P-+Social+Constructivism

=Social Constructivism=

Brief introduction to constructivism
Constructivism is a learning theory that is premised by the idea that knowledge is a dynamic construction unique to each individual that is actively constructed from a combination of prior experience, social background, and the learning environment. The idea of an objective reality is exchanged for subjective and shared realities of individuals, groups, and society at large. The goals of instruction are learner-driven, but the learner must be provided with the appropriate framework and resources for learning. The role of the instructor is to facilitate and guide the learners’ meaning-making process.

Comparison with dominant learning theories of the 20th century
Because constructivism is a theory about learning, rather than teaching, it’s implications in the instructional environment are quite different than the formulaic instruction of Behaviorism, which does not take the learner’s internal state or individual life experiences into account; it is not self-reflective. Behaviorism proposes that learning is a conditioned response and the learning outcome is achieved by consistent observable change in behavior. Behaviorist teaching employs a stimulus-response-stimulus pattern in which negative and positive reinforcement are used to guide students toward the proper behavior. Instructors must set and communicate learning goals and objectives as well as guide students toward proper behavior using cues, feedback, and reinforcement.

Constructivism departs from Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) as well, which is modeled on computer processing. Although CIP takes into account the internal processes of the learner, the theory assumes that there is an objective reality that the senses receive and is held in short-term memory, but is subsequently encoded and stored in long-term memory for later retrieval. Like behaviorism, the outcome of learning is observable behavior, but memory is changed as the new knowledge is integrated. Instructors should guide and encourage students to retrieve and encode information so that it is meaningful and memorable. Information must be organized and linked to pre-existing knowledge. Methods to gain the attention of learners, support encoding, and aid in retrieval (e.g., focusing questions, analogies, highlighting, and mnemonics) are the conditions for which memory processing is arranged by the instructor.

Constructivism, on the other hand, focuses on learning and knowledge rather than on instruction and the delivery of knowledge. Constructivism "largely emphasize[s] the process of learning, rather than the products of learning."[1]

Types of constructivism
There are two loose categorizations of constructivism.[2] //Cognitive constructivism// is attributed to the works of Jean Piaget, who stressed the stages of child development and learning, urging instructors to take these into account. Piaget’s //genetic epistemology//, his study of the origins of knowledge, noted that children constantly modify their knowledge as they interact with their environment. According to Piaget, there are three types of knowledge: Physical knowledge, which focuses on objects and is gained by physical interaction with the world; Logical-mathematical knowledge, which is an abstract knowledge that must be gained by a variety of different models that all point to the same abstraction (which can therefore be more widely applicable); and Social knowledge, which arises from a learner’s cultural background. Piaget lists a timeline of cognitive development covering the psychological states of children from birth to age 11, and introduces three processes that spur the development from one stage to the next: assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration. Piaget also believed that it was essential for children to engage in peer interactions in order to move beyond certain stages, such as egocentric thought. His work is covered in detail in Piaget’s Constructivism.

The second loose categorization of constructivism is //social constructivism//, which is largely attributed to the work of Lev Vygotsky, who shared Piaget’s view about how children learn, but placed more weight on social context; he didn’t think that the two were separable. “Knowledge is not just constructed but co-constructed,”[3] and older or more experienced children play a role in instruction along with the teacher. Vygotsky offered a different theory of learning suggesting that learning best occurs in the //Zone of Proximal Development// (ZPD). The ZPD describes the zone between the existing maturity of cognitive structures and the next level, or its full potential, which must be derived by collaboration with and guidance from others. Vygotsky’s work is covered in detail in Vygotsky’s Constructivism.

The difference between cognitive constructivism and social constructivism is that social constructivism occurs in a collaborative environment. This environment must be one in which each member contributes his or her own knowledge, as well as cultural and historical background, to the collective. Learning occurs between the dynamic interchange among members and within each individual’s own mind.

