Constructivist Teaching Methods - Specific Approaches

Specific Approaches

Specific approaches to education that are based on constructivism include:

• Constructionism
  • An approach to learning developed by Seymour Papert and his colleagues at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Papert had worked with Piaget at the latter's Institute in Geneva. Papert eventually called his approach "constructionism." It included everything associated with Piaget's constructivism, but went beyond it to assert that constructivist learning happens especially well when people are engaged in constructing a product, something external to themselves such as a sand castle, a machine, a computer program or a book. This approach is greatly facilitated by the ready availability of powerful 'constructing' applications on personal computers. Promoters of the use of computers in education see an increasing need for students to develop skills in Multimedia literacy in order to use these tools in constructivist learning.
• Reciprocal Learning
  • Two teach each other.
• Procedural Facilitations for Writing
• Critical Exploration (Duckworth, 2006) The two components of critical exploration are curriculum development and pedagogy. In this method teachers find ways to encourage their students to explore the subject matter and express their thoughts on the material(Duckworth).
• Cognitively Guided Instruction
  • A research and teacher professional development program in elementary mathematics created by Thomas P. Carpenter, Elizabeth Fennema, and their colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Its major premise is that teachers can use students' informal strategies (i.e., strategies students construct based on their understanding of everyday situations, such as losing marbles or picking flowers) as a primary basis for teaching mathematics in the elementary grades.
• Inquiry-based learning
• Problem-based learning
• Cognitive apprenticeships
• Various methods involving collaboration or group work
• Cooperative learning (reciprocal questioning, Jigsaw Classroom, structured controversies)
• Anchored Instruction (Bransford et al.)
  • Problems and approaches to solutions are embedded in a narrative environment.
• Cognitive Apprenticeship (Collins et al.)
  • Learning is achieved by integration into a specific implicit and explicit culture of knowledge.
    • Six features of cognitive apprenticeships: modeling of the performance, support through coaching/tutoring, scaffolding, students articulate knowledge, reflection on progress, exploration of new applications. (Woolfolk, 2010)
• Cognitive Flexibility (Sprio et al.)
  • A constructivist approach to curriculum design, in which the learning activities spelled out in the intended learning outcomes are built into the teaching methods and assessment tasks.
• The Silent Way
  • A constructivist approach to foreign language teaching and learning developed by Caleb Gattegno who worked with Piaget before WWII and in the late 1940s.