Constructivism 1

Running Head: CONSTRUCTIVISM

Building a Conceptual Understanding of Constructivism

Brett S. Sparrgrove

George Mason University

April 21, 2004

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For centuries, discovering how people learn and acquire knowledge has been a

fundamental quest for scholars. Educators and psychologists have developed countless

learning theories in an effort to better understand the process of learning. In the United

States today, there are essentially two main perspectives in learning theory: behaviorism

and constructivism (Sprinthall & Sprinthall, 1990; Fosnot, 1996). Constructivism is often

portrayed as diametrically opposed to the more prevalent behaviorist model of learning.

Each of these theoretical positions offer explanations about how people learn and each of

them have legions of supporters and critics. The purpose of this paper is to delve a bit

more deeply into the concept of constructivism and its venerable past in an effort to

understand the characteristics of the theory and to formulate the limitations and

implications of this distinct theory of learning.

Constructivism attempts to explain how learning is defined, studied, and

understood. One issue that can make the study of constructivist theory complex and

potentially misunderstood is that there is no single constructivist position in the field of

education (Ernst, 1995). As a result, a variety of beliefs have been routinely lumped

together under the umbrella term constructivism. Literature suggests that the core

epistemological theses of constructivism are:

1. Learning is an active process;2. Learners construct their learning in light of prior experiences and knowledge;3. Knowledge acquisition is an adaptive process;4. Knowledge is an interpretation of reality; and5. Knowledge has roots in social, cultural and language-based interaction.

To a constructivist, learning is an active process where learners are directly

involved in the construction or building of their own knowledge and meaning (von

Glasersfeld, 1984; Bruner, 1990; Kafai & Resnick, 1996; Jonassen, Peck & Wilson,

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1999). Knowledge is not derived through simple transmission from one person to another

or by passive assimilation. Rather it is constructed from our own personal perceptions

and experiences. Phillips (2000) succinctly summarizes this point of view by stating that

“knowledge is made, not acquired” (p.7). This means we cannot simply put ideas in

students' heads and think that they will understand. Learners will and must construct their

own meanings.

We don’t learn in a vacuum, separated from the knowledge we have already

constructed (Bruner, 1966; Jonassen, 1991; Moll, 1990). Instead, when we encounter new

phenomena we actively reconcile it with mental models or schemas that have already

been created. Through the process of assimilation and accommodation these schemas are

then adapted to match our new understanding of the phenomena (Piaget, 1977; Fosnot,

1996). This may enact a change in what we believe or we may discard the new

information as irrelevant. Through a cyclical process our knowledge of the world is

constructed from our perceptions and experiences, which are, in turn, understood through

prior perceptions, and experience. Bruner (1990) referred to this process as meaning

making. Meaning making is a very natural process and human beings have been doing

this for thousands of years. Anyone who watches a small child for a length of time can

see this in practice. According to Jonassen, Kyle and Wilson (1999) toddlers are

consummate constructivists who constantly explore their worlds discovering new

phenomena and familiarizing themselves with possible functions and limitations.

Constructivism maintains that there is not a fixed, objective world that that

represents true reality; rather each learner interprets and constructs reality based on

interaction, adaptation and experience with his or her environment. Jonassen (1991)

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maintains that “we all conceive of the external reality somewhat differently, based on our

unique set of experiences with the worlds and our beliefs about them” (p. 10) Piaget

realized that whatever knowledge was, it was not a copy of reality (von Glasersfeld,

1996). This does not mean that to a constructivist reality is completely individualistic.

People are able to understand the interpretations of others and use those interpretations to

construct their own meanings. Models, text references and illustrations represent the

constructions by others of the current understanding of the world around us. In sum,

knowledge is a personally or socially created interpretation of reality but not an absolute

representation of it.

Each learner is ultimately responsible for constructing his or her own knowledge

and meaning but this process rarely happens in isolation (Tobin, 1998; Vygotsky, 1978).

There is a social nature of knowledge that is generated through social interaction and

language use (Prawat & Floden, 1994). These social interactions allow learners to

communicate and test the fit of their knowledge with others’ representations (Tobin,

1998). Language in all its forms is viewed as indispensable for the social (and individual)

development of understanding. In the construction of the models that constitute a large

part of our knowledge, language is an important tool. It serves in many ways and one of

the most powerful is that it can provide instruction for experiences that one has not yet

had (von Glasersfeld, 1995a). We can read a book, watch television, or listen to a veteran

discuss war and gain knowledge.

While constructivism is a relatively new idea to education, as a way of

understanding the phenomenon of learning, it is timeless (Jonassen, Peck & Wilson,

1999). As a species, man has been constructing our knowledge of the world since the

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very beginning. As a philosophy of learning, the concepts of constructivism can be traced

back hundreds of years to an Italian philosopher named Giambattista Vico. By

maintaining that we can only clearly understand that which we ourselves have

constructed he was the first philosopher to speak of reason as an inherently human

activity through which we construct knowledge (von Glasersfeld, 1998). Bruner (1986)

dissents from this opinion slightly and gives credit of the constructivist view to Immanuel

Kant who felt “that what exists is a product of what is thought” (p. 96). In either case, the

underpinnings of the theory of constructivism are quite old.

From a more contemporary point of view, the first theorists to gain credit for

applying the concepts of constructivism to education were John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and

Lev Vygotsky.

For Dewey, education depended on action. Dewey believed that education must

engage with and expand experience. Knowledge emerged from situations where learners

had to draw it out of experiences that had meaning and importance to them; you could not

study learning in the abstract and ignore the environment in which that learning took

place (Sprinthall & Sprinthall, 1990). Perhaps Dewey’s major contribution to the theory

of constructivism and those philosophers who followed after him was his exploration of

thinking and reflection. Dewey felt that reflection was a means of “conducting

transformational transactions with the world, a means of changing, or reconstructing, the

world” (Sleeper, 1986, p. 3).

Finding out how children went about the business of obtaining knowledge was the

lifework of Jean Piaget. Piaget had a background in both Biology and Philosophy and he

felt that cognitive growth and biological growth were interrelated and was convinced that

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biological principles could be utilized in understanding epistemological problems

(Sprinthall & Sprinthall, 1990). In a formulation that would make up a cornerstone of

constructivist theory, Piaget (1977) emphasized the processes of conceptual change as

interactions between existing cognitive structures and new experience. This concept of

cognitive structure is central to his theory. Cognitive structures, or schemes, are patterns

of physical or mental action that a child uses to understand his environment. Piaget felt

that these patterns corresponded to distinct stages of child development. The theory also

postulates that cognitive structures change through the processes of adaptation. During

adaptation, the child moves into a more mature understanding of the world around him.

He does this by assimilating or accommodating any new information that he is

experiencing. If the experience is a repeated one, it gets assimilated into the child's

cognitive structure so that it makes sense within his existing knowledge base; he

maintains mental equilibrium. Accommodation happens when the new experience results

in the child altering his cognitive structure to accommodate the new conditions. Reality

and truth are temporary concepts to Piaget. He understood that children would go

through stages in which they accept ideas they may later see as not truthful.

The Russian scholar Lev Vygotsky is also important to the foundations of

constructivist theory. Vygotsky emphasized the social context in learning and is credited

with introducing a social and cultural aspect of learning into the theory of constructivism

(Moll, 1990; Panofsky, John-Steiner & Blackwell, 1990). He put a special emphasis on

the use of language as the primary tool for learning and stressed the role played by

language in shaping the individual’s construction of knowledge. Language is the ultimate

social phenomenon, and it is the medium through which parents, teachers, and peers can

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influence the way in which the individual comes to understand. According to Bruner

(1996), in Vygotsky’s sense, language is a way of sorting out one’s thoughts about

things. Vygotsky’s most influential concept is the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky (1978) defined this as the distance between the actual developmental level as

determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as

determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more

capable peers. In other words, what the child is able to do in collaboration today he will

be able to do independently tomorrow (Vygotsky, 1987).

Since the pioneering work of Piaget, multiple types of constructivism have

emerged. Ernest (1995) informs us that “there are as many varieties of constructivism as

there are researchers” (p.459). Since no distinct theoretical position exists to define

constructivism it has been suggested that constructivism can be better understood as a

continuum (Doolittle, 1999). This continuum is divided into three broad categories:

Cognitive Constructivism, Social Constructivism, and Radical Constructivism. While

each of these flavors of constructivism share many common traits, they do have their

notable differences, particularly in the way that each defines the perception of reality.

Cognitive constructivism anchors one end of the continuum. Based primarily on

the work of Jean Piaget (1977), cognitive constructivism, defines learning as a process of

accommodation, assimilation, and equilibration. Knowledge is generated neither solely

from the experience of phenomena nor from an innate programming performed in the

subject. Essentially, people learn by actively constructing knowledge, not by having new

information poured into their heads. While knowledge is not a mere copy of the external

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world, this process will result in the learner creating an accurate mental construction of

an external reality.

The other end of the constructivist continuum is anchored by radical

constructivism. Championed by the writings of von Glasersfeld (1995a, 1995b) the

radical form of constructivism maintains that while an external reality may exist, it is

unknowable to the individual. Von Glasersfeld (1995b) defines radical constructivism

as an unconventional approach to the problems of knowledge and knowing. It

starts from the assumption that knowledge, no matter how it be defined, is in the

heads of persons, and that the thinking subject has no alternative but to construct

what he or she knows on the basis of his or her own experience (p.1)

This means that we cannot be certain that two learners will construct the same

understandings of any phenomena; even if they share the same experience and use the

same linguistic formulations to express what they have learned (Philips, 2000). Radical

constructivism has been criticized for going too far; that is represents an epistemological

position that leaves knowledge ultimately stranded on private constructions (Howe &

Berv, 2000). From a pedagogical standpoint, teachers may become hesitant when

challenging the beliefs of students for fear that they might be imposing their own

personally constructed view of things.