A great deal of constructivist research indicates that there are many versions of constructivism. One article I read states that the research falls within two extremes. //Trivial constructivism// lies at one end while //Radical constructivism// lies at the other:

"//...[M]any versions of constructivism, suggesting a continuum anchored by trivial constructivism at one end, which stresses the individual as constructing knowledge but is concerned with whether or not the constructions are correct representations, to radical constructivism, which rejects the notion of objective knowledge and argues instead that knowledge develops as one engages in dialogue with others.//"[4]

Constructivist instructors are interested in learner-driven and learner-identified learning goals. Even if that means that the knowledge constructed might be erroneous. This is one of the thorny details that constructivist research is still sorting out, and about which instructors must be aware and ready to rectify:

"//…[It is] important that teachers constantly assess the knowledge that the students have gained…it is a known reconstruction error when we fill in the gaps of our understanding with logical, though, incorrect, thoughts. Teachers need to catch and try to correct these errors, though it is inevitable that some reconstruction error will continue to occur because of our innate retrieval limitations."// [5]

Furthermore, since new knowledge is built on pre-existing knowledge, it is important for instructors to assess these preconditions prior to the delivery of instruction and provide opportunities and resources for learners to incorporate in their construction of knowledge:

//"Prerequisite skills or entry learning goals, then, are not necessarily ignored by constructivists, but they are attended to largely in the context of higher-order goals. Moreover, detailed analyses of learning goals...are likely to be viewed by many constructivists as destroying the essence, or holistic nature of the goal. This is because such analyses tend to result in "decontextualized" skills and knowledge where the very reason for learning them is lost or forgotten.//" [6]

There doesn’t seem to be a solid consensus about what exactly knowledge is, except that it’s a personal-social construct. Learning occurs differently for each individual.

The learning objective is to create meaning, even though that meaning may not accurately reflect “reality” or established facts. That, in fact, is the trick: to provide appropriate scaffolding for the learners to accomplish a learning task within the constraints of their pre-existing knowledge. Because there is no “one-size-fits-all” instructional method; there are a number of instructional strategies that can be implemented within the context of the social environment that enable instructors to facilitate student learning.

**Application of Social Constructivism**
Scaffolding is crucial in a constructivist environment, and more so if it’s social constructivist. Students must have a solid framework to guide their learning. By playing an active role in facilitating the construction of knowledge, the instructor supports students in their accomplishment of an otherwise impossible or difficult to accomplish task. Instructors must present instruction in such a way that new information is built upon the previous so that the new can be integrated appropriately.

Because students must build upon pre-existing knowledge, instructors can use schemata to build upon and enhance a student’s intuition about the incoming information. By enhancing the accretion of knowledge, learners can be guided to tune existing schemata to coincide with their experiences. As multiple mindsets and understandings interact, students are given exposure to a variety of perspectives and approaches during their construction of knowledge. New or revised schemata arise as students discover areas where these are mismatched and instructors can further aid the student’s developing schema.

Situated cognition theory, by its very nature, supports social constructivist learning because it “shifts the focus from the individual to the sociocultural setting and the activities of the people within that setting. Knowledge accrues through the lived practices of the people in a society.” [7] Increasing participation in communities of practice enable learners to be immersed and included within the context of the learning goal. Learning by participating is not only immersive and contextual, but impacts everyone in the community. For example, the issues that novices raise can question established but outdated practices and enlighten the entire group. Communities are constantly renewed and redefine themselves—not just with the influx and exodus of members, but also with the changing experiences of members and their age groups. Individual heterogeneity ultimately feeds into the homogenous nature of the collective.

Cognitive apprenticeships are also important. Students participate in a safe environment by which they can learn contextually without taking risks that may be necessary in the real-world environment, but giving them the confidence to be able to do so once they achieve expertise.

Case-based learning, project-based learning, and problem-based learning all provide a framework for students to learn in a social constructivist setting as well. “How can I get my students to think?” is a question asked by many dedicated instructors. One can make use of narratives to engage students in difficult to solve problems. If they are comfortable with their own ignorance of a particular situation, and the environment is supportive of that ignorance and provides resources and peers for its resolution, they will collaboratively come up with the solutions.

Assessment must be done dynamically and dialectically. Waiting until the end of the term isn’t helpful because instructors may miss those points where a student may have adopted a huge misunderstanding. If applicable to the class, the instructor can ask students to self-assess, but ultimately it is in the hands of the instructor to ascertain if the student is achieving even the loosest goals set. By dialectically engaging with the students regularly, an instructor can informally assess the students and keep track of the knowledge being created.

How does modern technology fit in?
Many modern technologies lend themselves to wide-scale communication, sharing ideas, and collaboration. The internet and world-wide-web (WWW) was created for collaboration among scientists, so it’s no small wonder that it has suffused to the general public. By the use of email, researchers and lay people alike have been able to collaborate on their endeavors. Listserves have provided a forum for like-minded people to develop communities and even meet in person. Through the use of browsers, the WWW has been modified by the society at large to the extent that it’s original purpose has been subsumed by their needs—it is no longer just a research and collaboration tool, it has also become a networking tool.

New community-making sites have sprung up. Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo have extended collaboration to the world at large. Likewise, text-based MUDs (Multi-User Dimensions), MOOs (MUD, Object Oriented), and three-dimensional virtual worlds, such as SL (Second Life) and WoW (Worlds of Warcraft) extend the ability to collaborate even further. People are able to meet in virtual worlds and they can choose to interact either synchronously or asynchronously.

Even shopping recommendations from sites like [|Amazon], displaying items under the category of “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought,” “What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?” and “Customer Reviews” are helpful on an educational level. Their aggregation of this kind of data can point a novice in a field toward relevant materials and inform experts about what their peers are reading. Customer reviews are especially helpful when a novice must choose an appropriate book to begin study in an esoteric field. They are also helpful for experts who don’t want to waste their time on a book that is irrelevant to their particular focus of study.

Citations in an article are similar in that they point to what is considered most relevant in a particular field of study. Articles and books that are cited often point people to the most significant commentary on a particular field of study. Likewise, sites, or tools within a site, that show how many times a particular article has been cited guides users toward the most relevant articles. Whether one is learning on one’s own or in a group, the social aspect is now firmly entrenched in almost everything we do—from shopping to research.

Example of Social Constructivism in Practice: An Interview
I recently conducted an interview with Susan Hackett, [8] an instructor at [|Nueva School]. It’s a constructivist school and is based on a learner-driven model. To be accepted the children must be gifted (based on an I.Q. score of 130 or above) because there is a short amount of teach each topic to the students and they are required to catch on quickly. But, it’s not just for gifted children; it’s for gifted children whose parents can afford the school—it costs approximately $20,000 or more per year.

Since the school doesn’t follow the California standards, sometimes things get missed for a particular grade level even though they learn so much. Hackett teaches the second-grade age level (ages 6–8) and the bulk of her teaching is project-based. In the lower school, the model is backward design: instructors figure out what they want to teach, what are the essential questions, some loose goals for the year-long project, and then go backwards from there.

Nueva School has a number of specialists on staff to teach specific subjects, and Hackett’s class is like “homeroom” through which she serves as an intermediary between the specialists. Because of this, she only spends about ten to twelve hours a week with the children. The rest of the week she’s meeting with the specialists and experts about what they are teaching and also makes sure that her topic is incorporated in their lessons. She focuses on language, social studies, and math, but pulls from the specialists and her peers. Because she’s a non-specialist, she can pull from her multiple topics to augment the students’ learning.

For this year, Hackett wanted to teach interdependence with a green focus (reuse/recycle). The essential question was “How do cities evolve?” She put it in the context of the San Francisco Bay Area, starting with the Ohlone tribe for early California history. Because the curriculum is open ended, she developed the curriculum by asking the students what they wanted to learn about cities and put these items on post-its to keep throughout the year and teach from that list. There are no books or tests, so at first Hackett tries to pre-assess the students and group them into different levels in order to be able to meet them all at their levels. There are no established lesson plans to guide the teachers; she gets her material from either the school’s binder of other teachers’ past material or the internet.

