Constructivism, Educational Research, and John Dewey :: Learning Education Essays

Constructivism, Educational Research, and John DeweyABSTRACT Schools are expected to transmit companionship to younger generations. They are, however, also increasingly criticized for distributing so-called inert experience, i.e., knowledge that is accessed only in a restricted set of contexts even though it is applicable to a wide variety of domains. The causes of limited knowledge transfer are or soly attributed to the dis-embeddedness of learning situations in schools. Instructional procedures that result in learning in the sense experience of being able to recall relevant information provide no guarantee that people forget spontaneously use it later. Authentic learning, acquiring knowledge in the contexts that (will) give this knowledge its meaning, is now being presented as an alternative. Underpinning these reform proposals is not only a (growing) concern with efficiency, but is also a invigorated epistemological theory, labelled as constructivism. This paper will, first, focus on the layout of and diverging perspectives within recent constructivist research in education. Next, the epistemological nuzzle of John Dewey will be discussed, which takes as its starting point the relation of knowledge to action. Finally, we will indicate what a Deweyan approach might add to the constructivist research in education.1.One indication of the rate of growth of constructivist research in education is the proliferation of its perspectives and positions. Apparently, it is already found wanting to distinguish between different themes, accents, evaluations. Instead, one speaks of incompatible paradigms. Thus, Steffe & Gale distinguish in a reader entitled Constructivism in education six different core paradigms, viz social constructivism, radical constructivism, social constructionism, information-processing constructivism, cybernetic systems, and sociocultural approaches to mediated action (1995, p.xiii). All of these so-called paradigms reject traditional epist emological claims about knowledge as an objective representation of reality. Their arguments are, however, only seldom directed against inherited traditional conceptions. Rather, it are the newly formulated alternatives which serve as points of reference. Constructivist paradigms are most of all elaborated in debate with fellow-alternatives.The most outspoken pioneer of a constructivist approach to teaching has been Ernst von Glasersfeld, whose radical constructivism still is at the center of the debate. Elaborating on the works of Jean Piaget, von Glasersfeld has particularly focussed on individual self-regulation and the building of conceptual structures through reflection and abstraction. According to von Glasersfeld, authentic learning depends on seeing a problem as ones own problem, as an obstacle that obstructs ones progress toward a goal. The farthest removed from this individualistic focus seems to be the sociocultural approach that originated with Ljev Vygotskij in Russia.