Constructivism

So far out of all the theories, I think I like constructivism the best. It makes the most sense to me, and I think it combines the most important and relevant factors from each of the preceding theories.

Something I think it touches on that the other theories miss out on, although the cognitive approach touches on it, is how where exactly a student’s misunderstandings are coming from. I think constructivism offers an explanation for why peer tutoring and cooperative learning can be so powerful in a classroom, beyond the idea of creating a warm and welcoming classroom environment; students can find and correct gaps in their learning or bizarre assumptions that may have gone unchecked during the process of explaining themselves to another student.

I think aside from the social aspect of constructivism, the individual aspect gives credence to a lot of the same things as the social-cognitive model did (under the umbrella of “prior knowledge”) and challenges teachers to meet students at their level and make informal assessments all the time.

One of the things I like best about constructivism is the idea of scaffolding—how with a person more skilled than you helping you out, you can achieve things you never could on your own. We talked about scaffolding a lot in my elementary education class, and it was really amazing to experience it at work as well as think of ways to use it. One of the main focuses is giving students a taste of success with real, challenging material, and how that success will motivate them. This makes me favor constructivist theory even over social-cognitive, which was my next favorite.