Constructivism Learning Theory

A.          History

In past centuries, constructivist ideas were not widely valued due to the perception that children's play was seen as aimless and of little importance. Jean Piaget did not agree with these traditional views, however. He saw play as an important and necessary part of the student's cognitive development and provided scientific evidence for his views. And nowadays, 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.

Nowadays, research support for constructivist teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting these techniques and other research contradicting those results. Some historical figures that influenced constructivism are:

·                Giambattista Vico (1668–1744)

·                Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

·                John Dewey (1859–1952)

·                Jean Piaget (1896–1980)

·                Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934)

·                Heinz von Foerster (1911–2002)

·                Herbert Simon (1916–2001)

·                Ernst von Glasersfeld (1917-2010)

B.          Definition

Construction refers to development. In the context of philosophy of education, constructivism is an attempt to build formation system of modern culture life. Constructivism is the basis thinking of contextual learning, which is humans build knowledge step by step and the result is extended through the limited context and not all of a sudden. Knowledge is not a set of facts, concepts, or rules that are ready to be collected and remembered. Humans have to construct knowledge and give meaning through real experience.

According to the constructivist ideology, knowledge is a construction (formation) of people who knew something (schemata). Knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to others, because everyone has their own scheme of what he knows. Formation of knowledge is a cognitive process in which there is a process of assimilation and accommodation to achieve a balance so that formed a new schema (plural: schemata). Learning is the way to construct the understanding or knowledge in actively and continuously (Suparno, 1997).

Meanwhile, according to Tran Vui, Constructivism is a learning philosophy that is built upon the assumption of their own experiences. While the theory of constructivism is a theory that gives freedom to people who want to learn or look for their needs by the ability to find their desire or need by assistances or facilitated by others.

From the description above, it can be concluded that this theory gives privacy for humans to learn to find their own competence, knowledge or technology, and other things that are needed to develop their self.

The purposes of this theory are as follows:

·                Appearing motivation for learners in order to think that learning is the responsibility of learners themselves (Developing learners’ ability to ask questions and find their own answers).

·                Helping students to develop understanding and complete comprehension of the concept (Developing learners’ ability to be an independent thinker. It is more emphasized on learning how to learn).

One of the theories or well-known views related to learning theory of constructivism is Piaget's theory of mental development. This theory also called theory of intellectual development or the theory of cognitive development. Learning theory is regarding the readiness of children to learn, which is packaged in a stage of intellectual development from childhood to adulthood. Each stage of intellectual development is equipped with certain characteristics in constructing knowledge. For example, the sensory motor stage of the child to think through the motions or actions (Ruseffendi, 1988: 132).

Furthermore, Piaget that known as the first constructivist (Dahar, 1989: 159) asserts that knowledge is constructed in the minds of children through assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the absorption of new information in mind. Meanwhile, the accommodation was to reconstruct the structure of the mind because of new information, so that information has a place (Ruseffendi 1988: 133). Another concept about accommodation is a mental process that involves the formation of a new scheme that matches with the new stimulus or modify an existing scheme so that it matches with that stimulus (Suparno, 1996: 7).

This constructivist is criticized by Vygotsky, which states that the student in the constructing a concept needs to consider the social environment. Constructivism by Vygotsky is called social constructivism (Taylor, 1993; Wilson, Teslow and Taylor, 1993; Atwel, Bleicher & Cooper, 1998).

There are two important concepts in the theory of Vygotsky (Slavin, 1997), the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and scaffolding.

·                Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the distance between the level of actual development that is defined as the ability to solve the problems independently and the level of potential development that is defined as the ability of problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.

·                Scaffolding is the provision of assistance to students during the early stages of learning, and then reduce support and provide the opportunity to take over greater responsibility after he or she can do it (Slavin, 1997). Scaffolding is a help that given to learners to learn and solve problems. Such assistance may include guidance, encouragement, warnings, outlined the problem into solving steps, providing examples, and other measures that allow students to learn independently.

The approach refers to social constructivism (philosophy of social constructivism) is called a social constructivist approach. Philosophy of social constructivist view that mathematics is not absolute truth and identify mathematics as a result of solving problems and filing problems (problem posting) by human (Ernest, 1991). In learning mathematics, Cobb, Yackel and Wood (1992) call it with constructivism social (socio-constructivism), students interact with teachers, with other students and based on informal experience students develop strategies to respond the problem.

