Activity 3.1 PowerPoint on Constructivism

Activity 3.1 - PowerPoint Lecture on Constructivism 

Jean Piaget, a cognitive constructivist, has a theory of learning in which he believes individuals are active learners who construct meaning for themselves. They seek cognitive equilibrium (balance or harmony) between sensory information, accumulated knowledge, and reality. Disequilibrium results from the conflict between sensory information and reality, leading individuals with a major source of motivation to reestablish equilibrium.  This diagram shows how learning occurs, as individuals try to reestablish equilibrium, when faced with disequilibrium (Usher, “PowerPoint Lecture on Constructivism"):

Questions To Ponder:

1. How can educators create a learning environment that accommodates individual students at different stages of cognitive development?

2. How can educators be encouraged to give up the traditional role of information disseminate-rs, and become instead, facilitators guiding students to become active learners responsible for acquiring, adapting, and organizing their own knowledge?

3. In what ways are Montessori schools, or classrooms, representative of Piaget’s theory of learning, in action? If so, how successful are their students, cognitively, compared to those in a traditional classroom?