Constructivist

teaching methods

Constructivist teaching is based on

constructivist learning theory.
Constructivist teaching is based on the
belief that learning occurs as learners are
actively involved in a process of meaning
and knowledge construction as opposed
to passively receiving information.
Learners are the makers of meaning and
knowledge.
History
Constructivist approach teaching methods
are based on constructivist learning
theory. Along with John Dewey, Jean
Piaget researched childhood development
and education. Both Dewey and Piaget
were very influential in the development of
informal education. Dewey's idea of
influential education suggests that
education must engage with and enlarge
experience and the exploration of thinking
and reflection associated with the role of
educators. Piaget's role in the
constructivist teaching suggests that we
learn by expanding our knowledge by
experiences which are generated through
play from infancy to adulthood which are
necessary for learning. Their theories are
now encompassed in the broader
movement of progressive education.
Constructivist learning theory says that all
knowledge is constructed from a base of
prior knowledge. Children are not a blank
slate and knowledge cannot be imparted
without the child making sense of it
according to his or her current
conceptions. Therefore, children learn best
when they are allowed to construct a
personal understanding based on
experiencing things and reflecting on
those experiences.[1]
Constructivist teaching
strategies
Characteristics

One of the primary goals of using

constructivist teaching is that students
learn how to learn by giving them the
training to take initiative for their own
learning experiences.

According to Audrey Gray, the

characteristics of a constructivist
classroom are as follows:

the learners are actively involved

the environment is democratic
 the activities are interactive and student-
centered
the teacher facilitates a process of
learning in which students are
encouraged to be responsible and
autonomous

Examples of activities

Furthermore, in the constructivist

classroom, students work primarily in
groups and learning and knowledge are
interactive and dynamic. There is a great
focus and emphasis on social and
communication skills, as well as
collaboration and exchange of ideas.[1]
This is contrary to the traditional
classroom in which students work
primarily alone, learning is achieved
through repetition, and the subjects are
strictly adhered to and are guided by a
textbook. Some activities encouraged in
constructivist classrooms are:

Experimentation: Students individually

perform an experiment and then come
together as a class to discuss the
results.
Research projects: Students research a
topic and can present their findings to
the class.
Field trips: This allows students to put
the concepts and ideas discussed in
class in a real-world context. Field trips
would often be followed by class
discussions.
Films: These provide visual context and
thus bring another sense into the
learning experience.
Class discussions: This technique is
used in all of the methods described
above. It is one of the most important
distinctions of constructivist teaching
methods.[2]
Campus wikis: These provide learners
with a platform for curating helpful
learning resources. [3]
Constructivist approaches can also be
used in online learning. For example, tools
such as discussion forums, wikis and
blogs can enable learners to actively
construct knowledge. A contrast between
the traditional classroom and the
constructivist classroom is illustrated
below:

The Traditional Classroom

Begins with parts of the whole–

Emphasizes basic skills
Strict adherence to fixed curriculum
Textbooks and workbooks
Instructor gives/students receive
 Instructor assumes directive,
authoritative role
Assessment via testing / correct
answers
Knowledge is inert
Students work individually

The constructivist Classroom

Begin with the whole – expanding to

parts
Pursuit of student questions / interests
Primary Sources / manipulative
materials
Learning is interaction – building on
what students already know
 Instructor interacts / negotiates with
students
Assessment via student works,
observations, points of view, tests.
Process is as important as product
Knowledge is dynamic / change with
experiences
Students work in groups Source :
Thirteen Ed Online (2004)

Because existing knowledge schemata are

explicitly acknowledged as a starting point
for new learning, constructivist
approaches tend to validate individual and
cultural differences and diversity.[4]
Role of teachers

In the constructivist classroom, the

teacher's role is to prompt and facilitate
discussion. Thus, the teacher's main focus
should be on guiding students by asking
questions that will lead them to develop
their own conclusions on the subject.
Parker J. Palmer (1997) suggests that
good teachers join self, subject, and
students in the fabric of life because they
teach from an integral and undivided self,
they manifest in their own lives, and evoke
in their students, a capacity for
connectedness".
David Jonassen identified three major
roles for facilitators to support students in
constructivist learning environments:

