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1. Education Theory
Constructivism and Social Constructivism in the Classroom
General Overview
In the constructivist classroom, the focus tends to shift from the teacher to the students. The classroom is no
longer a place where the teacher ("expert") pours knowledge into passive students, who wait like empty vessels to
be filled. In the constructivist model, the students are urged to be actively involved in their own process of
learning.
In the constructivist classroom, both teacher and students think of knowledge as a dynamic, ever-changing view of
the world we live in and the ability to successfully stretch and explore that view - not as inert factoids to be
memorized.
Key assumptions of this perspective include:
1. What the student currently believes, whether correct or incorrect, is important.
2. Despite having the same learning experience, each individual will base their learning on the understanding and
meaning personal to them.
3. Understanding or constructing a meaning is an active and continuous process..
4. Learning may involve some conceptual changes.
5. When students construct a new meaning, they may not believe it but may give it provisional acceptance or
even rejection.
6. Learning is an active, not a passive, process and depends on the students taking responsibility to learn.
The main activity in a constructivist classroom is solving problems. Students use inquiry methods to ask questions,
investigate a topic, and use a variety of resources to find solutions and answers. As students explore the topic,
they draw conclusions, and, as exploration continues, they revisit those conclusions. Exploration of questions leads
to more questions.
There is a great deal of overlap between a constructivist and social constructivist classroom, with the exception of
the greater emphasis placed on learning through social interaction, and the value placed on cultural background.
For Vygotsky, culture gives the child the cognitive tools needed for development. Adults in the learner’s
environment are conduits for the tools of the culture, which include language, cultural history, social context, and
more recently, electronic forms of information access.
In social constructivist classrooms collaborative learning is a process of peer interaction that is mediated and
structured by the teacher. Discussion can be promoted by the presentation of specific concepts, problems or
scenarios, and is guided by means of effectively directed questions, the introduction and clarification of concepts
and information, and references to previously learned material.
Role of the teacher
Constructivist teachers do not take the role of the "sage on the stage." Instead, teachers act as a "guide on the
side" providing students with opportunities to test the adequacy of their current understandings
Theory
Implication for
classroom

2. The educator should consider the knowledge and
experiences students bring to class
Learners construct their knowledge through a process of
active enquiry
‘Discovery’ is facilitated by providing the necessary
resources
Knowledge is actively constructed & learning is presented
as a process of active discovery
Provide assistance with assimilation of new and old
knowledge
Learning programme should be sufficiently flexible to
permit development along lines of student enquiry
Due to its interpretivist nature, each student will interpret
information in different ways
Create situations where the students feel safe questioning
and reflecting on their own processes
Present authentic tasks to contextualize learning through
real-world, case-based learning environments
Support collaboration in constructing knowledge, not
competition
Encourage development through Intersubjectivity
Providing Scaffolding at the right time and the right level
Provide opportunities for more expert and less expert
participants to learn from each other

3. Role of the student
The expectation within a constructivist learning environment is that the students plays a more active role in, and
accepts more responsibility for their own learning.
Theory
Implication for
classroom
The role of the student to actively participate in their own
education
Students have to accommodate & assimilate new
information with their current understanding
One important aspect of controlling their own learning
process is reflecting on their experiences
Students begin their study with pre-conceived notions
Students are very reluctant to give up their established
schema/idea & may reject new information that challenges
prior knowledge
Students may not be aware of the reasons they hold such
strong ideas/schemata
Learners need to use and test ideas, skills, and information
through relevant activities
Students need to know how to learn or change their
thinking/learning style
Because knowledge is so communally-based, learners
deserve access to knowledge of different communities
For students to learn they need to receive different 'lenses'
to see things in new ways.
Learners need guidance through the ZDP

