Constructivism

1. Constructivism(1920s-present)
● Learning happens when students combine new
and old ideas; however, learning only occurs
if students are actively engaged
● Learning is internal
● Learning often includes trial & error
● Learning requires inferencing

2. ● Emphasizes the growth of the individual,
the importance of the environment, and
the role of the teacher in student learning.
● Problem Based Learning Approach
● Discourages competition and promotes
collaboration and cooperation in education.
Inquiry Learning (John Dewey)

3. ● People organize everything they know into schemata
or knowledge structures.
● Process through which knowledge structures change:
○ Accretation- Learners take in new information but
have no need to change existing schema.
○ Tuning- Existing schema is modified to incorporate
new information.
○ Restructuring- New schema must be created.
● Everyone’s schema is individualized. Knowledge
structures are pliant and expandable.
Schema Theory (Bartlett)

4. ● All readers have individualized reading
experiences because each reader has
unique background schemata.
● Responses Readers Have to Text
■ Efferent- Fact oriented
■ Aesthetic- Personally or emotionally based.
○ Emphasizes the active role of the reader in
meaning making.
Transactional/Reader Response
(Rosenblatt)

5. ● Reading is a language process which
includes syntactic, semantic, and
graphophonic cues
○ Once the cuing is internalized, the
reading is developed
■ fluent reading occurs when reader
expectations (predictions) are
validated
Psycholinguistic Theory (Smith &
Goodman)

6. ● Psycholinguistic theory was its predecessor
● Reading is a natural process that will
develop IF students are in a literature-rich
environment with authentic literacy
activities
● It failed miserably
Whole Language (Goodman and
others?)

7. ● Text comprehension occurs through
reader’s active management of strategies.
● Involves self-monitoring & self-regulation
during reading
● Students become teacher-dependent since
instruction is mostly explicit
Metacognitive Theory (Allen &
Hancock; Flavell & Brown; Durkin)

8. ● Attempts to distinguish engaged from
disengaged readers
○ Engaged readers: metacognitive, social &
intrinsically motivated, so reading
frequency increases
Engagement Theory (Guthrie &
Wigfield)

9. ○ NAEP (1998) study indicates that
“engaged reading can overcome
traditional barriers to reading
achievement, including gender, parental
education, & income
○ Instructional implications: use of themes,
cooperative learning, student choice, &
authentic activities
Engagement Theory (Guthrie &
Wigfield)

10. ● Brainstorming, webbing, K-W-L
● Guided Reading
● Miscue analysis & running record
● Vocab laced with humor
● Cooperative learning & Inquiry learning
● Student-selected texts
● Anticipation guides/sets
● Think aloud & other modeling
● Explicit strategy instruction
● Authentic & performance-based assessments
● Integration of technology
Classroom Applications