C.          The Concepts of Constructivism

Constructivism is not a new idea, what passed in our lives up till now is development and acquisition of experience by experience. This causes someone has knowledge and become more dynamic. Constructivist approach has some common concepts such as:

1.             Students actively develop knowledge based on the existing experience.

2.             In learning context, students should develop their own knowledge.

3.             It is important for students themselves to develop their knowledge actively through a process of mutual influence between the previous learning with new learning.

4.             The most important element in this theory is that someone is actively building her knowledge by comparing new information with existing understanding.

5.             The unbalancing is the major learning motivation factor. This factor applies where a student realize his ideas are not consistent or in accordance with Scientific knowledge.

6.             The instruction material that is provided should have a relevancy with the experience of students to attract student interest.

D.          The Principles of Constructivism

The main assumption of constructivism is that knowledge does not exist “out there” in an objective reality. Knowledge is actively constructed from within by the learner (Hendry & King, 1994). Facts become facts because it is knowledge that is agreed upon by communities of learners. The learner comes into any new situation with prior knowledge based on past experiences. New knowledge is learned through integration with prior knowledge. Based on the explanation above, Several educational principles have been derived from constructivism :

1.             Concept development and deep understanding are the goals of instruction, not behaviors or skills (Fosnot ).

2.             Learning is a constructive activity that students have to carry out. Students are active learners. The educator’s task is to provide students with opportunities to construct knowledge (Glaserfeld, 1996 ).

3.             The teacher must provide meaningful, authentic activities to help students construct understanding relevant to solving problems ( Wilson, 1996 ).

4.             Reflection of both content and the learning process is paramount.

5.             Collaborative groups should be used so that students can test their understandings and expand understanding of particular issues ( Savery & Duffy, 1996 ).

6.             Teachers need to “establish explicit linkages for students between new information taught in class and students’ past and future experiences…. Teachers summarize, review, and link main concepts at critical points throughout and at the conclusion of units and lessons” (Ennis, 1994, p. 167 ).

7.             Teachers must challenge the learner’s thinking (alternative frameworks, preconceptions).

From all of those, there is only one most important principle, which is the teacher should not merely provide knowledge to students. Students must construct their own knowledge in his mind. A teacher can help this process by teaching that make the information to be very meaningful and very relevant for students, by providing opportunities for students to discover or implement their own ideas and by inviting students to recognize and use their own strategies for learning. Teachers can give students the stairs to help the student reach their own invention.

E.          Learning Activity By Constructivism

This section will discuss the process of learning from the constructivism views about the aspects of learner, the role of teacher, learning tools, and evaluation of learning.

·                The learning process of constructivism in a conceptual manner when viewed from the cognitive approach is not only as the acquisition of information that goes in one direction from the outside into the learners by their experience through the process of assimilation and accommodation. The activity of learning is more viewed as the process of knowledge acquisition from the spread facts.

·                Role of students. According to this view, learning is a process of knowledge formation. The establishment must be carried out by the learners. He must actively work their activities, active thinking, develop concepts, and gives meaning about the things being studied. Teachers really can and should take the initiative to organize the environment, which provides optimal opportunities for the study. However, the most decisive factor of the realization of the learning symptoms is the learning intention of the learner itself.

·                Role of teachers. In this approach, teacher has an important role to helps student in order to the knowledge construction process done well. Teachers do not transfer knowledge that has been owned, but more in helping students to form his own knowledge.

·                Learning support. This approach emphasizes that the main role in the learning process are the activities of students in constructing their own knowledge. All things such as materials, media, equipment, and other facilities are provided to assist the formation of these.

·                Environment. This view suggests that the learning environment very supportive of the emergence of various views and interpretations of reality, knowledge construction, as well as other activities are based on experience.

F.          The Advantages

Based on the definitions, concepts, principles, and the learning activities of Constructivism Learning Theory, we can take a conclusion that constructivism learning theory has some advantages in the educational system, which are :

·                Applying Idea.

One of the advantages of constructivism theory is that learners will learn to apply their knowledge in order to get real experiences. According to constructivism theory, in the process of constructing new knowledge, learners is taught to be active to discover the problems and think to solve the problems based on their previous experiences or their own thought that they applied to get a new experience. Therefore, constructivism theory has a big contribution in improving the ability of learner to make a new idea and applying it to get the way out of their problems.

