Constructivist Learning Theory, Teaching, and Learning

             “Constructivism was founded by Piaget, while constructionism was founded by Papert - one of his students” (Mackwood, 2016, para. 3). According to Piaget, students achieve different educational tasks at different ages and stages (Orey, 2001). Papert, Piaget student, “believes that students will be more deeply involved in their learning if they are constructing something that others will see, critique, and perhaps use” (Mackwood, 2016, para. 4). Babies and toddlers while playing blocks learn problem solving skills, such as, pondering on what to build, where to move whether to go higher, or add one block to the left or right, and develop their creativity and other skills. To valid this point, Linda Taylor early childhood educators stated, “blocks play requires fine and gross motor skills. Blocks enhance children’s problem-solving abilities, mathematics skills, and language and literacy abilities. And constructing “creations” builds self-esteem and feelings of success” (Koralek, 2015, para. 10). Similarly, using HoC gives students the opportunity to develop their imagination, fine motor skills in their hands by moving the angry bird character to the left, right, top or bottom, as well as, engage in collaboration to solicit feedback. “A constructivist teacher believes that in order to learn, students need as many hands-on experiences with objects, skills, and people as possible” (Gonzalez, 2015, para. 2). HoC will also encourage them in experimenting and testing their ideas with other classmates.

            "Constructivist" theories of Jean Piaget, asserting that knowledge is not simply transmitted from teacher to student, but actively constructed in the mind of the learner (Orey, 2001, para, 13). This student-centered approach give learners the opportunity to create, and guide their own learning experiences. “Learners are assigned tasks in which they must implement particular instructional goals. They investigate, create, and solve problems. Some of the elements in a learning environment guided by constructionism are: inquiry/learning discussion, presentation of work, or learners engaging in “genuine,” authentic real-world tasks” (Orey, 2001, para. 16). When students are working on HoC they can take time to discuss, assess their progress, and make meaningful connections. Vygotsky “believed strongly that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning." Unlike Piaget's notion that children's development must necessarily precede their learning” (Orey, 2001, para. 1). Students learn best when they initiate, and create tasks that are meaningful, as well as, useful to themselves and their communities. Furthermore, integrating constructionism with technology activities enables learners to expand their thoughts. “Constructivism provides students with rich experiences and encourages them to reach their own conclusions” (Gonzalez, 2015, para. 2). If I was teaching a unit of study on Qualities of an Entrepreneur, students can create a PowerPoint presentation to construct their own ideas of the characteristics an entrepreneur should display. My learners can always make online graphic organizers to compare ideas. Additionally, students can use Google classroom at home to discuss ways to solve a problem before coming to class, or discuss why the code work or did not work. Lastly, students can express their thoughts verbally using podcast, or journal apps to reflect back on their ideas.

            Based on the constructivist and constructionist learning theories, learners “can engage in discovery and problem solving tasks through teamwork” (p. 207). For example, in flexible groupings students can draw out ideas about a theme using software on their tablets to construct their own meaning or work on a HoC assignment where they would need to deepen their understanding by exploring websites to construct new meaning for themselves. Students can assign team leaders and “help each other and act as co-constructors of knowledge” (p. 207). Furthermore, students can communicate with each other to discuss ideas, “such scaffolding will inevitably result in self-assessing, and restructuring of existing ideas, and hence towards deeper levels of understanding” (Lay & Kamisah, 2017, p. 207).  Constructivism aims to develop the way learners think through problem-based learning, and meaningful questions. This will enable my learners to arrive at an answer, and justify their response. Before the start of the coding activities, students can practice different activities. Thus, enabling them to “actually design it, try it, see if it works, and come up with different prototypes. And after that, we will all evaluate together, and discuss what our successes were and some of our failures and how we made it better” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2016c).  Students can also transfer their knowledge to new and different situation, collaboratively students can role-play the angry bird characters, or engage in real life activities.Students can also be given a problem solving question, (how can we move the angry bird character around the hill?).  In groups, students would need to figure out how many times the characters would need to move to the top, left, or right. Next, students would need to write out the code to achieve this goal, and debut any errors they encountered. Students can also read supplementary materials to help them solve their problems.

Constructivism relies on the presumptions that students already have certain knowledge and skills. When learners play an online stimulation game that assumes previous knowledge and promotes higher order thinking, enables them to construct virtual connections to the content taught or their own experiences. For instance, the interactive website How the Body works, provides learners with supplementary materials (articles and videos about the different body parts), and display activities for students. Learners also have opportunity to select their preferred language choice. The ISTE standards for teachers addressed by using the strategies and tools mentioned in this paper are:

(1)   ISTE Standard 1 – teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments (2) Standard 5 – address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources (Watson, 2014)

The interactive website and HoC will give students an opportunity to work in groups to learn from each other differences, and share knowledge. On the other hand, the ISTE standards for students addressed by using these strategies and tools are: 

(1)   computational thinkers – students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions (2) creative communicator – students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals (3) Innovative designer – students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions (Watson, 2014).

Children begin using technology at a very young age, and how they use it evolves as they grow. Students use technology to play games, later they use it to write codes, solve problems, construct meaning, research, share their ideas and knowledge, and communicate with other across the globe. 

References

Gonzalez, J. (2015). Know your terms: Constructivism. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/constructivism/

Koralek, D. (2015). Ten things children learn from block play. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/yc/10_things_children_learn_block_play

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016c). Constructivism in practice [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Lay, A., & Kamisah, O. (2017). Developing 21st Century Skills through a Constructivist-Constructionist Learning Environment. K-12 STEM Education, (3) 2, pp. 205-216. doi:10.14456/k12stemed.2017.6

Mackwood, E. (2016). Constructivism and constructionism: What is the difference and how are they similar? Retrieved from http://engagingnz.blogspot.com/2016/07/constructivism-and-constructionism-what.html

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Vygotsky%27s_constructivism

Watson, R. P. (2014). ISTE standards for students. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/ry4ltpnwu5-s/iste-standards-for-students/

Watson, R. P. (2014). ISTE standards for teachers. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/ry4ltpnwu5-s/iste-standards-for-teachers/

 Appendix

Twitter sources 

In this week’s discussion the scholarly source I located said “MyKimDG has been developed to establish constructivist-constructionist learning environments” (Lay & Kamisah, 2017).

In this week’s discussion the popular source I located said “Constructivism is the idea that people construct an internal understanding of reality, and that 'reality' is produced by interactions between people and within environments” (Mackwood, 2016).


In this week’s discussion the retweet popular sources I located said “what constructivism is and is not in the classroom” (Gonzalez, 2015).