Tuesday, 8/2/2011: Week 3 Constructivism

1. CI 512: Teaching and Learning Tuesday, 8/2/2011: Week 3 Constructivism

2. Class Outline: Constructivism Note Taker: TealeIacolucci Observer: Westie Freeman • Logistics (9:00-9:05) • Piaget Theory • Stages of Cognitive Development (9:05-9:15) • Small Group Discussion (9:15-9:50) • Whole Class (9:50-10:30) • Break (10:30-10:40) • A Private Universe • Video (10:40-11:05) • Whole Class (11:05-11:30) • Other types of constructivism • Observer Observations (11:40-11:45) • Conclusions and Exit Cards (11:45-11:50)

3. Class Pacing Allow more time for discussion and individual reflection

4. Calendar

5. Synthesis Paper Draft • 3-6 pages (final paper is 6-8 pages) • Due Tuesday, 8/9 (10 points)

6. Synthesis Paper Draft • Should contain the following: • 1. A summary of AT LEAST 2 of the most relevant theories of teaching and learning, mainly from the history of 20th century U.S. educational learning theory; (final paper will include 3 or more).

7. Synthesis Paper Draft • Should contain the following: • 2. A clear description of the theory or theories that you view as most closely aligned with your own educational philosophy. • Articulates an educational philosophy that includes at least one theory of teaching and learning.

8. Synthesis Paper Draft • Should contain the following: • 3. A description of how you imagine this perspective to manifest in your classroom with respect to your teaching and your students’ learning. • Applies age-appropriate application of teaching and learning theory within a cultural and community context . • Uses knowledge of teaching and learning theories to depict respectful, supportive and challenging learning environments 

9. Synthesis Paper Draft Advice: Be sure to read Phillips and Soltis’s chapter on Social Learning Theory before writing your synthesis paper.

10. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) • Born in Switzerland • Doctorate at 21 in Natural Sciences • Progressed from biology to philosophy to psychology • Pioneer of clinical examination methodology

11. Piaget • Stages of Cognitive Development • Theory of knowledge construction (Accommodation and Assimilation)

12. Piagetian Stages of Cognitive Development • Sensorimotor • Preoperational • Concrete Operational • Formal Operational

13. Piagetian Stages of Cognitive Development • Sensori-motor (0-2 years) • Differentiates self from objects  • Goal-directed actions: Recognizes self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally • Achieves object permanence

14. Piagetian Stages of Cognitive Development • Preoperational (2-7 years) • Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words  • Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others  • Decentering: Classifies objects by a single feature • Reversible Thinking: child can think backwards

16. Piagetian Stages of Cognitive Development • Concrete Operational (7-12 years) • Thinking tied to concrete objects • Conservation: properties (such as volume) can be maintained despite changes in appearance • Seriation: ordering objects in series along a single dimension such as size.  • Classification: can group objects into categories • Compensation: change in one dimension can be offset by changes in another

17. Piagetian Stages of Cognitive Development • Formal Operational (11 to adulthood) • Ability to transform interiorized objects through abstract reasoning • Can apply deductive reasoning and account for all logical possibilities • Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems 

18. The Bending Rods Experiment

19. Small Group Discussion • How might you apply Piaget’s theory of stages of cognitive development to the classroom? • What are some strengths of this theory? • What are some limitations of this theory?

20. Critiques of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Stages • Stages of development might not be fixed • Some can reason abstractly in certain contexts, but not in others • Some might understand conservation of number, but not conservation of volume

21. Critiques of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Stages • Limits the scope of children’s potential • Children develop at different rates dependent on individual ability and social context

22. Critiques of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Stages “If we accept the fact that there are stages of development, another question arises which I call ‘the American question,’ and I am asked it ever time I come here. If there are stages that children reach at given norms of ages, can we accelerate the stages? Do we have to go through each one of these stages, or can we speed it up a bit?”

23. Critiques of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Stages “It is probably possible to accelerate, but maximal acceleration is not desirable. There seems to be an optimal time. What this optimal time is will surely depend on each individual and on the subject matter. We still need further research to know what the optimal time would be.” - Piaget, 1970, New York Lecture (Resnick & Ford, 1981, p.178)

24. Critiques of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Stages • Research indicates that children can improve types of reasoning with persistent, directed instruction. • Case (1978) indicates improvement on volume conservation tasks is associated with the simplification of schemas • Bearison (1969) showed transfer across a number of different conservation tasks over long periods of time The question still remains, does acceleration of stage development result in better thinkers over the long term?

25. Break

26. Piaget Theory of Learning • Organization: tendency to organize thinking into psychological schemas • Equilibrium: a balance between cognitive schemas and the information of the environment • Disequilibrium: cognitive schemas and environmental information are out of balance • Assimilation: new pieces of information are incorporated into current cognitive structures • Accommodation: current cognitive structures are altered to make sense of new information

27. A Private Universe • Produced in 1987 in association with the National Science Foundation • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KUQbeKJTNY

28. A Private Universe Questions: • How does this documentary relate to constructivist theory? • What implications does this documentary have for your future teaching?

29. Observations

30. Exit Card Reflections • Rate your level of participation today (0-3) • Name one aspect of today’s class that was beneficial for you • Name one aspect of today’s class that could be improved

31. Constructivist Theories(Ernst, 1996) • A plurality of theories: occasionally in opposition with one another • Basic premise that learning is a constructive process

32. Weak Constructivism • All individual human knowledge is individually constructed • The mind is a data-processing computer, however all data is self constructed • There exists a realm of objective knowledge • Local paradigm: only accounts for the knowledge representations of individuals

33. Radical Constructivism • von Glasersfeld developed theory • Cognition is adaptive • Only concerned with the experiential world and not an ontological reality • Experiencers of the world construct understanding based upon perception as opposed to inaccessible reality • Neutral in ontology: not concerned with the existence of objective world

34. Social Constructivism • Individuals are “the realm of the social” as inextricably interconnected • No metaphor for the isolated individual mind: must be viewed in terms of its interactions • Meaning is socially constructed and constrained by the shared experiences of the underlying physical reality • Socially constructed meaning seeks to represent the ontological reality, which will never be fully attained • Modified relativist ontology: “There is a world out there supporting the appearances we have shared access to, but we have no certain knowledge of it” (pg. 343)