Nueva School has a scheduled time, one a week, where parents can choose to teach a lesson. For example, one parent taught Chinese brushwork. Additionally, there are musical instruments of all kinds for students to take lessons. If students want to learn music, the music teacher will pull them out of class whenever there is an opening.

These students also have a design school created by Stanford students—it’s an innovation lab that teaches the design process. It includes activities such as research, exploring, conjecture, prototypes, and interaction until the end product or working model is achieved.

Forts are an extremely important part of the school. It’s not just recess during which students can play with sticks, climb trees, sled down the mulch hill, or pretend like they’re the Ohlone while they hike around. They can also build forts using only the all-natural materials they find on their forested parcel of land. Usually they build teepees. No warring is allowed and they cannot be exclusive; each fort community interacts with those of other forts based on how they identify themselves. For example, one fort is an auction fort where they make or find things to barter (natural crystals abound in the area) while another fort found a type of dirt with which they could make henna so they trade henna tattoos for crystals. Some forts give lectures and others engage in agriculture and animal husbandry.

The school has an intensive Social Emotional learning (SEL) program in which the students learn how to cooperate with their peers and express their feelings. An SEL exert comes about an hour or two per week and teaches yoga, meditation, anger management and conflict resolution to the lower school students.

Hackett started the school year by teaching landforms of the San Francisco bay area peninsula: the students created a map of the peninsula on room-sized cardboard, then produced three-dimensional models using papier mâché at first, then clay. Now they are adding animals, and will add the Ohlone, the Spanish, the missions, and then structures relevant to the gold rush, Chinese immigrants and slave labor, the railroads, and onward. After the students build San Francisco, they will replicate the 1906 earthquake and then rebuild the ruined structures in their model city. They also enact a live transactional recreation of San Francisco in which they get dressed up and simulate a fake city. Other students from the school come to the city and they engage in role-playing and merchant exchanges.

Math for this level is more demanding than at regular schools. It’s cyclical, so they never spend too much time on one mathematical method, but are always going back to augment what they learned previously. Her math instruction is through problem-solving. The school nurtures an ethos where being stuck on a problem is honorable and problem-solving is an important part of learning math; students must ask peers and friends, use manipulatives, and do research at home with their parents to find out more. Once a week a math expert comes to her class and shows the students games that cover what she taught. In order to assess the students, Hackett has to solve a lot of the problems herself, and she was never strong at math. Her first year was especially difficult because of this.

Her students challenge her all the time, and if the students correct her, she has to be receptive to that. One student even stumped their math expert who is a physicist. As a result, Hackett is learning a variety of approaches to mathematics. She also learned new ways to teach that are conceptual and hands-on, rather than her previous teaching experience of “drill-and-kill.” Some parents don’t like this and push back; they, too, have trouble handling math the way the students are taught and find helping their children with homework very difficult. Students are told that it’s their responsibility to teach their parents, so parents are learning a lot, too.

Co-construction of knowledge is a communities-wide process—it isn’t just among students. The entire social structure of the learner (peers, friends, instructors, parents) is creating knowledge. Everyone is an instructor and learner to some extent. Social constructivism is synergistic and bottom-up. A particular end is not the goal, but constructing knowledge is a constant and life-long process; it’s the journey, not the destination. The creation of meaning is formed and reformed with no actual end and all parties involved are modified in some way by this.

Hackett defines constructivism and social constructivism as:

//"Making things, hands-on (modeling), making learning experiences that relate to them from their world out, and to build from pre-existing knowledge. Guiding them to the next stage of thinking. Social constructivism is group work. Tons of it! Collaborating and that the teachers are learning (teachers collaborate with kids)."//

**Drawbacks**
Sometimes Hackett thinks it’s too much for children this age. They ask reasonable questions that are difficult to answer (e.g., “why did they capture the Ohlone?” “Why couldn’t they live in peace?”). I believe that asking difficult questions is intrinsic to the nature of students who are new to a field, but children are innocent, and there are no answers that seem logical to those kinds of questions.

