1. Constructivism Prepared by: Shuhudha Rizwan (2007)

2. Carl Rogers

3. Rogers Rogers was the father of Humanistic Psychology Rogers believed that everyone wants to achieve their potential and to be true to themselves. He devised a person-centered therapy in which patients get help finding themselves. He was also the founder of student centered learning

4. Student (child) Centered Learning Humanistic education believes that education should involve the whole child instead of just his cognitive developments. The child’s physical, social, moral, and emotional development is equally important

5. Constructivism Theories that state that learners must individually discover and transform complex information, checking new information against old rules and revising rules when they no longer work. It is an active process in which the learners actively construct knowledge as they try to comprehend their worlds.

6. Constructivists believe that: Learning is the search for meaning. Mind is an inner representation of an outer reality. Knowledge resides in the mind, thus learning results from a personal interpretation of the world. Thought is grounded in perception and bodily experience. Meaning is constructed internally and it is developed on the basis of experience. Meaning requires understanding wholes as well as parts.

7. Historical roots of constructivism PiagetVygotskyBruner

8. Piaget and Constructivism Children learn by interacting with their environment. Children need to have physical experiences and manipulative objects in their environment to make developmental progress. With each new experience the child moves from his/her current understanding to construct new learning.

9. Look at this child She is faced with the problem of how to get the food from the bowl to her mouth. She solves the problem by using a spoon. At the same time she learns the muscle control and direction finding needed to feed herself. The knowledge that results from this action is not imitated or in-born. It is actively constructed by the child.

10. What will happen when the child is given a fork to eat with? She may use the fork in the same way as the spoon. assimilation of the new tool to existing skills and knowledge. Soon the child realises she can also use the fork to spike food. accommodation. The child’s actions and knowledge adapt to the new possibility and something new is created.

11. Did Piaget get it wrong? Under-estimated the role of adults in helping children to learn

12. Vygotsky and Social Constructivism Let’s return to our baby learning to feed herself with a spoon.

13. Social help This kind of help, targeted at what the baby can nearly, but not quite, do by herself is seen as particularly useful in encouraging development. Filling the spoon with food was an action in the baby’s zone of proximal development (ZPD). Now the child is faced with the problem of filling the spoon with food. She tries but cannot perform the task on her own

14. Zone of Proximal Development Zone of proximal development What the child can do on his/her own What the child can do with help from others Vygotsky believed that a child working alone will reach a certain level of understanding. However, he noticed that children can do much more with the help of someone more knowledgeable or skilled than themselves than they can do alone. The distance between these two levels is the Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD.

15. Bruner and scaffolding What is scaffolding? Scaffolding is a temporary structure that is often put up when constructing a new building. As each bit of the new building is finished, the scaffolding is taken down. The scaffolding is temporary, but essential for the successful construction of the building.

16. Scaffolding is a metaphor for the special kind of help that assists learners to move towards new skills, concepts or levels of understanding A teacher scaffolds learning when he/she helps a learner know how to do something, so that the learner will later be able to complete a similar task alone. Scaffolding helps learners to move towards new skills, concepts or levels of understanding. Good scaffolding is tuned to the needs of the child. Scaffolding is adjusted as the child becomes more competent. This view of learning challenges teachers to have high expectations of all pupils, but to provide adequate scaffolding for tasks to be completed successfully. Scaffolding in the classroom

17. There are similarities between Vygotsky and Bruner’s Social Constructivist theories about learning. Both highlight the importance of social interaction and leaning from working with others. The child is then able to move away from learning with others to more independent thought and behaviour. Vygotsky vs. Bruner

18. “What we can do with others today we can do on our own tomorrow.” Vygotsky