Summary:

Learning is an active, constructive process.

The learner is an information constructor.

New information is linked to prior knowledge.

 

Originators and contributors:

Vygotsky

Piaget

Dewey

Vico

Rorty

Bruner

 

Keywords:

Learning as an experience, activity and dialogical process, Problem-based learning (PBL), Anchored instructions, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), scaffolding, inquiry and discover learning.

 

Constructivism:

A theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. It is the interaction between human experiences and their reflexes or behaviour/patterns, known by Piaget as systems of knowledge schemata, whereby new knowledge is created through processes of accommodation and assimilation.

 

Theories:

Bransford – Anchored instruction

Collins et al – Cognitive apprenticeship

Lave and Wenger – Communities of practice

Siemens, Downes – Connectivism

Bruner – Discovery learning

New London Group – Multiliteracies

de Saussure, Bathes, Bakhtin – Semiotics

Vygotsky – Social development theory

PBL – Problem-based learning

Lave – Situated learning