CONSTRUCTIVISM APPROACH IN SCIENCE

Constructivism as a paradigm or worldview posits that learning is an active, constructive process. The learner is an information constructor. People actively construct or create their own subjective representations of objective reality. New information is linked to to prior knowledge, thus mental representations are subjective

DEFINITION:-

Teaching philosophy based on the concept that learning (cognition) is the result of 'mental construction' - students construct their own understanding by reflecting on their personal experiences, and by relating the new knowledge with what they already know. Each student creates his or her own 'schemas' or mental-models to make sense of the world, and accommodates the new knowledge (learns) by adjusting them. One of its main principles is that learning is search for meaning, therefore, to be effective, a teacher must help the student in discovering his or her own meaning.

Constructivism in the Classroom:-

Constructivist teachers focus more on learning through activity, rather than learning from textbooks. The teacher will make an effort to understand their students' preexisting conceptions and use active techniques, such as real-world problem solving and experiments, to address the students' conceptions and build on them. In a constructivist classroom, teachers encourage students to question themselves, their strategies and assess how the various activities are enriching their understanding. Students become expert learners in actively constructing knowledge instead of reproducing a series of facts.

OBJECTIVES:-

Upon the completion of the topic students should:

know the main concepts of the constructivist theory so that be able to read and understand pedagogic literature and use their knowledge in their lesson preparation and in the description of pedagogic tasks;
know some of constructivist theories;
be able to name some of constructivist methods and approaches;
be able to describe the role of the teacher according to the constructivist theory;
know some of the constructivist ideas on teaching environment.

Advantages:-

There are some advantages to constructivism teaching. This method of teaching is effective for students who learn better in a hands-on environment and helps students to better relate the information learned in the classroom to their lives. The constructivism curriculum also caters to the students' prior knowledge, encourages teachers to spend more time on the students' favorite topics and allows teachers to focus on important and relevant information. In a constructivism classroom, students often work in groups. This helps students learn social skills, support each other's learning process and value each other's opinion and input.

Disadvantages:-

There are also some disadvantages to constructivism teaching. The training necessary for constructive teaching is extensive and often requires costly long-term professional development. This may be unreasonable for school budgets as well as disruptive to the students' learning. With an average number of students in one classroom, teachers are unable to customize the curriculum to each student, as their prior knowledge will vary. The constructivism curriculum also eliminates standardized testing and grades. This eliminates grade-centered goals and rewards as well as the comparisons of student statewide or district-specific progress.

Principles of Constructivist Learning:-

There are nine general principles of learning that are derived from constructivism. These nine principles according Vermette, Foote, Bird, Mesibow, Harris-Ewing and Battaglia (2001) are:
1. Learning is an active process in which the learner uses sensory input and constructs meaning out of it;
2. People learn to learn as they learn. Learning consists both of constructing meaning and constructing systems of meaning;
3. Physical actions and hands on experience may be necessary for learning, especially for children, but is not sufficient; we need to provide activities which engage the mind as well as the hand. Dewey called this reflective activity.
4. Learning involves language: the language that we use influences our learning. Lev Vygotsky, a psychologist that helped in the theory of constructivism, argued that language and learning are inextricably intertwined;
5. Learning is a social activity: our learning is intimately associated with our connection with other human beings, our teacher, our peers, our family, as well as casual acquaintances. Dewey pointed out that most of traditional learning is directed toward isolating the learner from social interaction, and towards seeing education as a one-on-one relationship between the learner and the objective material being learned;
6. Learning is contextual: we learn in relationship to what else we know, what we believe, our prejudices and our fears;
7. One needs knowledge to learn: it is not possible to absorb new knowledge without having some structure developed from previous knowledge to build on. The more we know, the more we learn;
8. Learning is not instantaneous: it takes time to learn. For significant learning we
need to revisit ideas, ponder them, try them out, play with them, and use them.
Principles of Constructivist Teaching:-

In the book A Case for Constructivist Classrooms, M. G. Brooks describes the principles of constructivist teaching:
1. Encouraging and accepting students’ independence and initiative;
2. Interest in knowledge and convictions which students already have about the theme considered;
3. While planning their lessons teachers use cognitive terminology and expressions, such as “classify”, “analyze”, and “create”.
4. Students are given the opportunity to take responsibility in learning, to substitute instruction’s strategies, and to change the content;
5. Welcoming students in the world of contradictions;
6. Encouraging the dialogue between teacher and students , and also encouraging discussions between students;
7. Organization of students’ activity to be build in such a way which stimulates thinking by means of putting questions which open answer, and encouraging students to ask questions to one another;
8. Involvement of students in an experiment that could cause discrepancy between their current and their initial hypotheses, and so a discussion to arise;
9. Waiting with patience for students’ answers, and giving enough time to students for building relations and hypotheses;
10. Stimulating students’ natural studiousness through using frequently the model of educational cycle: phase of discovering, constructing a new knowledge, putting into practice the new knowledge .
  Alternative conceptions and conceptual frameworks in science education :-
  
