Contructivismo

v CONSTRUCTIVISM

Constructivism is basically a theory based on observation and scientific study about how people learn. It says that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. When we encounter something new, we have to reconcile it with our previous ideas and experience, maybe changing what we believe, or maybe discarding the new information as irrelevant. In any case, we are active creators of our own knowledge. To do this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know. While many theorists emphasize each person's right and tendency to construct unique meanings, many people also believe that these are not completely unique. Simply put, because we share common languages and conduct much of our thought through language and other communal symbols, many agree that knowledge is socially constructed, even while an individual is thinking. In a sense, an individual's thought is never his or her own.

In the classroom, the constructivist view of learning can point towards a number of different teaching practices. In the most general sense, it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing.

Constructivist teachers encourage students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become expert learners. This gives them ever broadening tools to keep learning. With a well-planned classroom environment, the students learn how to learn.

The constructivist teacher provides tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with which students formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment.

Constructivism transforms the student from a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process. Always guided by the teacher, students construct their knowledge actively rather than just mechanically ingesting knowledge from the teacher or the textbook.

The best way for you to really understand what constructivism is and what it means in your classroom is by seeing examples of it at work, speaking with others about it, and trying it yourself.

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