Activity 3.1 - PowerPoint Lecture on Constructivism

Adherents to Piaget see learning as a process based on discovery and exploration at appropriate stages of development.  Learners take an active role in their learning and use that gathered information to make meaning of the world because of no prior knowledge.  Within this framework the teacher plays an important role as a guide through these explorations.

Piagetian theory functions on the assumption that we are growing, learning creatures.     It should be noted that the learning is not all the same.  It occurs when the learner reaches a stage when he/she can comprehend the concepts needed.   This learning also occurs because something has disturbed the equilibration of and challenged our knowledge world.   The learner is faced with new information.  The most pressing matter is what to do with this new information.  If the new material is a variant of something already known, it is simply added to the data banks.  An accommodation is made, stretching the boundaries of the existing knowledge.  If the information is something completely difference, it is assigned to a new category that may or may not have a basis on existing categories.   Not unlike Star Trek’s Borg Collective, the information is assimilated to create a stronger whole.  The learner created this schema to put order to the world.  This creation is not wasted.   As more and more schemata are created, the learning is building structures that allow functioning in the world.