makalah constructivism

CONSTRUCTIVIST VIEW OF LEARNING

1.    Introduction

Constructivism is a natural progression from cognitivism. However cognitivism focuses on how information is processed, whereas constructivism focuses on what people do with information to develop knowledge. In particular, constructivism holds that people actively build knowledge and understanding by synthesizing the knowledge they already possess with new information. For constructivists, learning is an active process through which learners ‘construct’ new meaning.

According to the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors (Houston, 1995), constructivism is a "viewpoint in learning theory which holds that individuals acquire knowledge by building it from innate capabilities interacting with the environment" (p. 64). Constructivist theory suggests that as students learn, they do not simply memorize or take on others' conceptions of reality; instead, they create their own meaning and understanding.

We can see the distinction between cognitivism and constructivism if we consider an example such as reading. This activity requires the cognitive processes of perception and recognition of the shapes of letters, as well as the recall of their sounds from memory. But if a book is to be understood, the reader must construct an understanding of the meaning of the text and what it means to the reader.

2.    Main categories of constructivist theory

Rather than one unified theory, constructivism is a broad group of theories that explains knowledge acquisition and learning. It has links to other fields including social science, philosophy, politics and history, each of which recognizes that learners interpret and make their own sense of experience and the information they receive.

Here we will discuss the categories of constructivism that are most relevant to learning and education – trivial constructivism, social constructivism and critical constructivism:

a.      Trivial constructivism

According to trivial constructivism, people construct mental models of the way things are. These mental models – or ‘constructs’ – form personal understandings. When new information is received, the new mental constructs have to be accommodated within previously existing constructs. The new knowledge is adapted rather than adopted.

Within certain limits, different learners receive different impressions of any new information because this information is being accommodated within the learners’ different and previously existing constructs. This has significant implications for the learning and teaching process because teachers must be aware that learners bring different mental frameworks to that process. Moreover, constructivism says that learning is a personal act, but not to the extent that learning is completely different for every individual, rendering shared meaning impossible. The two psychologists who associated with this trivial constructivism are Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner.

1.      Jean Piaget  (1896–1980)

He is known as the pioneer and parent of constructivist thought. His theory of cognitive development, ‘Life course development’, is based on the idea that children’s active engagement with their environment leads them to the construction of meaning and to learning. Play is particularly important for cognitive development, because this is when children actively explore the world. Piaget (1969) argued that cognitive development and conceptual change occur as a result of interactions between existing cognitive structures and new experience.

According to Piaget, children must go through the process of reconfiguration of their own mental schema for themselves. Teachers must not interfere with this process by imposing their ready-made solutions because children will accept their authority without making the knowledge their own (Piaget 1972). These views led to the ‘discovery learning’ school movement of the 1960s in which children were encouraged to discover the principles of subjects such as mathematics and science through processes of exploration. Although Piaget’s theory has been criticized for its emphasis on the individual at the expense of social or cultural learning, his contribution to developmental and educational theory has been significant.

Piaget's theory has two major parts: an "ages and stages"  component that predicts what children can and cannot understand at different ages, and a theory of development that describes how children develop cognitive abilities.

There are a two key Piagetian principles for teaching and learning:

a.       Learning is an active process: Direct experience, making errors, and looking for solutions are vital for the assimilation and accommodation of information.

b.      Learning should be whole, authentic, and "real": Piaget helps us to understand that meaning is constructed as children interact in meaningful ways with the world around them

2.      Bruner

According to the American psychologist Jerome Bruner, learning is goal-directed and driven by curiosity. Bruner adopted Piaget’s ideas about active learning to form the basis of his principles of instruction and discovery learning (Bruner 1960). Over his long career, Bruner moved from a cognitivist investigation of the principles underlying concept-formation (Bruner et al. 1956) to a more sophisticated constructivist position in The Culture of Education (Bruner 1996), which examines the social importance of language and culture in meaning-making.

Bruner believed that learning involves three processes:

a.    knowledge acquisition, in which the learner asks, ‘Does this confirm or refine my previous knowledge?’ or ‘Does this challenge my previous knowledge?’;

b.    knowledge transformation, in which the learner asks, ‘What other things can this knowledge now do?’;

c.    knowledge review, in which the learner asks, ‘Is the knowledge relevant?’ and ‘Is this knowledge adequate for the job in hand?’