4. In social constructivism tutors and peers play a vital role in
learning
Social Constructivism in the classroom
Reciprocal Teaching
Where a teacher and 2 to 4 students form a collaborative group and take turns leading dialogues on a topic. Within
the dialogues, group members apply four cognitive strategies:
1. Questioning
2. Summarizing
3. Clarifying
4. Predicting
This creates a ZPD in which students gradually assume more responsibility for the material, and through
collaboratation, forge group expectations for high-level thinking, and acquire skills vital for learning and success in
everyday life.
Cooperative Learning
More expert peers can also spur children’s development along as long as they adjust the help they provide to fit
the less mature child’s ZPD.
Situated Learning
As early as 1929 concern was raised (Whitehead) that the way students learned in school resulted in a limited,
‘inert’ form of knowledge, useful only for passing examinations. More recently several theorists have argued that
for knowledge to be active it should be learned:
 In a meaningful context
 Through active learning
The general term for this type of learning activity is situated learning. Situated learning proponents argue that
knowledge cannot be taught in an abstract manner, and that to be useful, it must be situated in a relevant or
"authentic" context (Maddux, Johnson, & Willis, 1997).
Anchored Instruction
The anchored instruction approach is an attempt to help students become more actively engaged in learning by
situating or anchoring instruction around an interesting topic. The learning environments are designed to provoke
the kinds of thoughtful engagement that helps students develop effective thinking skills and attitudes that
contribute to effective problem solving and critical thinking.
Anchored instruction emphasizes the need to provide students with opportunities to think about and work on
problems and emphasizes group or collaborative problem solving.
Other things you can do:
 Encourage team working and collaboration
 Promote discussion or debates
 Set up study groups for peer learning
 Allocate a small proportion of grades for peer assessment and train students in the process and criteria
 Show students models of good practice in essay writing and project work

5.  Be aware of your own role as a model of ‘the way things are done...’be explicit about your professional values
and the ethical dimensions of your subject
Assessment
Constructivists believe that assessment should be used as a tool to enhance both the student's learning and the
teacher's understanding of student's progress. It should not be used as an accountability tool that serves to stress
or demoralise students. Types of assessment aligned to this epistemological position include reflective
journals/portfolios, case studies, group-based projects, presentations (verbal or poster), debates, role playing etc.
Within social constructivism particularly there is greater scope for involving students in the entire process:
1. Criteria
2. Method
3. Marking
4. Feedback
Brooks and Brooks (1993) state that rather than saying "No" when a student does not give the exact answer being
sought, the constructivist teacher attempts to understand the student's current thinking about the topic. Through
nonjudgmental questioning, the teacher leads the student to construct new understanding and acquire new skills.
Discovery Learning
General
Discovery learning is a learning model introduced in 1960s byone of the founders on constructivisttheory, Jerome
Bruner, but closelyrelated to works of Jean Piaget (see:Stage Theory of Cognitive Development),Lev
Vygotsky (see:Social DevelopmentTheory), John Dewey and Seymour Papert and later further developed by other
researchers.Bruner's theoryis considered to be fully constructivistin nature.Discovery learning according to him is a
inquiry-based instructional approach in which the learner builds new knowledge from prior knowledge and active
experience.
What is discovery learning?
In contrastto classical teaching methods in which the learner is usuallypassive and expected to assimilate the
knowledge presented bythe teacher1)
, discovery learning offers a learner-centeredapproach in which the learner
discovers new knowledge through active,hand-on experiences2)
and constructnew concepts based on his existing
knowledge.This kind of learning is oriented on the process of learning,rather then on its content and information.
According to Bruner,
 “practice in discovering for oneself teaches one to acquire information in a way that makes thatinformation more
readily viable in problem solving.”3)
Another importantaspectof discovery learning is failure,which is viewed as an importantelementofl earning to the
extent that learner hasn'treally learned anything if he hasn'tfailed during the learning process.
Later in his career Bruner adopted a more social and political view of learning and language acquisition influenced
by Lev Vigotsky's social developmenttheory.