Modeling
Coaching
Scaffolding[5]

A brief description of the Jonassen major

roles are:

Modeling – Jonassen describes Modeling

as the most commonly used instructional
strategy in CLEs. Two types of modeling
exist: behavioural modeling of the overt
performance and cognitive modeling of
the covert cognitive processes.
Behavioural modeling in Constructivist
Learning Environments demonstrates how
to perform the activities identified in the
activity structure. Cognitive modeling
articulates the reasoning (reflection-in-
action) that learners should use while
engaged in the activities.

Coaching – For Jonassen the role of

coach is complex and inexact. She
acknowledges that a good coach
motivates learners, analyzes their
performance, provides feedback and
advice on the performance and how to
learn about how to perform, and provokes
reflection and articulation of what was
learned. Moreover, she posits that
coaching may be solicited by the learner.
Students seeking help might press a "How
am I Doing?" button. Or coaching may be
unsolicited, when the coach observes the
performance and provides
encouragement, diagnosis, directions, and
feedback. Coaching naturally and
necessarily involves responses that are
situated in the learner's task performance
(Laffey, Tupper, Musser, & Wedman, 1997).

Scaffolding - Scaffolding is a more

systemic approach to supporting the
learner, focusing on the task, the
environment, the teacher, and the learner.
Scaffolding provides temporary
frameworks to support learning and
student performance beyond their
capacities. The concept of scaffolding
represents any kind of support for
cognitive activity that is provided by an
adult when the child and adult are
performing the task together (Wood &
Middleton, 1975).

Constructivist learning
environments (CLEs)

Jonassen has proposed a model for

developing constructivist learning
environments (CLEs) around a specific
learning goal. This goal may take one of
several forms, from least to most complex:

Question or issue
Case study
Long-term Project
Problem (multiple cases and projects
integrated at the curriculum level)

Jonassen recommends making the

learning goals engaging and relevant but
not overly structured.

In CLEs, learning is driven by the problem

to be solved; students learn content and
theory in order to solve the problem. This
is different from traditional objectivist
teaching where the theory would be
presented first and problems would be
used afterwards to practice theory.

Depending on students' prior experiences,

related cases and scaffolding may be
necessary for support. Instructors also
need to provide an authentic context for
tasks, plus information resources,
cognitive tools, and collaborative tools.[5]

Assessment

Traditionally, assessment in the

classrooms is based on testing. In this
style, it is important for the student to
produce the correct answers. However, in
constructivist teaching, the process of
gaining knowledge is viewed as being just
as important as the product. Thus,
assessment is based not only on tests, but
also on observation of the student, the
student's work, and the student's points of
view.[1] Some assessment strategies
include:

Oral discussions. The teacher presents

students with a "focus" question and
allows an open discussion on the topic.
KWL(H) Chart (What we know, What we
want to know, What we have learned,
How we know it). This technique can be
used throughout the course of study for
a particular topic, but is also a good
assessment technique as it shows the
teacher the progress of the student
throughout the course of study.
Mind Mapping. In this activity, students
list and categorize the concepts and
ideas relating to a topic.
Hands-on activities. These encourage
students to manipulate their
environments or a particular learning
tool. Teachers can use a checklist and
observation to assess student success
with the particular material.
Pre-testing. This allows a teacher to
determine what knowledge students
 bring to a new topic and thus will be
helpful in directing the course of study.[2]

An example of a lesson
taught with a Constructivist
background
A good example of a lesson being taught
in a constructivist way, with the teacher
mediating learning rather than directly
teaching the class is shown by the
example of Faraday's candle. There are
various forms of this lesson, but all are
developed from the Christmas lectures
Faraday gave on the functioning of
candles. In open constructivist lessons
using these lectures as a basis, students
are encouraged to discover for themselves
how candles work. They do this first by
making simple observations, from which
they later build ideas and hypotheses
which they then go on to test. The teacher
acts to encourage this learning. If
successful, students can use this lesson
to understand the components of
combustion, an important chemistry
topic.[6]

Constructivism for adults

Constructivist philosophy has a long
history of application in education
programs for young children, but is used
less frequently in adult learning
environments. As humans develop, there
are qualitative changes in their ability to
think logically about experiences, but the
processes by which learning occurs,
cognitive adaptation and social mediation,
are believed to be continuous or remain
the same throughout the life.[7] At the
heart of constructivist philosophy is the
belief that knowledge is not given but
gained through real experiences that have
purpose and meaning to the learner, and
the exchange of perspectives about the
experience with others[8] (Piaget &
Inhelder, 1969; Vygotsky,1978).
Learning environments for adults based on
constructivist philosophy include
opportunities for students to make
meaningful connections between new
material and previous experience, through
discovery. One of the simplest ways to do
this is asking open-ended questions.
Open-ended questions such as "Tell me
about a time when... ." or "How might this
information be useful to you?" cause
learners to think about how new
information may relate to their own
experience. Student responses to such
questions are opportunities for
experiencing the perspectives of others.
For these questions to be effective it is
critical that instructors focus on teaching
content that is useful for participants. The
importance of using these types of
strategies with adults contributes to
what[9] Bain(2004 p. 4) noted as critical
learning environments where instructors
"embed" the skills they are teaching in
"authentic tasks that will arouse curiosity,
challenge students to rethink assumptions
and examine their mental modes of
reality". Mezirow J. (1997) who asserts
that learners need to practice in
recognizing frames of reference and using
their imaginations to redefine problems
from different perspectives. (pg. 10) I
made the connection by also adding the
point that "to promote discovery learning,
the educator often reframes learner
questions in terms of the learner's current
level of understanding. Learning contracts,
group projects, role play, case studies, and
simulations are classroom methods
associated with transformative education."
Such approaches emphasize that learning
is not an "all or nothing" process but that
students learn the new information that is
presented to them by building upon
knowledge that they already possess. It is
therefore important that teachers
constantly assess the knowledge their
students have gained to make sure that
the students' perceptions of the new
knowledge are what the teacher had
intended. Teachers will find that since the
students build upon already existing
knowledge, when they are called upon to
retrieve the new information, they may
make errors. It is known as reconstruction
error when we fill in the gaps of our
understanding with logical, though
incorrect, thoughts. Teachers need to
catch and try to correct these errors,
though it is inevitable that some
reconstruction error will continue to occur
because of our innate retrieval limitations.

In most pedagogies based on

constructivism, the teacher's role is not
only to observe and assess but to also
engage with the students while they are
completing activities, wondering aloud and
posing questions to the students for
promotion of reasoning (DeVries et al.,
2002). (ex: I wonder why the water does
not spill over the edge of the full cup?)
Teachers also intervene when there are
conflicts that arise; however, they simply
facilitate the students' resolutions and
self-regulation, with an emphasis on the
conflict being the students' and that they
must figure things out for themselves. For
example, promotion of literacy is
accomplished by integrating the need to
read and write throughout individual
activities within print-rich classrooms. The
teacher, after reading a story, encourages
the students to write or draw stories of
their own, or by having the students
reenact a story that they may know well,
both activities encourage the students to
conceive themselves as reader and writers.

Arguments against
constructivist teaching
techniques
Critics have voiced the following
arguments against constructivist based
teaching instruction:
 A group of cognitive scientists has also
questioned the central claims of
constructivism, saying that they are
either misleading or contradict known
findings.[10]
One possible deterrent for this teaching
method is that, due to the emphasis on
group work, the ideas of the more active
students may dominate the group's
conclusions.[1]

While proponents of constructivism argue

that constructivist students perform better
than their peers when tested on higher-
order reasoning, the critics of
constructivism argue that this teaching
technique forces students to "reinvent the
wheel". Supporters counter that "Students
do not reinvent the wheel but, rather,
attempt to understand how it turns, how it
functions."[1] Proponents argue that
students—especially elementary school-
aged children—are naturally curious about
the world, and giving them the tools to
explore it in a guided manner will serve to
give them a stronger understanding of it.[1]

Mayer (2004)[11] developed a literature

review spanning fifty years and concluded
"The research in this brief review shows
that the formula constructivism = hands-
on activity is a formula for educational
disaster." His argument is that active
learning is often suggested by those
subscribing to this philosophy. In
developing this instruction these
educators produce materials that require
learning to be behaviorally active and not
be "cognitively active".[11] That is, although
they are engaged in activity, they may not
be learning (Sweller, 1988). Mayer
recommends using guided discovery, a
mix of direct instruction and hands-on
activity, rather than pure discovery: "In
many ways, guided discovery appears to
offer the best method for promoting
constructivist learning."[11]
Kirchner et al. (2006) agree with the basic
premise of constructivism, that learners
construct knowledge, but are concerned
with the instructional design
recommendations of this theoretical
framework. "The constructivist description
of learning is accurate, but the
instructional consequences suggested by
constructivists do not necessarily follow."
(Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark, 2006, p. 78).
Specifically, they say instructors often
design unguided instruction that relies on
the learner to "discover or construct
essential information for themselves"
(Kirchner et al., 2006, p75).
For this reason they state that it "is easy to
agree with Mayer's (2004)[11]
recommendation that we "move
educational reform efforts from the fuzzy
and nonproductive world of ideology—
which sometimes hides under the various
banners of constructivism—to the sharp
and productive world of theory-based
research on how people learn" (p. 18).
Finally Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006)
cite Mayer[11] to conclude fifty years of
empirical results do not support unguided
instruction.

Specific approaches
Specific approaches to education that are
based on constructivism include the
following:

Constructionism

An approach to learning based on the

constructivist learning ideologies
presented by Jean Piaget (Harel & Papert,
1991). In this approach, the individual is
consciously engaged in the construction
of a product (Li, Cheng, & Liu, 2013). The
utilization of constructionism in
educational settings has been shown to
promote higher-order thinking skills such
as problem-solving and critical thinking (Li
et al., 2013).

Guided instruction

A learning approach in which the educator

uses strategically placed prompts, cues,
questions, direct explanations, and
modeling to guide student thinking and
facilitate an increased responsibility for
the completion of a task (Fisher & Frey,
2010).

Problem-based learning

A structured educational approach which

consists of large and small group
discussions (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007).
Problem-based learning begins with an
educator presenting a series of carefully
constructed problems or issues to small
groups of students (Schmidt & Loyens,
2007). The problems or issues typically
pertain to phenomena or events to which
students possess limited prior knowledge
(Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). The first
component of problem-based learning is
to discuss prior knowledge and ask
questions related to the specific problems
or issues (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007).
Following the class discussion, there is
typically time in which students
individually research or reflect on the
newly acquired information and/or seek
out areas requiring further exploration
(Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). After a pre-
determined amount of time (as outlined by
the educator), students will meet in the
same small groups that were composed
prior to the class discussion (Schmidt &
Loyens, 2007). In the first meeting, groups
will spend between one and three hours
further discussing the problems or issues
from class in addition to presenting any
new information collected during
individual research (Schmidt & Loyens,
2007). Following the first meeting,
students will independently reflect on the
group discussion, specifically in
comparing thoughts regarding the
problems or issues in question (Schmidt &
Loyens, 2007). Typically, groups will meet
a second time to critically analyse
individual and group thoughts and
discussions and will attempt to synthesize
the information in order to draw
conclusions about the given problem or
issue (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Within the
educational setting, problem-based
learning has enabled students to actively
construct individual understandings of a
topic using both prior and newly acquired
knowledge (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007).
Moreover, students also develop self-
directed and group learning skills which
ultimately facilitates the comprehension of
the problems or issues (Schmidt & Loyens,
2007).

Inquiry-based learning

An educational approach associated with

problem-based learning in which the
student learns through investigating
issues or scenarios (Hakverdi-Can &
Sonmez, 2012). In this approach, students
pose and answer questions individually
and/or collaboratively in order to draw
conclusions regarding the specific issues
or scenarios (Hakverdi-Can & Sonmez,
2012). Within the educational setting,
inquiry-based learning has been beneficial
in developing student inquiry, investigation,
and collaboration skills, in turn, increasing
overall comprehension of the issue or
scenario (Hakverdi-Can & Sonmez, 2012).

Effective essential questions include

student thought and research, connect to
student's reality and can be solved in
different ways (Crane, 2009). There are no
incorrect answers to essential questions,
rather answers reveal student
understanding(Crane, 2009).

Anchored instruction
An educational approach associated with
problem-based learning in which the
educator introduces an 'anchor' or theme
in which students will be able to explore
(Kariuki & Duran, 2004). The 'anchor' acts
as a focal point for the entire task,
allowing students to identify, define, and
explore problems while exploring the topic
from a variety of different perspectives
(Kariuki & Duran, 2004).

Cooperative learning

A variety of educational approaches

focusing on individuals working together
to achieve a specific learning outcome
(Hsiung, 2012).

Reciprocal Peer Teaching

A cooperative learning approach wherein

students alternate roles as teacher and
learner (Krych, March, Bryan, Peake,
Wojciech, & Carmichael, 2005). The
utilization of Reciprocal Peer Teaching
(RPT) in educational settings has been
effective in the development of teamwork,
leadership, and communication skills in
addition to improving students'
understanding of course content (Krych et
al., 2005).
Jigsaw

A highly structured cooperative learning

approach which is implemented in four
stages: introduction, focused exploration,
reporting and re-shaping, and integration
and evaluation. In the introduction stage,
the class is divided into heterogeneous
'home' groups consisting of between three
and seven students (Karacop & Doymus,
2013). Upon establishing the 'home'
groups, the teacher will discuss the
subtopics pertaining to the subject matter
(Karacop & Doymus, 2013). In the focused
exploration stage, each student within all
'home' groups selects one of the subtopics
(Karacop & Doymus, 2013). Students from
each 'home' group that have selected the
same subtopic will form a 'jigsaw' group
(Karacop & Doymus, 2013). It is in the
'jigsaw' group that students will explore
the material pertaining to the subtopic and
will prepare for teaching it to their 'home'
group, the reporting and re-shaping stage
(Karacop & Doymus, 2013). The approach
concludes in the fourth stage, integration
and evaluation, wherein each of the 'home'
groups combine the learning of each
subtopic together to create the completed
piece of work (Karacop & Doymus, 2013).

See also
 Constructivism in science education
Constructivist epistemology
Marian Small
Montessori method

References
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Teaching and Learning
2. Strategies for Constructivist Teaching
Archived September 20, 2005, at the
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doi:10.2196/mededu.9197 ,
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doi:10.5964/ejop.v2i1.318 . ISSN 1841-
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5. Jonassen, D. H. (1999). Constructing
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Engaging students in meaningful learning.
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open teaching of science using Faraday's
lectures on candles". Journal of Chemical
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Psychology of the child. New York: Basic
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9. Bain, Ken. (2004). What the Best College
Teachers Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
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11. Should There Be a Three-Strikes Rule
Against Pure Discovery Learning? , Mayer,
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Kirschner, P. A.; Sweller, J. & Clark, R. E.
(2006). "Why minimal guidance during
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based, experiential, and inquiry-based
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75–86. doi:10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 .
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Laffey, J., Tupper, T., Musser, D., &

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External links
Constructivist Teaching and Learning
Models
SSTA Research Centre Report on
Constructivist Teaching and Learning
Constructivist Teaching
Association for Constructivist Teaching
 Constructivist Teaching Practices:
Perceptions of Teachers and Students
Constructivist Learning and Teaching
Constructivism as a Paradigm for
Teaching and Learning
A follow up critique of constructivism by
Eric Scerri

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