He also considered that, to become mature thinkers, people must acquire three major

intellectual skills for representing the world (Bruner 1966). In children, these usually appear in the sequence shown in this table:

Mode	Representation	Example
Enactive	This is direct knowledge of how to do something.	A child sees herself in a mirror.
Iconic	Knowledge is represented by internal images that stand for an idea.	An older child (5 to 7 years) may draw a mirror including a reflection.
Symbolic	More abstract and flexible thought occurs. Language is the main tool for reflective thinking.	An adolescent may describe the physic of reflection for a plane mirror

b. Social constructivism

Social constructivism emphasizes the role played by society and culture in learning. In this category of constructivist thought, culture and social communities shape the manner in which individuals perceive, interpret and attach meanings to their experiences; society forms how and what people think. Knowledge is constructed in the context of the environment in which it is encountered. In particular, social constructivists argue that knowledge is the result of social interaction and language use. Social constructivism is most closely associated with the work of Lev Vygotsky and Albert Bandura.

a.    Vygotsky

He emphasized social processes as the means by which all reasoning and understanding arises. In particular, interactions with parents and other important adults lead to the creation of knowledge, which is internalized by children.

Language is the most important ‘tool’ for social interaction and knowledge construction. Vygotsky argued that language is an external tool that children use first to communicate – for example, with their parents – and next to ‘think out loud’.

Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky affirms the role of teachers and experts in guiding learning. As well as passing on theoretical knowledge, teachers support learners in the learning process. The concept for which Vygotsky is best known is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This is an intellectual space where learner and teacher interact. The teacher can gauge intellectual development of the learner and provide the appropriate support to advance the learner’s thinking. With teacher support, learners can achieve more than they would unaided. More knowledgeable peers can perform the same function as teachers (Vygotsky 1978: 86).

b.    Albert Bandura

Whereas Vygotsky argued that people learn by means of language – that is, by discussing concepts – the Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura went further and proposed that imitation of others is a cognitively efficient means of learning. In a series of famous experiments in the 1960s Bandura showed kindergarten children a film of a woman playing with a Bobo doll – an inflatable clown weighted at the bottom so that it righted itself when knocked down. The Bobo doll experiment demonstrated what Bandura called ‘observational learning’ or ‘modeling’ (Bandura et al. 1961). In everyday life, modelling is evident in the way children like to play with toy versions of machines and domestic appliances that they see their parents using. Modeling involves imitative rather than original behaviour, but it can be seen in a constructivist light – that is, people adapt modelled behaviour as a mental framework for their own purposes. From an educational point of view, it is clear that much learning occurs by observation. Modelling is part of all learning – for example, in most subjects teachers will present examples of good work that they would like students to use.

c.         Critical constructivism

Critical constructivism, also known as ‘critical pedagogy’, is particularly applicable to the adult and community education context. This view of learning gives primary importance to raising people’s consciousness of the social and cultural conditions. It emphasizes the importance of people being self-reflective, of their being able to challenge dominant social views and articulate counter views. The background to critical constructivism’s concern with power relations may be understood in relation to the thinking of Michel Foucault. His analysis of power relations informs the work of two important critical constructivists considered here, Paulo Freire and Jürgen Habermas.

1.      Michel Foucault

According to the French philosopher Michel Foucault, knowledge is inextricably linked with power. Foucault saw fields of knowledge – that is, disciplines – as types of ‘discourse’, which consist of theories, practices, attitudes and habits. People internalize these discourses, which means that they generally do not have to be coerced into thinking and behaving in socially acceptable ways.

He also argued that psychiatry developed as a means of containment and control of the mentally abnormal, and that the nineteenth-century development of statistics contributed to governmental knowledge and control of populations. For Foucault, social knowledge is always politically charged, a claim with which Freire would have concurred.

2.      Paulo Freire

Freire’s educational ideas were influenced by liberation theology, Marxism and anti-colonialism. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), he stressed the need for a new kind of education for oppressed peoples, which would not be merely an imposition of the colonizer’s culture but which would allow people to see how their individual circumstances were in fact a product of that culture. This could lead to a form of ‘praxis’, in which people’s knowledge of their situation develops in tandem with their action within it and upon it, as they seek to change it (Hamilton 2002: 18).

Freire was also opposed to what he referred to as the ‘banking’ model of education – that is, a model of education in which teachers deposit knowledge into students’ accounts. He disliked the way this model positions learners as passive, because this reinforces dominant ideologies and social structures. Similarly, he objected to the separation of teacher and student roles, which he felt reinforced conventional power relations, and he argued that the relationship should be more democratic and reciprocal. For this reason, the teachers in his literacy schemes were the peasants themselves.

3.      Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas claimed that reason and knowledge are constructed through the act of communication between people (McGuigan 2002). He calls this use of reason ‘pragmatic’ because it is practical and directed towards action. Reason is specific to the context in which it is used; what counts as reasonable in a particular case may need to be revised in the light of usefulness and experience (Habermas 1992).

