Transcendence, Revelation, and the Constructivist Classroom: Or, In Praise of Teaching

Abstract

CONSTRUCTIVISM AND THE END OF TEACHING If there is one idea that has significantly changed classroom practice in many countries around the world in recent decades, it has to be constructivism. For constructivism to have had such an impact it necessarily had to become theoretically multiple and open. Thus the constructivist classroom takes inspiration from a range of different, and to a certain extent even conflicting, theories and ideas, such as the radical constructivism of Ernst von Glasersfeld, the cognitive constructivism of Jean Piaget, the social constructivism of Lev Vygotsky, and the transactional constructivism of John Dewey. What unites these approaches — at least at a superficial level — and thus generally characterizes the constructivist classroom, is an emphasis on student activity. This is based on the assumption that students have to construct their own insights, understandings, and knowledge, and that teachers cannot do this for them. In the constructivist classroom, therefore, constructivism does not operate only as a learning theory or an epistemology, but also, first and foremost as a pedagogy. Virginia Richardson has correctly pointed out that “constructivism is a theory of learning and not a theory of teaching.” This not only means that constructivist pedagogy is not simply the application of constructivist learning theory — Richardson goes even further by arguing that “the elements of effective constructivist teaching are not known” — but also implies that a belief in constructivist learning theory does not necessarily require that one adopt a constructivist pedagogy. After all, as Richardson has put it, “students also make meaning from activities encountered in a transmission model of teaching.”