  Learners' ideas in science have been variously labelled alternative conceptions as alternative conceptual frameworks, preconceptions, scientific misconceptions, naive theories etc. Although some scholars have attempted to distinguish between these terms, there is no consensual usage and often these terms are in effect synonymous.^[17] It has been found that some alternative conceptions are very common, although others appear quite idiosyncratic. Some seem to be readily overcome in teaching, but others have proved to be tenacious and to offer a challenge to effective instruction. Sometimes it is considered important to distinguish fully developed conceptions (i.e., explicit ways of understanding aspects of the natural work that are readily verbalised) from more 'primitive' features of cognition acting at a tacit level, such as the so-called phenomenology primitives.^[24] The 'knowledge-in-pieces' perspective suggests the latter act as resources for new learning which have potential to support the development of either alternative or canonical knowledge according to how teachers proceed,^[25] whereas alternative conceptions (or misconceptions) tend to be seen as learning impediments to be overcome. What research has shown is the prevalence among learners at all levels of alternative ways to thinking about just about all science topics and a key feature of guidance to teachers is to elicit students' ideas as part of the teaching process. The success of constructivism is that this is now largely taken-for-granted in science teaching and has become part of standard teaching guidance in many contexts.^[26] Previously there was a strong focus on the abstract nature of concepts to be learnt,^[27] but little awareness that often the teacher was not seeking to replace ignorance with knowledge, but rather to modify and develop learners existing thinking which was often at odds with the target knowledge set out in the curriculum. Analysis of constructivist teaching:-
  
  The following researchers' work which advocated constructivist learning were studied and referred to for a more systematic and objective observation:
  1. the five characteristics of constructivist teaching outlined by Appleton and Asoko (1996) to infer the use of constructivist views of learning by teachers to inform teaching;
  2. Kober's (1993) picture of an emerging consensus about the knowledge and skills that science teachers should possess when enacting a constructivist approach;
  3. Novodvorsky's (1997) nine components which describe the teacher's role in guiding the students construction of knowledge;
  4. Yager's (1991) Constructivist Learning Model (CLM); and,
  5. Novak's (1998) comparison of teaching practices under the traditional paradigm with those under contemporary constructivist views.
  To avoid overlap among the features of constructivist teaching described by the above researchers, and to make the evaluation of lesson more comprehensive, a set of characteristics of constructivist teaching was developed. This list describes a teaching approach that advocates science learning as an active process which focuses on pupils' understanding and use of scientific ideas and inquiry processes. The construction of the set of characteristics that describe constructivist teaching itself can be considered objective in the sense as argued by Galton (1995) that the criteria used to describe classroom life are clearly defined, thus, when the system is used correctly it is unaffected by the personal biases of the observer. The features of constructivist teaching were grouped into six domains with altogether 22 items (in Figure 1) utilized as a guide to evaluating and categorizing classroom teaching. Teachers' teaching performance in their three observed lessons, once a year, were rated according to the 22 features that describe constructivist teaching, with a 4-point rating ranging from strongly agree (3), agree (2), slightly agree (1) to not observed (0).
  
  The teaching of each student teacher was rated towards the end of lesson observation to the extent to which it reflected constructivist teaching. For example, a teacher who started the lesson by involving pupils in talking about the knowledge/content/concept learned in previous lesson/year was considered as exhibiting awareness of pupils' existing ideas. However, the rating of this practice of teaching with either "strongly agree" or "agree" and "slightly agree" depended on the breadth and depth of treatment. Another example was on the rating of the category "pupils explain phenomenon". Sometimes teachers were not found to involve pupils in explaining phenomenon throughout the whole lesson, the rating would then be 0 - "not observed". If this practice of teaching was rarely found, the rating would then be 1 - "slight agree", so on and so forth. The ratings of the teaching were clarified and confirmed by studying the video recordings of lessons and cross-checking with the observational field notes. This was to ensure the ratings were really describing teachers' performance with each particular item.
  
  Conclusion:-
  
  Constructivist learning theory is not meant to replace cognitive learning theory, rather it is meant to enhance it. Engaging, collaborative, productive learning activities can enhance even the best of cognitivist instruction. As you continue to explore the best ways to help students learn, keep a copy of this ALE Checklist nearby to ensure that your instruction provides them with an experience to remember.

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