Constructivism
Learning is active, and builds on previous knowledge.
The emergence of constructivist learning theory is credited to Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who realized that a child’s experiences, ideas, and perceptions are a foundation on which their learning is built. His view of learning was that it was an individual process, in which students construct knowledge through their independent explorations. Later psychologists like Jerome Bruner and Lev Vygotsky built on this theory, adding that learning is more social than independent and that children’s learning can benefit greatly from the guidance of adult teachers or more knowledgeable peers.
Based on constructivism, Bruner developed the method of scaffolding by which children are able to learn from “helpful, structured interaction between an adult and a child with the aim of helping the child achieve a specific goal” (McLeod, 2019, July 11).
Similarly, Vygotsky elaborated on Piaget’s theory to develop social constructivism, named for its stress on the role that culture, community, and More Knowledgeable Others play in a child’s learning process. The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) is one of two key principles to Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism. An MKO is anyone or anything that is more knowledgeable than the learner; this could be an adult teacher, but could be a peer or even a book or computer program (McLeod, 2019).
The Zone of Proximal Development is the bridge between a child’s actual developmental level and their potential developmental level.
An MKO is instrumental in learning because they/it can help stretch a learner’s knowledge or abilities beyond what they already know. Vygotsky’s second key principle is around how far a student’s knowledge or abilities can be stretched for learning to be effective — there is a sweet spot between what is known and what is not known that Vygotsky calls the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and it is what the student can do or understand with help from an MKO. Another way to understand the ZPD is as the bridge between a child’s actual developmental level and their potential developmental level (Vygotsky, 1978). With the right attention and guidance, a student can master the skills or knowledge in their ZPD and as their learning develops, so too will the ZPD grow to encompass another, harder skill or more complex concept of understanding.
The image above illustrates the concept of ZPD. The first, blue area depicts what the student already knows (how to walk on flat ground). The last, pink area shows what is not known to the learner (how to ascend very big steps). The middle, purple area is the student’s ZPD. With the help of an MKO, the learner can take baby steps (literally) to learn how to climb the stairs. The MKO gradually helps the student learn by demonstrating and climbing the stairs with them, and then lessening their assistance and maybe only offering words of encouragement or tips while the learner tries to do it on their own.
Once the student masters the abilities that before were just out of reach, you can imagine that in this example the purple area would become blue and known, and the pink area would become the new ZPD. By only teaching the student what is just out of reach, they are not overwhelmed and can really master not only the skill but the learning process that will help them learn new skills in the future.
Theory in Action: Example of Practical Application
In my Behaviorism article I wrote my plan to teach the deep cleansing breath technique through behaviorism. While a behaviorist approach has its benefits, I see how the breathing lesson can be made more effective by designing some of the lesson’s elements around constructivist theory and tactics, such as building on the learner’s previous knowledge and understanding and adding peer group activities. A social constructivist approach is also beneficial in furthering the learner’s journey from the foundational breathing into beginning to practice meditation.
In his book, Teaching in a Digital Age, Bates (2015) explains that from a constructivist point of view:
individuals consciously strive for meaning to make sense of their environment in terms of past experience and their present state… Problems are resolved, and incongruities sorted out, through strategies such as seeking relationships between what was known and what is new, identifying similarities and differences, and testing hypotheses or assumptions.
To teach the deep cleansing breath technique, we absolutely need to take into account how this new method of breathing compares to learners’ current knowledge of and method for breathing since the two are often quite different. Starting with recognizing how people breathe naturally is a good frame of reference for implementing the new technique. Having learners observe how they breathe naturally and asking them to think about why that is would be helpful for them as well — do they breathe slowly or quickly, is the breathing shallow or deep, do they tend to hold their belly in or let it inflate on the inhale, do they consider their posture? After demonstrating the deep cleansing breath technique I would put the learners into pairs so they can take turns observing each other and offering positive reinforcement and suggestions to each other to improve their technique. Letting the learners explain it in their own words helps not only their own learning but also the their partner’s learning by hearing it described in a few different ways.
Once the learners master the deep cleansing breath, I will have them use it as they begin to learn how to meditate. As we move into this next lesson, I see the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as being the ability to meditate for a specified length of time — starting with 5 minutes, then extending it (moving the ZPD) as they develop the skill. A big component of meditation is building the attention muscle, and in today’s instant-gratification-driven age the attention span needs to be exercised to grow.
A scaffolding technique I will use is leading the learners through guided meditations. It can be difficult and frustrating to start learning meditation as just sitting quietly and trying to clear the mind of thoughts, so guiding the learners through sitting still and breathing, bringing their attention to different senses, and acknowledging thoughts as they arise and then letting them go can be an effective and less intimidating introduction to mindfulness. As their learning progresses, I’ll gradually remove the scaffolding by offering less guiding direction and by spacing out the guiding direction to allow for longer chunks of time for the learner to sit and meditate on their own in silence.
A social constructivist strategy I will implement will be that of group discussion, likely by having the learners break off into small groups first and then sharing some of their discussion highlights with the class as a whole. I will ask them to discuss these two questions:
1) A helpful tactic for acknowledging and letting go of thoughts while meditating can be to picture them as tangible objects like bubbles floating and then popping, or leaves dropping into a river and being carried away. What imagery do you like to think of while meditating?
2) How do you want to incorporate mindfulness practice into your life? Is there a time of a day you think meditation would be the most beneficial to you? Would you use it before or after some kind of event, occurrence, or when feeling a certain emotion?
This second question helps employ a specific social constructivist strategy called “situated learning” which argues that for knowledge “to be useful, it must be situated in a relevant or ‘authentic’ context” (University College Dublin, n.d.). Having the learners define the context meditation will be used in will help them learn it in a more meaningful and personal way.
References
Bates, A. W. (2015). Teaching in a Digital Age. Tony Bates
Associates Ltd. EBOOK ISBN 978–0–9952692–0–0.McLeod, S. A. (2019, July 11). Bruner — Learning Theory in
Education. SimplyPsychology.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.htmlMcLeod, S. A. (2019). What Is the Zone of Proximal Development?
SimplyPsychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-
Proximal-Development.htmlUniversity College Dublin. (n.d.). Constructivism and Social
Constructivism in the Classroom. UCD Teaching and Learning Open
Educational Resources.
http://www.ucdoer.ie/index.php/Education_Theory/Constructivism
_and_Social_Constructivism_in_the_ClassroomVygotsky, L. S. (1978). Interaction Between Learning and
Development. In Gauvain & Cole (Eds). Readings on the
Development of Children. New York: Scientific American Books.
pp. 34–40.
