Module 14: Constructivism:
Knowledge Construction/
Concept Learning
Reporters:
Harren B. Barceloña
John Vincent Madrid
WHAT IS CONTRUCTIVISM?
• Constructivism is an important learning theory that
educators use to help their students learn. Constructivism
is based on the idea that people actively construct or
make their own knowledge, and that reality is determined
by your experiences as a learner. Basically, learners use
their previous knowledge as a foundation and build on it
with new things that they learn.
TWO VIEW OF CONTRUCTIVISM:
• Individual Constructivism: This is called cognitive
constructivism. It emphasizes individual, internal
construction of knowledge.
• Social Constructivism: This view emphasizes that
knowledge exists in a social context and is initially
shared with others instead of being represented
solely in the mind of an individual
CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTRUCTIVISM:
• Whether one takes the individual or social view of constuctivion,
ther au four characteristics that these two views have in common
According to Eggen and Kauchak, these are:
1. Learners Construct Their Own Understanding
• Constructivism views learners not as passive recipients of
information, but as active thinkers. They make sense of new
information by relating it to what they already know. This
process of "constructing knowledge" is unique to each learner
because it depends on their own experiences and prior
knowledge.
2. New Learning Builds on What Learners Already Know
• For new information to be understood, it must
connect to what learners already know. This is why
a student's background knowledge is so important.
Learning is more effective when new ideas fit into
or challenge existing ideas or mental frameworks
(called "schemas") that the learner already has.
3. Learning is Enhanced by Social Interaction
• Constructivists believe in creating a "community of
learners" in the classroom. In this community,
learners collaborate, share ideas, and solve
problems together. Teachers act as facilitators,
guiding the learning process rather than just
delivering information. The idea is that learning is
better when students interact with others and take
responsibility for their own learning.
4. Meaningful Learning Happens with Real-World Tasks
• Learning is most meaningful when it involves authentic
tasks—activities that are similar to the kinds of things
people do in the real world. For example, a writing activity
where six-year-olds create a checklist of things they need
to do in school is more meaningful than having them only
trace letters on worksheets. Real-world tasks help
learners build skills they can use outside the classroom.
ORGANIZING KNOWLEDGE:
Concepts. A concept is a way of grouping orcategorizing
objects or events in our mind. A concept of “teach” includes
a group of tasks such as model, discuss, illustrate, expalin,
assist, etc. In your life as a studentyou would learn
thousands of concepts, some simpleones, others more
complicated that may take you tolearn them more gradually.
The concepts you learn arealso revised as you learn more
and experience more.
Concepts as Feature Lists Learning a concept involves
learning specific features that characterize positive instance
of the concept Included here are defining features and
correlational feature. A defining feature is a characteristic
present in ALL instances. Example triangle has three sides.
Having three sides is a defining feature of a trangle
because ALL. triangles should have three sides. If one
doesn’t then its is not a tringle. A correlational feature is
one that is present in many positive instances but not
essential for concept memberships. For example, a mother
is loving. Being loving is a feature commonly present in the
concept mother. But a mother may not be loving. So being
loving is not only a correlational mare, not a defining one.
Concepts as Prototypes. A prototype is an idea or
a visual image of "typical" example. It is usually
formed based on the positive instances that learners
encounter most often. Example, close your eyes now
and for a moment think of a cat. Picture in mind what
it looks like. You probably thought of the an image of
the common cat we see rather than some rare breed
or species. Once learners have their own concept
prototypes, the new examples that they see are
checked against this existing prototype
Concepts as Exemplars. Exemplars represent a
variety of examples. It allows learners to know that
an example under a concept may have variability.
Example, a learner's concept of vegetable may
include a wide variety of different examples like
cauliflower, kangkong, cabbage, string beans,
squash, corn, potatoes, When he encounters a new
type of vegetable like "bitsuelas", the would search
from the exemplars he knows and looks for one that
is most similar, like string beans.
Making Concept-learning Effective. As a future teacher,
you can hef students leam concepts by doing the following:
• Provide a clear definition of the concept
• Make the defining features very concrete and prominent
• Give a variety of positive instances
• Give negative instances
• Cite a “best example” or a prototype
• Provide opportunity for learners to identify positive und
negative instances
• Ask learners to think of their own example of the concept
• Paint out how concepts can be related to each other
Schemas and scripts. A schema is an organized
body of knowledge about something It is like a file of
information you hold in your mind about something,
Like a schema of what a teacher is. A script is
schema that includes a series of predictable events
about a specifie activity. Examples would include
knowing the series of steps done when we visit a
doctor or what transpires at the beginning of the
class when the teacher anives.
Your role as a teacher is to bring learners to
construct their own knowledge such that they
have a well organized set of concepts. Aim to
make clear those concepts that are still vague
for them, and to pave the way for them to
overcome misconceptions. It is important that
you acquire skills on how to facilitate concept
formation and development. Constructivism can
be an excellent guide for you.
Applying Constructivism in Facilitating Learning
• Aim to make learners understand a few key ideas in an
in-depth manner, rather than taking up so many topics
superficially
• Give varied examples.
• Provide opportunities for experimentation
• Provide lots of opportunities for quality interaction,
• Have lots of hands-on activities
• Relate your topic to real life situations.
• Do not depend on the explanation method all the time,
THANK YOU!!