Habermas calls this construction of reason and knowledge by means of the social practice of communication ‘communicative rationality’ (Cooke 1994). It can proceed only on the basis of agreement on principles and on adherence to truth and honesty, and disagreement can be resolved only through explicit and rational procedures. In reasoned argument, speakers claim that what they say is right, true and honest, and they offer to justify these claims if challenged. When challenged, speakers must be able to offer reasons that are acceptable to both parties. If not, the communication is unacceptable because it is irrational. Communication therefore is an instrument through which knowledge is constructed and shared and through which moral values are expressed. The act of mutual understanding achieved through communication is a basis for coordinating action. Nowhere is this more important than in the social and political sphere, where democratic ‘communicative rationality’ or debate can relate sociological and other knowledges to the problems of society (Morrison 2001: 220). Indeed, it is through communication that people can begin to understand and question their social and political circumstances.

3.        Educational implications of constructivism

1.      Trivial constructivism: Piaget and education

Piaget suggested that teachers should:

a.       nurture pupils’ playfulness and natural curiosity about the world;

b.      use raw data and primary sources;

c.       provide physical, interactive and manipulative materials for pupils to work on;

d.      use cognitive terminology such as ‘classify’, ‘analyse’, ‘predict’ and ‘create’;

e.       encourage and accept learner autonomy and initiative;

f.       create opportunities for exploratory classroom discussion;

g.      engage pupils in experiences likely to engender cognitive conflict.

2.      Trivial constructivism: Bruner and education

For Bruner, the teacher’s task is to develop children’s skills at particular ages, in different modes of representation. Bruner claims that any subject can be taught in some form to anybody at any age (Bruner 1960). The skill, of course, is to present knowledge in forms that are appropriate to the various ages of child learners. Thus, Bruner suggests that the following activities may be appropriate to his three representational modes:

Mode Activity

Enactive children should handle things, actually or virtually.

Iconic children should see and imagine things.

Symbolic children should perform symbolic operations.

3.      Social constructivism: Vygotsky and education

Vygotskian thinkers have developed his theories to include guided learning and scaffolding.

Guided learning: joint knowledge construction aided by skilful teacher-managed discussion.

Scaffolding: supports which help learners to construct new knowledge.

Scaffolding may consist of resources, challenging activities and mentoring provided by teachers or more experienced peers. Scaffolding is a powerful metaphor as it suggests supports that are gradually withdrawn when learners have constructed their understanding and can act independently.

The level of scaffolding required is also affected by how far into the ZPD learners have progressed. Four stages have been identified in learners’ progression through the ZPD:

1 Scaffolding is provided by others.

2 Scaffolding is provided by learners themselves – for example, by self-talk.

3 Scaffolding becomes redundant as learners act automatically.

4 Scaffolding is required again if there are changes in the task or context.

(Tharp and Gallimore 1988)

Scaffolding strategies for the classroom

In order to scaffold learning, teachers should:

a.       provide time for pupils to construct relationships with each other;

b.      allow pupils’ responses to drive lessons, determining the teaching methodology and content;

c.       inquire about pupils’ understanding of concepts, including false understandings, before sharing their own understanding of these concepts;

d.      encourage pupils to engage in dialogue with the teacher and with each other;

e.       encourage inquiry by asking open-ended questions and encouraging peer questioning;

f.       seek elaboration of pupils’ responses to questions;

g.      wait for a response after asking questions;

h.      create metaphors and use different teaching styles to aid mental representation;

i.        model the behaviour or the techniques to be acquired.

4.      Critical constructivism and education

Critical constructivism suggests that educators need to be aware of the unequal power relationships between educational providers, teachers and pupils. Critical constructivism’s ideas are:

a.       Knowledge is situated and constructed in social contexts.

b.      The learner is an active agent in the interpretation of the world.

c.       Constructivism focuses on meaning-making and the understanding of knowledge.

d.      Learning involves the interpretation of experience to construct meaning.

e.       Mental constructs may be modified as a result of confirmation or challenge.

f.       Other people are important in the formation and modification of mental constructs.

4.      The implication of constructivism in learning strategy

In the constructivist approach , the task of the teacher is to help students to be able to construct knowledge according to the concrete situation. Thus, teaching strategies also need to be tailored to the needs, circumstances and conditions of the students. There is no a teaching strategy which can be used anywhere and in any situation. It means, the teachers should develop their own strategy. Regarding to teaching strategies, constructivist teacher will teach in accordance with the following characteristics (Driver & Oldham in Methews, 1994; Suparno, 1997).

a.    Orientation. Students are given the opportunity to develop motivation in learning a topic, given the opportunity to make observations on the topic.

b.    Elicit.  Pupils are helped to express ideas clearly in discussion, writing, making posters, etc.

