Accomidating Differences

Collaborative Learning Community: Constructivist Teaching: Then and Now

Chelsey Bryant

Sienisha Cooper

Christina St. Marthe

Grand Canyon University: EED-364

August 24, 2014

Constructivist Theory in Elementary Science

The most powerful learning experiences occur when teachers can help students internalize new material. This kind of learning is the focus of the Constructivist Theory of education (Ismet, 2010). In the Constructivist Theory, teachers use past experiences and knowledge of students in order to help them learn and understand new material. This type of instruction can be particularly important for a subject like science. Many topics relate, build, and expand on one another, so using Constructivist instruction helps students to build on their prior learning and knowledge with new material.

Jerome Bruner, John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky are all psychologist who influenced the construction of constructivist teaching. While each of them held a part of influencing the creation of the constructivist teaching J. Piaget had the biggest influence on the creation, while L. Vygotsky held a major part in social constructivism. Jean Piaget philosophy was children progress through a series of four key stages of cognitive development. Each stage is marked by shirts in how kids understand the world. The four stages that were a part of his philosophy are the sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2), preoperational stage (age 2 to about age 7), concrete operational stage (age 7to 11) and the formal operational stage (adolescence to span into adulthood) and each of these stages help the children with their cognitive development. Jean believed that children actively explore to try to make sense of the things around them. Lev Vygotsky believed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development. (Ozer, 2004) His main focus was on the connections between people and the sociocultural context in which they act and...