The Constructivist Theory and Instructional Technology

The Constructivist Theory of learning in my understanding is simply the learning framework that puts the student in the center of the learning.  Meaning that the student is an active participant in their learning and not a passive recipient. Another construct of this philosophy is that the environment of the classroom is learner centered in the sense that it fosters student discourse and thinking and teachers become mentors and facilitators of knowledge rather than knowledge keepers.  Philosophers such as Piaget, Dewey, and more recently Bruner have contributed to this theory.  Bruner’s instructional framework is used in many high quality instructional materials (HQIM). This type of instructional model moves learners from a concrete experience (like working with math manipulatives) to a pictorial representation (in mathematics this could be a strip diagram, or a fractional pie model) and finally lands on the abstract (i.e. equations and symbols).  

When considering instructional technology and how it relates to this theory, I am drawn to the “Flipped Classroom” instructional model.  In this model the traditional lecture is completed as homework by the student in the form of a short instructional video or simulation and the classroom instructional time is replaced with teacher facilitated discussion of that learning and student practice of skills. According to Xu and Shi the core idea of constructivism applied to learning is that the environment is learner-centered where knowledge and understanding is socially constructed and the flipped classroom is grounded in this philosophy of a learner centered environment (Xu & Shi, 2018).  

The constructivist theory is widely used today as a best practice for teaching.  Student ownership of learning is important to their retention of knowledge.  Technology such as AR simulations and digital manipulatives can move students from concrete to the abstract.

References:

Xu, Z., & Shi, Y. (2018). Application of constructivist theory in flipped classroom — take college English teaching as a case study. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 8(7), 880. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0807.21