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Have you in your own education, your children’s education, or in a school you’ve taught at experienced a constructivist approach to education? If so, describe some of the impact (positive or negative) you experienced/witnessed.
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You learn how to crawl before you walk and you learn how to walk before you learn how to run. In part or whole, building blocks of education have always been this way, two plus two is four, before four minus two equals two. Taking concepts, mastery, understanding and the ability to put it to use before the new concepts are introduced is how it would work. Fitting the learning into a set amount of time can limit the over all learning. The importance of deadlines and not unlimited time, helps drive a learning style of this nature. The negative is, instruction can slow and not as much material can be introduced. Learned helplessness and disregard for the topic can happen. If mastery of learning has to happen beofer moving forward, then over time, less information is exposed to the learner. Some concepts with exposure repeated, leading to mastery over time, helps solidify learning over time.
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I have had friends who went through Montessori school. In every instance, they left Montessori school for high school and went to places with more traditional or process oriented curriculum. The need for structure in learning increased with age and advanced subject material.
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When I was homeschooled, I experienced a constructivist approach in some aspects of my learning. This allowed me to write reports about topics that interested me and pursue activities for P.E. that I was motivated to do.
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Yes. My undergraduate and graduate educational experiences were strongly influenced by this approach. I think it was helpful against the narrative of authoritarianism vested in the teacher, which neglected to consider the dignity and unique design of children. However, it made the child god and the rise of arguments that negated the experiences of others in the community (within the classroom and the world) by saying that they were all relative and not holding others accountable for listening for author’s meaning (since the authors’ meaning was developed in the mind of the hearer according to this orientation).
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There is a teacher in our math department who is using a more constructivist approach to teaching. The students do not choose what to learn, but her teaching is centered on the idea that students retain information they “discover” on their own rather than being told the connections in a lecture. While it does seem to work relatively well (I adopted a modified version of this approach – after introduction of the content, groups work together on examples before independent work begins), students who choose not to participate or who rely on other students in their group to “figure it out” seem to struggle. The challenge with this approach is monitoring each group to ensure that all students are active in making the discovery and not just relying on one or two “smart” students to do the work.