Constructivism (philosophy of education)

Constructivism is a philosophical viewpoint about the nature of knowledge. Specifically, it represents an epistemological stance. There are many "flavors" of constructivism, but one prominent theorist known for his constructivist views is Jean Piaget, who focused on how humans make meaning in relation to the interaction between their experiences and their ideas. He considered himself to be a genetic epistemologist, which means he considered this interaction in relation to how humans are set up by their genetic make up to develop intellectually. His views tended to focus on human development in relation to what is occurring with an individual as opposed to development that is influenced by other humans . Views that are more focused on human development in the context of the social world are also of many flavors and include the sociocultural or socio-historical perspective of Lev Vygotsky and the situated cognition perspectives of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger; Brown, Collins and Duguid; Newman, Griffin and Cole, and Barbara Rogoff. The concept of constructivism has influenced a number of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, education and the history of science. During its infancy, constructivism examined the interaction between human experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns. Jean Piaget called these systems of knowledge schemes. These are not to be confused with "schema," a term that comes from schema theory, which is from information-processing perspectives on human cognition. Whereas Piaget's schemes are content-free, schemata (the plural of schema) are concepts; for example, most humans have a schema for "grandmother" or "egg" or "magnet." Constructivism does not refer to a specific pedagogy, although it is often confused with constructionism, an educational theory developed by Seymour Papert, inspired by constructivist and experiential learning ideas of Piaget. Piaget's theory of constructivist learning has had wide-ranging impact on learning theories and teaching methods in education, and is an underlying theme of many education reform movements. Research support for constructivist teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting these techniques and other research contradicting those results.

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