2.  Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
◦ Profoundly influenced the constructivist movement
◦ Believed children were active learners
◦ Children constructed new knowledge as they moved
through different cognitive stages.
◦ Four cognitive stages
 Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete
operational, formal operational

3.  Jerome Bruner (1915-?)
◦ Proposed learning is an active process
◦ Learners construct new ideas or concepts based on
current or past knowledge
◦ Technology offers many strategies
◦ Teacher’s role should be to encourage students
through exploration and inquiry

4.  Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
◦ Developed social cognition
◦ Theorized that learning took place within the
context of a child’s social development and culture
◦ He proposed that children have a zone of proximal
development
◦ Teachers should discover the level of each child’s
social development and build learning experiences
from this point

5.  John Dewey (1859-1952)
◦ Encouraged educators to reflect on their strategies
and create activities that combine concrete and
practical relevance to students’ lives
◦ Believed education was a social process
◦ Viewed learning as student-directed with a teacher
serving as a guide for resources
◦ Believed in progressive education or educating the
whole child, physically, mentally, and socially

6.  “Constructivism is an
active, constructive process.
The learner is an
information constructor.
People actively construct or
create their own subjective
representations of objective
reality.”1
 Students learn by doing.
 The students learn HOW to
learn.
 “Teachers help students to
construct knowledge rather
than to reproduce a series
of facts.”2

7.  With Technology
◦ Can recommend the use of computers for research.
 Without Technology
◦ Encourage students to use real-world examples
◦ Understands students conceptions and guides the
student with activities to address them and build on
them.

8.  With technology
◦ Use a computer to write
up findings from a lab.
◦ Use electronic flashcards
◦ Create spreadsheets to
show data collected
 Without technology
◦ Build models out of clay
or other artistic
equipment

9. Since I’m planning on
being a math
teacher, could
incorporate the
constructivist theory into
my class by having the
students use a
smartboard to include
technology. I could also
have students set up
their own example
problems and quiz each
other.

10. 1. http://www.learning-
theories.com/constructivism.html
2. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2
class/constructivism/index.html
 Sources for images
◦ Google