It’s also a lot of work to set up the learning environment and assess the students. While instructors do some pre- and post-tests for every unit, the students never see it—it’s a “do by yourself” sheet that must be done without help from peers and is just for the teachers’ records. Although specialists can have a rubric against which they can assess their students, Hackett (a generalist) cannot. She takes notes on the academic and social behavior of each of her students and writes narrative reports on her students. This requires a great deal of time, effort, and reflection.

There are no grades. At the end of the year, she has to write a narrative for each student that refers mostly to positive things. The reports must be routed through the lower school head for review. Students self-evaluate and pick out the things that they want in their portfolio, excluding what they don’t like—even though she will pick out anything that she thinks that they missed but is is particularly outstanding so that the parents are sure to see. Parents are given a 7–9 page report that includes her report and the specialists’ reports.

Social relationships can hinder collaborative meaning-making. Group dynamics are important can sometimes hinder the collaborative process, which is why the SEL program at Nueva School is so important. For example, one member of the group may dominate the entire process (railroading others and causing resentment) or some members may take longer to generate their comments and get overrun by those who are more enthusiastic and outspoken. Further, If one’s peers, or a group to which one wants to belong, thinks it’s “un-cool” to be smart, then what? What do we do about the people who don’t even know that they have to take responsibility for their learning, or who are unmotivated? This can be explored in more depth by reading the paper on Motivation, Engagement, and Positive Affect.

Teachers typically aren’t paid enough to spend the time and effort required to deliver this kind of learning. Can constructivism and social constructivism, then, only be used to teach in private schools? Is this kind of learning elitist? How can this be realistically applied to public schools? What really is the payoff if it’s done well? Is that enough to survive in this society? These questions are beyond the scope of this project, so I leave you guessing. But I do this on purpose because society and culture dictates the framework from which we all must work, and we each must give our contribution.

What does it all mean?
It seems to me that education in a constructivist or social constructivist setting means more work and responsibility for everyone involved.


 * It means more work for the learner: The learner must be actively involved in the learning process and must avail him or herself to the learning materials that are available.
 * It means more work for the instructor: An instructor must facilitate, engage, and be in constant dialog with the students. An instructor can’t rely on previously-created formulas or lesson plans to present because the curriculum is driven by the learners. An instructor must also be constantly learning.
 * It means that we have a lot of questions for which we have no answers yet: Do we want students who are well-factified or well-learned? Is being well-learned elitist or can we give this to almost everyone? What does this do to standardized tests? How do we assess how we stand educationally compared to other regions or other nations?

Despite all the work and the questions I leave you with, I’d like to conclude by quoting myself. It's something I say all the time in regard to the fact that I am constantly learning from my peers and that my friends and I share dynamic conversations:

//“Thank goodness I don’t live in a vacuum!”//

This, I believe, very much sums up social constructivism. It sums up my personal philosophy, and why I chose this as my topic. In fact, Rusa Vuong and I collaborated both in person and by email while researching this topic; we discussed the articles we read as we tried to wrap our minds around this subject. We do not live in a vacuum and to think that we do seems, to me, a delusion. Everything about who we are is a product of where we’ve been and the entirety of our experiences. By this I do not mean “the whole is the sum of its parts,” I mean that on any level (individual or societal), the whole is greater than the sum; it is an interesting, wonderful, and unexpected result of synergistic interactions.

References:
1. Driscoll, Marcy P. (2005) \. Psychology of learning for Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. 393 2. Constructivism. [|http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~ichen/ebook/et-it/constr.htm] 3. Theories of Learning—Social Constructivism. Teaching Guide for Graduate Student Instructors. http://gsi.berkeley.edu/resources/learning/social.html 4. Palincsar, A. Sullivan (1998). Social Constructivist Perspectives on Teaching and Learning. Annual Review of Psychology, v49 p.345(31). 5. Constructivism (Learning Theory). Wikipedia. [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory]) 6. Driscoll, Marcy P. (2005) \. Psychology of learning for Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. p. 393 7. Driscoll, Marcy P. (2005) \. Psychology of learning for Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. p. 158 8. Hackett, Susan. Personal Interview. 16 October 2008.