6. Main attributes of discovery learning,as described byBicknell-Holmes and Hoffman4)
are:
 exploring and problem solving, which stimulate learners to actively approach to creation,acquisition and
generalization ofnew knowledge instead ofpassivelybeing exposed to lectures and practice,
 taking responsibility for learning in terms oft he ability of learners to choose their own learning pace,and
 building new knowledge from the existing.
The characteristics in which discoverylearning differs from clasical learning are5)
:
 active rather than passive learning,
 learning is process-oriented rather than content-oriented,
 failure is important,
 feedback is necessary, and
 understanding is deeper.
What is the practical meaning of discovery learning?
Bruner’s constructivistic principles ofdiscovery learning claim thatinstruction must6)
:
 provide students with experiences and contexts that make them willing and able to learn (readiness),
 be structured in a spiral manner so that the studentkeeps developing learned concepts in more and more
details,and
 be designed to facilitate extrapolation that enables studentgoing beyond the information given.
The role of the teacher in such instructional process can be either to provide students with information when
necessary(guided discovery) or not provide them with information atall (unguided discovery).
These principles offering an idea ofwhat instructional process should look like were implemented in several mostly
very similar architectures ofdiscovery-based learning:
 Case-Based Learning
 Incidental Learning
 Simulation-Based Learning
 Goal Based Scenarios
 Problem-Based Learning
Criticisms
Discovery learning has been subjected to manycriticisms lately(see: criticisms ofconstructivism),with more and
more studies showing:
 inefficiency of pure discovery learning,especiallyfor novice learners,and
 strong positive effects of guided instruction and worked examples, mostlyexcluded from learning by
discovery7)8)9)10)
.
 “In summary,learners encounter problems with all processes characteristic of discovery learning such as stating
hypotheses,designing experiments,interpreting data and regulating the learning process (monitoring and
planning).”11)
Still, this debate is ongoing as various researchers still find thatguided discoverycan resultin better learning than
explicit instruction12)
.
erome Bruner and Education
Cognitive psychologistJerome Bruner feltthe goal of education should be intellectual development,as opposed to
rote memorization offacts.
This lesson will discuss Bruner's theoryof developmentand his three modes ofrepresentation.We will also explore
his beliefs on learning,language,and discoveryand differentiate his views from those of Jean Piaget.
Bruner held the following beliefs regarding learning and education:

7.  He believed curriculum should foster the developmentofproblem -solving skills through the processes of
inquiry and discovery.
 He believed that subjectmatter should be represented in terms ofthe child's way of viewing the world.
 That curriculum should be designed so thatthe masteryof skills leads to the masteryof still more powerful
ones.
 He also advocated teaching by organizing concepts and learning bydiscovery.
 Finally, he believed culture should shape notions through which people organize their views of themselves
and others and the world in which they live.
Three Stages of Representation
Jerome Bruner identified three stages ofcognitive representation.
1. Enactive, which is the representation ofknowledge through actions.
2. Iconic, which is the visual summarization ofimages.
3. Symbolic representation, which is the use of words and other symbols to describe experiences.
The enactive stage appears first.This stage involves the encoding and storage ofinformation.There is a direct
manipulation ofobjects withoutany internal representation ofthe objects.
For example,a baby shakes a rattle and hears a noise.The baby has directly manipulated the rattle and the outcome
was a pleasurable sound.In the future, the baby may shake his hand,even if there is no rattle, expecting his hand to
produce the rattling sounds.The baby does nothave an internal representation ofthe rattle and,therefore, does not
understand thatit needs the rattle in order to produce the sound.
The iconic stage appears from one to six years old. This stage involves an internal representation ofexternal objects
visually in the form of a mental image or icon.For example,a child drawing an image ofa tree or thinking of an image
of a tree would be representative of this stage.
The symbolic stage,from seven years and up, is when information is stored in the form of a code or symbol such as
language.Each symbol has a fixed relation to something itrepresents.For example,the word 'dog' is a symbolic
representation for a single class ofanimal.Symbols,unlike mental images or memorized actions,can be classified
and organized. In this stage,mostinformation is stored as words,mathematical symbols,or in other symbol systems.
Bruner believed that all learning occurs through the stages we justdiscussed.Bruner also believed that learning
should begin with directmanipulation ofobjects.For example,in math education,Bruner promoted the use of algebra
tiles,coins,and other items thatcould be manipulated.
After a learner has the opportunity to directly manipulate the objects,they should be encouraged to constructvisual
representations,such as drawing a shape or a diagram.
Finally, a learner understands the symbols associated with whatthey represent.For example,a studentin math
understands thatthe plus sign ( + ) means to add two numbers together and the minus sign ( - ) means to subtract.
Discovery Learning
The conceptof discovery learning implies thata learner constructs his or her own knowledge for themselves by
discovering as opposed to being told about something.
According to Bruner, the teacher should facilitate the learning process bydeveloping lessons thatprovide the learner
with information theyneed without organizing it for them .
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Additional Activities
Jerome Bruner's Theory of Cognitive Development
Activity 1:

8. For this activity, imagine thatyou are a teacher of a third grade class.At a parent-teacher conference,a parent
comes up to you and stronglyopines thatyou should be giving the children lots of worksheets.Write a paragraph
describing whatyou would say to the parentabouthow your teaching strategies are based on Bruner's philosophy,
how you are applying his theory as a teacher, and why worksheets maynotbe the ideal learning strategyfor third
graders.
Activity 2:
In this lesson you read that Bruner believed that a person could "speed up"cognitive developmentin a child. Design
an intervention for children in the iconic stage (ages 1-6) where visual imageryis the dominantform of representation.
The aim of this intervention is to accelerate learning and increase cognitive development.How would you use
imageryto help the children acquire knowledge? (You may break your intervention down by ages,since the age
range is quite large.)
Activity 3:
Bruner emphasized the importance ofculture in terms ofcognitive development.He advocated discovery learning
wherein a child constructs his or her own knowledge through discovery.How do you think that culture affects this
process? How mighta child from one culture make discoveries thatare different from a child in another culture? Write
a journal entry discussing your thoughts on this issue.To take it one step further, do some research on a culture that
is not your own.Did that additional research give you insightinto how culture could influence discovery learning? Add
your insights to your journal entry.
DISCOVERY LEARNING (BRUNER)
Discovery Learning is a method of inquiry-based instruction, discovery learning believes
that it is best for learners to discover facts and relationships for themselves.
CONTENTS
Contributors
Key Concepts
Resources and References
CONTRIBUTORS
 Jerome Bruner (1915 – )
KEY CONCEPTS

9. Discovery learning is an inquiry-based, constructivist learning theory that takes place in
problem solving situations where the learner draws on his or her own past experience
and existing knowledge to discover facts and relationships and new truths to be
learned[1]. Students interact with the world by exploring and manipulating objects,
wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments.
As a result, students may be more more likely to remember concepts and knowledge
discovered on their own (in contrast to a transmissionist model)[2]. Models that are
based upon discovery learning model include: guided discovery, problem-based
learning, simulation-based learning, case-based learning, incidental learning, among
others.
The theory is closely related to work by Jean Piaget and Seymour Papert.
PROPONENTS OF THIS THEORY BELIEVE THAT
DISCOVERY LEARNING:
 encourages active engagement
 promotes motivation
 promotes autonomy, responsibility, independence
 develops creativity and problem solving skills.
 tailors learning experiences
CRITICS BELIEVE THAT DISCOVERY LEARNING:
 creates cognitive overload
 may result in potential misconceptions
 makes it difficult for teachers to detect problems and misconceptions
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
REFERENCES
1. Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard educational review.
2. Bruner, J. S. (2009). The process of education. Harvard University Press.