" in different ways. You might refer to the list of standards
your professional group publishes. Or, you can organize your constructivist work by exploring
significant historical events (e.g., the Holocaust) or seminal works (e.g., a Mozart opera) from multiple
perspectives.

Applying "Big Ideas" to Various Subject Areas

First Column: Concept

The following list of "big ideas" contains conceptual themes that emerge across various content areas.
We chose to set down samples from two professional organizations. You might wish to examine the
lists of similar materials from other organizations. Several states have published thematic and
content-area standards as well.

Second Column: Examples of Areas of Study

We have suggested various content areas where the concept might find fertile ground. These are
starter phrases, meant only to suggest areas that would need much deeper development.

From The Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy

cause and effect Science: inertia

change and conservation Science: terrarium

diversity and variation History: immigration

energy and matter Science: gases, fluids, solids

evolution and equilibrium Art: design studies

models and theories Mathematics: geometry

probability and prediction Mathematics: statistics

structure and function English: film study -- CITIZEN KANE

systems and interactions Science: habitats

time and scale Social studies: ancient civilizations

From the National Standards for Social Studies Teachers 1997

culture and cultural diversity English: world literature

time, continuity, and change Science: genetics

people, places, and environments Media studies: learning about people

in other countries

individual development and identity Language arts: novels about growing

up

individuals, groups, and institutions Social studies: Visiting a healthcare

institution
 power, authority, and governance Social studies: the Constitutional
Convention

production, distribution, and Social studies: the Pineapple

consumption Project/Where does the food you eat
come from?

science, technology, and society Social studies: the Internet and the
spread of cultural values

global connections Language arts: world mythology

civic ideals and practices Social studies: political internships

Principle . Be aware that students' points of view are windows into their reasoning.

The challenging of ideas and the seeking of elaboration threatens many students. Students in the
traditional classroom who cannot guess what the teacher has in mind for the right answer quickly drop
out of class discussion. They must be "gentled" into the constructivist learning environment through
open-ended, nonjudgmental questioning.

Students also need to have an opportunity to elaborate and explain. Sometimes, how you feel about
something or what you think is not as important as WHY. Using evidence/proof to present your
opinion is most important! The construction of knowledge calls for not only time to reflect but also for
time and practice in explaining. Neil Gershenfeld of the Media Lab notes that it is only through
constant demonstration that his MIT students become good scientists. The many opportunities to
explain what they're doing help them understand what they are learning.

Principle . Adapt curriculum to address students' suppositions and development.

Presenting developmentally appropriate work is a place to start. Most high-school students would find
the preparation of a film script or a legal brief more engaging and relevant than the report format they
mastered in sixth grade. Role plays are also interesting ways for students to present information.

As students engage in the work, the teacher must monitor their perceptions and ways of learning.

For example, a middle-school social studies teacher prepares for her students to study the concept of
immigration through films, readings, examinations of firsthand accounts and photographs, and a field
trip. In class discussion, she comes to perceive that her students found the multimedia presentations
on the kiosks at Ellis Island effective. She also senses how many of her students empathize with the
stories of the immigrants. She collaborates with the computer teacher to offer lessons in multimedia-
presentation skills. The students work in groups to archive material and give multimedia presentations
depicting the immigration experiences of families.

Principle . Assess student learning in the context of teaching.

Shift from measuring how well or poorly a student performs to assessing how much and what kind of
help a student needs to be successful.

Removing bell-curve assessment frees students from the need to out-achieve others and allows them
to collaborate, say, as specialists on the design and construction of a desalinization plant.
Authentic assessment 1 occurs most naturally and lastingly when it is in a meaningful context and
when it relates to authentic concerns and problems faced by students. The students who assess their
efforts to pass a bill in a mock legislature are likely to demonstrate greater mastery of government
than those who face a multiple-choice test on the legislative branch of Congress. Tests -- particularly
short-answer, multiple-choice tests -- ask, "Do you know this material?" Authentic assessment
activities ask, "What do you know?"

What are the benefits of constructivism?

. Benefit

Children learn more, and enjoy learning more when they are actively involved, rather than passive
listeners.

. Benefit

Education works best when it concentrates on thinking and understanding, rather than on rote
memorization. Constructivism concentrates on learning how to think and understand.

. Benefit

Constructivist learning is transferable. In constructivist classrooms, students create

organizing principles that they can take with them to other learning settings.

. Benefit

Constructivism gives students ownership of what they learn, since learning is based
on students' questions and explorations, and often the students have a hand in
designing the assessments as well. Constructivist assessment engages the students'
initiatives and personal investments in their journals, research reports, physical models, and artistic
representations. Engaging the creative instincts develops students' abilities to express knowledge
through a variety of ways. The students are also more likely to retain and transfer the new knowledge
to real life.

. Benefit

By grounding learning activities in an authentic, real-world context, constructivism stimulates and

engages students. Students in constructivist classrooms learn to question things and to apply their
natural curiousity to the world.

. Benefit

Constructivism promotes social and communication skills by creating a classroom environment that
emphasizes collaboration and exchange of ideas. Students must learn how to articulate their ideas
clearly as well as to collaborate on tasks effectively by sharing in group projects. Students must
therefore exchange ideas and so must learn to "negotiate" with others and to evaluate their
contributions in a socially acceptable manner. This is essential to success in the real world, since they
will always be exposed to a variety of experiences in which they will have to cooperate and navigate
among the ideas of others.