Constructivism (ch. 4 lenses on learning)
- 1. Constructivism(1920s-present) ● Learning happens when students combine new and old ideas; however, learning only occurs if students are actively engaged ● Learning is internal ● Learning often includes trial & error ● Learning requires inferencing
- 2. ● Emphasizes the growth of the individual, the importance of the environment, and the role of the teacher in student learning. ● Problem Based Learning Approach ● Discourages competition and promotes collaboration and cooperation in education. Inquiry Learning (John Dewey)
- 3. ● People organize everything they know into schemata or knowledge structures. ● Process through which knowledge structures change: ○ Accretation- Learners take in new information but have no need to change existing schema. ○ Tuning- Existing schema is modified to incorporate new information. ○ Restructuring- New schema must be created. ● Everyone’s schema is individualized. Knowledge structures are pliant and expandable. Schema Theory (Bartlett)
- 4. ● All readers have individualized reading experiences because each reader has unique background schemata. ● Responses Readers Have to Text ■ Efferent- Fact oriented ■ Aesthetic- Personally or emotionally based. ○ Emphasizes the active role of the reader in meaning making. Transactional/Reader Response (Rosenblatt)
- 5. ● Reading is a language process which includes syntactic, semantic, and graphophonic cues ○ Once the cuing is internalized, the reading is developed ■ fluent reading occurs when reader expectations (predictions) are validated Psycholinguistic Theory (Smith & Goodman)
- 6. ● Psycholinguistic theory was its predecessor ● Reading is a natural process that will develop IF students are in a literature-rich environment with authentic literacy activities ● It failed miserably Whole Language (Goodman and others?)
- 7. ● Text comprehension occurs through reader’s active management of strategies. ● Involves self-monitoring & self-regulation during reading ● Students become teacher-dependent since instruction is mostly explicit Metacognitive Theory (Allen & Hancock; Flavell & Brown; Durkin)
- 8. ● Attempts to distinguish engaged from disengaged readers ○ Engaged readers: metacognitive, social & intrinsically motivated, so reading frequency increases Engagement Theory (Guthrie & Wigfield)
- 9. ○ NAEP (1998) study indicates that “engaged reading can overcome traditional barriers to reading achievement, including gender, parental education, & income ○ Instructional implications: use of themes, cooperative learning, student choice, & authentic activities Engagement Theory (Guthrie & Wigfield)
- 10. ● Brainstorming, webbing, K-W-L ● Guided Reading ● Miscue analysis & running record ● Vocab laced with humor ● Cooperative learning & Inquiry learning ● Student-selected texts ● Anticipation guides/sets ● Think aloud & other modeling ● Explicit strategy instruction ● Authentic & performance-based assessments ● Integration of technology Classroom Applications