c.    Reconstruction of ideas. In this case there are three main points:

i.       Clarification of ideas that contrasted with the ideas of other people / friends through discussion / gathering ideas. Dealing with other people's ideas, students will be motivated to reconstruct the idea when not fit and will be more confident when they have the same idea.

ii.    Building a new idea in the discussion of ideas, especially when they have conflict with someone else's idea or ideas can not answer questions of others.

iii.  Evaluate ideas / new ideas through a trial.

d.      Using the idea in many situations. Ideas or knowledge already established by student needs to be applied in a variety of circumstances faced by students, knowledge becomes more complete and more detailed.

e.       Review, how the idea is changed. It may be occurred in daily situations, a learner needs to revise his ideas either by adding a description or perhaps by turning it into more complete.

Here are examples of some of the conditions of learning (language) in accordance with the philosophy of constructivism. Discussions or brainstorming that provides opportunities for all students are able to express opinions and ideas. Demonstrations and practical demonstration of language skills. Another practical activities that provide opportunities for students to question, modify, and refine ideas.
From the descriptions and examples that have been described above, there are some basic principles of constructivism learning:

1) knowledge constructed by students actively
2) the emphasis of learning process is on student
3) teaching process  is  helping students to learn
4) the emphasis in learning is more on the process rather than on the end result
5) curriculum emphasizes on student participation
6) the teacher is a facilitator

5. Learning Models based on constructivism
There are many different methods in teaching-learning based on constructivist learning theory. The teachers try to avoid direct teaching (giving information) and seeks to guide students raises many questions (problems) and activities to discover, discuss, appreciate and expose new knowledge .

Top of Form

One of the main purposes of using constructivist teaching model is that students can learn how to learn by giving them a variety of exercises to be willing and able to do their best to get their own learning experience.
According to Audrey Gray, the characteristics of constructivist teaching and learning activities as follows:
a. the learners are actively involved

b. the environment is democratic

c. the activities are interactive and student-centered
d. The teacher facilitates a process of learning in which students are encouraged to be responsible and autonomous

Based on the theory of J. Peaget and Vygotsky, learning in the classroom can be designed as follows:

1. The identification of prior knowledge and misconceptions. The identification is done with the initial test, interview
2. Constructing Learning programming. The program is described in the form of units of lesson plan.
3. Elicit and orientation, a conducive situation and fun learning are necessary to create at the beginning of learning to generate interest in the topic to be discussed. Students are guided so that they would put forward the idea of ​​intuitive as possible about the physical symptoms they observed in daily life environments. Explore the ideas through discussion, writing, drawing illustrations and so on. These ideas are then considered together. Learning atmosphere is relaxed and less intimidating for  students to eliminate the worries when their ideas are wrong. Teachers must refrain from judging. The truth of students’ idea will be answered and expressed by themselves through the stages of cognitive conflict reasoning.
4. Reflection. In this phase, various misconception ideas that arise in the orientation and elicit phase are reflected  by the misconceptions that have been captured at an early stage.
5. Reconstructing ideas, (a) giving the challenge, students were given the questions about characteristic in a kind of text.  They were asked to analyze the generic structure of it. (b) cognitive conflict and class discussions. Students will see whether their analysis  are right or wrong . If their analysis goes wrong, they will experience cognitive conflict and start dissatisfied with their ideas. Then they are encouraged to think about the simplest explanation that can explain as much as possible the characteristic of  text they have learned. Attempt to find an explanation is done by a process of confrontation through discussion with a friend or teacher as facilitator and mediator. (c) re-establish a conceptual framework. Students are led to discover their own  new concepts that have internal consistency. It indicates that a new concept is better than the old one.
6. Applications. Convince students from misconceptions to scientific conception. Encourage them to apply these scientific concepts in a variety of situations to solve problems instructive and later empirically test completion.
7. Review conducted to measure the success of the learning strategies that have taken place in an effort to reduce misconceptions that appear at the beginning of learning.

CONCLUSION

The role of teachers is very important within the constructivism learning theory. Instead of giving a lecture the teachers in this theory function as facilitators whose role is to aid the student when it comes to their own understanding. This takes away focus from the teacher and lecture and puts it upon the student and their learning. The resources and lesson plans that must be initiated for this learning theory take a very different approach toward traditional learning as well. Instead of telling, the teacher must begin asking. Instead of answering questions that only align with their curriculum, the facilitator in this case must make it so that the student comes to the conclusions on their own instead of being told. Also, teachers are continually in conversation with the students, creating the learning experience that is open to new directions depending upon the needs of the student as the learning progresses. Teachers following Piaget's theory of constructivism must challenge the student by making them effective critical thinkers and not being merely a "teacher" but also a mentor, a consultant, and a coach.