The Theory
While constructivism comes in many forms, at its root it describes students’ learning as a process of developing meaning from experiences, ideas, and the interaction between them. That is, social constructivism exposits that people learn by observing others and imitating the observed behavior. However, this also contains ideas of behavioral learning theory and other cognitive elements, in that imitating also involves encoding, retaining, and retrieving knowledge. Furthermore, social constructivism contains three main sub branches: exogenous, endogenous, and dialectical constructivism, all of which pertain to the idea that learning happens in the context of a group. Exogenous constructivism explains that students construct an understanding of outside information to form a model of the world, whereas endogenous constructivism is when students use prior knowledge to shape and understand new information. Dialectical constructivism, however, “describes knowledge being constructed by the learner as a result of continual interaction between the individual and their social world and environment” (O’Donnell et al., 2015).
Significance for the Teacher
Understanding the above theory is necessary for any classroom teacher, as it brings up several important ideas. The first idea is scaffolding. This is when the teacher provides a framework that enables students to perform at a level they otherwise would not have been able to. The most important aspect of this is the gradual withdrawal of support, done incrementally so that the student can begin to work and understand on his or her own. This is usually done by utilizing three activities to engage the student, which are channeling, focusing, and modelling, all of which are designed to constrain the student so that he or she is more likely to focus and perform effectively. Furthermore, scaffolding is done using a series of scaffolding acts under the that can be divided into three categories. The first is planning, which involves modelling expert skills and structuring the learning situation for the student; the second is coaching, which consists of guiding the student in social situations, as well as instruction and collaboration; and the third is fading, which involves the transferring responsibility for problem solving from the teacher to the student (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005) Using this information, teachers can make effective lesson plans and create an environment that will enable students to excel.
In the Classroom
When using social constructivism to create a lesson, teachers need to remember that their role is to provide 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” (What is Constructivism, 2004). With this in mind, a simple lesson should look something like the following. The lesson begins with allowing the students to engage in loosely guided discussion with each other to review the previous lesson, followed by the teacher reviewing through asking recall questions. This allows the students to interact with their peers and engage in learning with their help. This should be followed with a presentation of new information, which is then followed by the students working in groups to answer specific questions on the new material. Again, by doing this the students are able to formulate and encode the new information with help of their peers. Lastly, group work should be shared with the rest of the class so that other students can put the answers of other groups in perspective (Driscoll, 2015). While, this is just an example, it demonstrates how important peer interaction is to constructivism, and, furthermore, the idea of scaffolding is evident in how the teacher guides the students but does allow for some freedom.
- Driscoll, M. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction. Allyn & Bacon, Boston: MA
- O’Donnell, A. M., Dobozy, E., Bartlett, B., Nagel, M. C., Spooner-Lane, R., Youssef-Shalala, A., . . . Smith, J. K. (2015). Chapter 9: Complex Cognition and Social Constructivism. In Educational Psychology (2nd ed.).
- Puntambekar, S., & Hübscher, R. (2005). Tools for Scaffolding Students in a Complex Learning Environment: What Have We Gained and What Have We Missed? EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 40(1), 1-12.
- What is constructivism? (2004). Retrieved from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/
