Transcript Approaches to Learning - Distance Learning Centre

Social
Constructivist
Approach to
Learning
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Discussion
• What were your early explanations for
thunder?
• Where did your ideas of thunder come from?
• Compare these to other people’s explanations.
• Can you think of other examples of ‘wrong’
explanations you gave to things? (E.g. babies,
rainbows..)Where did these ideas come from?
• You will have come to these conclusions
through your previous experiences and your
interaction with others – your ideas were
socially constructed.
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Social Constructionist Approach
• Constructivist theorists believe that learning
is an active, constructive process.
• They emphasize the interaction between
biology (what you are born with) and the
environment
• Through this interaction people actively
construct or create their own representations
of reality. New information is linked to prior
knowledge, and so each person’s
representations are subjective. E.g. how you
explained thunder as a child.
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Piaget 1896 - 1980
• Piaget is recognised as having influenced the way
young children are studied and observed.
• He believed that children were active in their learning
• Piaget believed that babies are born with the ability
to adapt to and learn from the environment. E.g. they
don’t have to be taught to crawl or walk (Oates, 1994)
• He was interested in the way children gave the same
‘wrong’ answer
• He discovered that they used a logical pattern based
on their experiences. He called their conclusions
schemas
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Observations
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Assimilation and
accommodation
• Assimilation occurs when children find that an existing schema
fits another situation. E.g. If you are familiar with databases,
you can think of it this way: your mind has its database already
built, with its fields and categories already defined. If it comes
across new information which fits into those fields, it can
assimilate it without any trouble
• Accommodation happens when children realise that their schema
does not ‘fit’ and they are forced to develop a new schema. E.g.
In the database analogy, it is like what happens when you try to
put in information which does not fit the pre-existent fields and
categories. You have to develop new ones to accommodate the
new information.
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Piaget’s stages
• Piaget believed that the mental
processes we are born with are
primitive, basic patterns of actions he
called Sensorimotor schemes. (Oates,
1994)
• Sensory motor: 0 - 18 months/2years
• Pre-operational: 2 – 6/7years
• Concrete operations: 7 – 11 years
• Formal operations: 11-18+ years
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Critics of Piaget
• His suggested ages and stages underestimate
children’s abilities. Children have often been
able to conserve and decentre at much
younger ages than he suggested
• Some psychologists disagree with the idea of
stages and feel that children learn as more of
an ongoing process
• Piaget’s work was culturally biased as he used
only white European children
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Social Constructivist Approach
• Social constructivist theorists like constructivist
believe in the importance of both biological and
environmental influences.
• ‘They argue that the same biological and
environmental factors may have different effects
depending on the people among whom the child grows
up’ (Oates, 1994, p33)
• They place more emphasis on social interactions such
as culture and characteristics of individuals.
• Therefore social constructivist theories are based on
the idea that we are active in our learning and that
we create our own ideas and conclusions about the
world through our experiences and interactions with
the environment and people around us.
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Key People
• Social constructivism brings together
the works of people such as Piaget,
Vygotsky and Bruner.
• They feel that children learn through
interaction with their environment; they
are active in their learning
• Experiences and environment shape our
learning.
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Vygotsky
• Shared Piaget’s view that children were
active in their learning
• Placed more emphasis on the role of
language in the cognitive process
• Social development and interaction with
people is also an important part of
cognitive development; particularly the
role of sensitive adult
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Zone of Proximal Development
• Vygotsky believe that children had
unlocked potential that adults had to
discover
• This is referred to as ZPD
• The ZPD is the gap between what the
child can currently do and what they
have the potential to do
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
ZPD
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Bruner
• Influenced by Vygotsky
• Did not agree that children passed
through stages but rather they
developed different ways of thinking –
modes of representation
• Enactive - approx 0-1years
• Iconic – approx 1-7 years
• Symbolic – approx 7 years onwards
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Language and thought
• Bruner felt that there was a link between
language and thought.
• The appearance of language allows children to
think in symbolic ways (language is symbolic)
• Language allows us to categorise things
• Category learning occurs when people come to
understand that certain objects or entities
belong together in particular categories. This
is still a popular theory among many
psychologists
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Bruner’s scaffolding
• To Bruner the role of the adult was important
in children’s learning
• Scaffolding was his idea that adults can help
children find their way to the top of a
problem
• Adults scaffold by providing elements of a
problem, maintaining children’s interest and
point out information or giving support that
will allow them to increase their knowledge
and reasoning.
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Activity
• In pairs make a note of the key ideas of
each social constructivist theorist
looked at.
• Consider the influence of this approach
to current practice. Give examples of
how the key ideas have been put into
practise.
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Activity
• Interactive activities e.g. ICT – Active
learning
• Group work - ZPD
• Discussion – Scaffolding & ZPD
• Student led activities; projects
• Experimentation e.g. science activities –
active learning
• Exploration; natural environment, sand/wateractive learning
• Field trips/outings - active learning
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)
Reference List
• Learning-Theories (2008) available art
• http://www.learning-theories.com/category/sociallearning-theories accessed 05/04/08
• Miell,D., Pheonix,A., Thomas.K., (2002) Mapping
Psychology 1, Milton Keynes: The Open University
Y Letson 2007 (Miell et al
2002)