Constructivism is a theory about how people learn (based on observation and scientific study). It's an approach that: (a) gives learners the opportunity for concrete, contextually meaningful experience through where they can search for patterns, raise their own questions, and construct their own models; (b) facilitates a community of learners to engage in activity, discourse, and reflection; and (c) encourages students to take on more ownership of the ideas, and to pursue autonomy, mutual reciprocity of social relations, and empowerment to be the goals (Constructivism and Learning, n.d.). In a constructivist classroom: (a) students' autonomy and initiative are accepted and encouraged; (b) teachers ask open-ended questions and allow wait time …show more content…
For designing learning, Driscoll states several constructivist principles (Constructivism and Learning, n.d.): (a) embed learning in complex, realistic and relevant environments, (b) provide a social negotiation as an integral part of learning, (c) support multiple perspectives and the use of multiple modes of representation, (d) encourage ownership in learning, (e) nurture self-awareness of the knowledge construction process. Constructivism, however, disagrees with the beliefs that knowledge is an identifiable entity with absolute truth value, meaning is passed on to learners through symbols or communication, learners incorporate teacher's understanding for their own use, or concepts can be broken into separate sub-skills, and concepts can be taught out of context (Constructivism and Learning, n.d.). Constructing Knowledge in the Classroom (n.d.) suggest easing into constructivism when presenting it to one's classroom because student autonomy and learner-driven