·                Understanding

In the constructivism theory, learners are directly involved in the constructing new knowledge. It is showed by the application of scaffolding concept in the learning activity. Scaffolding is a learning concept where teacher gives assistances to learner in order to they can learn to solve their problems. Those assistances can be directions, encouragements, warning, describing problems into solving steps, or gives the example of other actions that is possible for learners to learn or get an answer by themselves. So, in this concept, teacher does not solely give the answers of the learners’ problems. However, teacher only gives the directions or the ways to find the solution and learners actively solve their own problems by applying or practicing the direction. According to this concept, it can be concluded that constructivism theory is really help in improving the understanding of learners by applying the directions in the real experiment to get a new knowledge.

·                Metacognitive Skill

Metacognitive skill is an ability of someone to think the way of thinking a problem solving. Generally, metacognitive skill can be interpreted as the way to learn how to learn. In constructivism theory, learners are expected to be more active as long as the learning process, starting from describing their own problems until finishing those problems in a real experience. As long as the learning process, learner tries to learn how to learn their problems in order to get the result. Therefore, constructivism theory can increase the metacognitive skill of learners.

·                Social Skill

In the constructivism theory, teacher has to build an interactive learning condition by the methods such as question – answer method and sharing method. In the interactive condition, learners are able to be more active in improving their knowledge. The learner ability to interact can be useful in developing their social skill in society.

·                Learning Interest

Because learners is directly involved in the learning activity, they feel that they are the most important part in the learning activity. Learners are able to convey their opinion and applying their opinion to solve their problems. It can increase their learning interest as long as the learning activity.

G.          The Disadvantages

Although constructivism theory has many advantages, it does not mean that constructivism theory does not have disadvantages. In the real application, constructivism theory also has disadvantages, which are :

·                Contextualizing learning that is applied in the learning activity based on constructivism theory can hamper the learning process. Instead, it can make learners confuse and even frustration. In constructivism theory, teacher is prohibited to give the explicit explanation in order to learners learn step by step and can stimulate learners to ask and then try to find the answer by practicing and direct experience as long as the learning activity. However, it can hamper the learning process because it need more time to explain a material and in the early step, learners will confuse and even frustration.

·                Learners will enjoy this new approach of discovering learning, but do not always actively construct meaning and building an appropriate knowledge structure. Although the teaching concepts that are contained in constructivism theory feel enjoyable for learners and learners can increase their knowledge by their own experience, but in fact, not all of learners can feel those benefits. Learners build new knowledge based on the foundation of previously learned knowledge. This factor will make learning difficult for students who have poor short or long-term memory skills. Moreover, Instruction would be difficult for whole class activities due to the fact that many children have had different levels of exposure to various life experiences. Thus, children may have different schemas. In fact, many learners that easily imitate from what the better learners do when they cannot find the answer based on their experience. It makes good learner became better and vice versa.

·                Since children may interpret information differently, the teacher, who serves as a facilitator, must constantly check for understanding to ensure all are interpreting the information correctly. It needs a lot of time to conveying a material. Whereas, a material should be divided step by step in order to learners can apply in their own experience. So it also requires a lot of pre – planning for teacher.

H.      Conclusion

Constructivism is an approach that gives authorities and opportunities for learners to learn (learn how to learn) by fostering purpose and understanding within their own framework. Based on the experience, this situation demands that teachers are more concerned about learners’ needs and individual desires. Moreover, constructivism is a foundation that has to be applied and an aim that provides opportunities and open space to learners to realize their own idea in life.

Based on some views above, it can be concluded that learning refers to constructivism learning theory is more focused on student success in organizing their experiences and not on the submissive of learners in reflection of what has been ordered and carried out by teachers. In other words, students preferred to construct their own knowledge through assimilation and accommodation.

I.      References

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[The section on autism has become outdated; please disregard it.]

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Vygotski, L. S., (1978).  Mind in society:  The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press.

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Wood, T., Cobb, P., & Yackel, E. (1995).  Reflections on learning and teaching mathematics in elementary school.  In L. P. Steffe & J. Gale (Eds), Constructivism in education, pp. 401-422.  Hillsdale, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum.