Constructivism in the Classroom Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Constructivism in the Classroom - Essay ExampleConstructivism has been defined by researchers and educators in numerous ways. With a history that can be traced to the days of Socrates, Constructivism has become an important learning technique for all students. Jacqueline Grennon Brooks in her book Concept to Classroom Interviews (1999) states that as long as on that point were people asking each other questions, we have had constructivist classrooms. Constructivism, the instruction of learning, is about how we all make sense of our world, and that really hasnt changed. The concept of constructivism has roots in classical antiquity, going back to Socratess dialogues with his followers, in which he asked directed questions that led his students to realize for themselves the weaknesses in their thinking. The Socratic dialogue is still an important apparatus in the way constructivist educators assess their students learning and plan new learning experiences in this century, Jean Piage t and John Dewey developed theories of childhood development and education, what we now peal Progressive Education, that led to the evolution of constructivism. According to William J. Matthews, a professor in the School Psychology Program of the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts, there atomic number 18 numerous variations and definitions of post-modernist thought of which constructivism is a subset (e.g. , radical constructivism, social constructivism, and deconstructivism). However, Piagetian constructivism is a subset of a larger historical challenge to modernist notions. of objective reality in oecumenic and the use of empirically validated methods of teaching specifically. As Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks state, 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 reflecti ng 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