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Constructivist Perspective
Learning
is an active process of knowledge construction in which learners
build on prior knowledge and experience to shape
meaning and construct new knowledge. (Lambert & Walker, 1995)
Ideas central
to the theories of constructivism.
- Learning is an active,
not passive, process. Learners are involved in constructing knowledge
for themselves; it isn’t something that can be “done to
them.”
- Knowledge is constructed, not transmitted.
The human mind is not simply a vessel to be filled, but a construction
project.
- Learning involves building on prior knowledge.
In the same way that a building needs a foundation, new knowledge
needs to
be built on prior learning or else it lacks the support of other
knowledge
to
give
it context and meaning and make new connections.
- Making meaning is a central idea. Learning must
be relevant to
the learner
or they will not make any connections and therefore not construct
any new knowledge.
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Five major themes can be identified throughout
the variety of constructivist theories:
- Human experience involves “continuous
active agency.”
- Human activity focuses on organizing experience,
making meaning, and creating order.
- This organizing is fundamentally
related to the self. This “makes
the body a fulcrum of experiencing, honors deep phenomenological
sense
of selfhood or personal identity.”
- Although the self is central,
social interaction is important. ”Persons
exist and grow in living webs of relationships” and they cannot
be understood “apart from their organic embeddedness in social
and symbolic systems.”
- Development is lifelong, as each
person continues to construct new knowledge based on their own experiences. “Order
and disorder co-exist in lifelong quests for a dynamic balance that
is never quite achieved.”
Adapted from Mahoney, M. J. (1999). What
is Constructivism and Why is it Growing? (2004)
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