Somewhere in between the two perspectives lies social constructivism. Most often

associated with Vygotsky, social constructivism maintains that learning is not a purely

solitary, internal process. From this point of view, the individual does not experience the

world as a Robinson Crusoe figure but needs to absorb, learn and be formed by his social

interactions and language (Matthews, 2000). Through social interrelation and language

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usage, knowledge acquisition becomes a shared, rather than an individual, experience

(Prawat & Floden, 1994). While there is still no concept of an absolute reality, social

constructivists believe that reality gets constructed through social activity. Members of a

society construct the properties of the world (Kukla, 2000).

As was stated at the beginning of this paper, constructivism is a theory of

learning. A clear understanding of the principles of constructivism could have a

profound impact on the future of education in the United States. After all, ideas about

how people learn necessarily have implications for how people should be taught. In this

instance, the link between theory and practice needs to be investigated.

Although constructivism is not a theory of teaching, the influence of

constructivism can be seen throughout the world of education. Jonassen (1991) notes that

many educators have applied the concepts of constructivism to the development of

learning environments. Von Glasersfeld (1995a) extends this line of thinking by claiming

that inspired teachers have been integrating constructivism into practice for years, they

have just been doing it without any theoretical foundation.

There are some clear limitations to the inclusion of constructivism into modern

education. For one, there is no constructivist pedagogy and a primary detail that will

need to be sorted out is before there is one, will be which constructivism do we go with?

This may not be an easy task since a constructivist view of learning does not

automatically lend itself to a simple set of pedagogical rules for practice.

The constructivist concept of reality will also need to be addressed before any

major policy implementation of constructivism occurs. Ernst (1995) summarizes the

main issue here is as “although we can tentatively come to know the knowledge of others

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by interpreting their language and actions through our own conceptual constructs, the

others have realities that are independent of ours. Indeed, it is the realities of others along

with our own realities that we strive to understand, but we can never take any of these

realities as fixed” (p. 485). The crux of the issue becomes, through a rather complicated

round of questioning, how can we ever know that what we think we know is what was

originally meant? How do you evaluate learning outcomes when each reality is

individually constructed? A behaviorist might maintain that the rigorous scientific

testing that is inherent within that paradigm is what is profoundly missing from

constructivism. However, constructivists warn that the knowledge that is being

transmitted and tested in a behaviorist pedagogy may not be the knowledge that is being

constructed by the learner (Jonassen, 1991).

Rather than focus on the deeper implications of constructivism, perhaps the

legacy of the constructivist line of thinking is the simple foundation that, “rather than

behaviors or skills as the goal of instruction, concept development and deep

understanding are the foci” (Fosnot, 1996 p.10). We need to help learners gain the tools

they need to construct representations of an external world that is meaningful and

conceptually functional to them.

Knowledge, its philosophy and how we come to know, are essential

considerations for constructivists. Constructivism is a way of knowing because it

represents the process a learner goes through to make sense of the world. We can know

and learn from any phenomena as long as we actively think and reflect about it. In this

way, the basic cognitive theory of constructivism supports learning through just about

any medium. Even the traditional, and often criticized, lecture can lead to knowledge

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acquisition as long as that basic construction of meaning takes place. What

constructivism teaches us is that there is a responsibility in all of us to construct our own

knowledge based on the unique experiences, perspectives, language and culture that we

bring to the table. This may not represent all that is required to serve as the cornerstone

of education in the next century, but it is a compelling beginning.

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Appendix A

In the spirit of writing about constructivism I thought it would be appropriate to

write a reflection about my own construction of the meanings of constructivism. Like

most people in education, I had heard of the concept of constructivism and thought that I

had a pretty good idea about what it meant. As a result of conducting research and

writing a paper about the topic I am pleased to announce that my basic understanding of

the concept was correct.

I believe that my own personal philosophy about how children learn is very much

in line with the constructivist standpoint. However, I do have some reservations about

the theory that I need to resolve before I would feel comfortable calling myself a

constructivist (acknowledging that I will probably never call myself much of anything – I

don’t like being stereotyped).

The construction of new thoughts and ideas takes time. While I was conducting

research I would often read about something and it would make no sense. I would put

source down and think about it during my normal day, perhaps read other articles or

books. Quite often when I would come back to the article that was confusing it would

make sense. Of course, sometimes I would look back at an article that I thought made

sense the first time I read it and in light of my new understandings realize that I don’t get

it anymore!

The aspect of constructivism that I most strongly misinterpret (I think) is the

notion of reality. It seems to me that there needs to be a more “concrete” definition of

reality. It simply does not jibe with me that a learner creates his or her own reality. I do

think that there is a concept of correct and incorrect and this must have to do with my

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own understanding of reality. If there is no reality, there can be no concept of

correctness. Obviously, this begins to push my attitudes back a bit toward the behaviorist

model of learning and I’m alright with that. I will probably always try to take the bits

and pieces away from whatever theory I like to help me make the most sense of things…

a conclusion that a constructivist would fully support.

I have no doubt that I will tackle the concepts surrounding constructivism for

many years to come and I’m glad that I’m building the foundations that will help me

understand this theory when this happens.