How it All Got Started
happened in our world.
Although it has become popular only recently, the
origins of constructivism are believed to date back to
the time of Socrates, who claimed that teachers and
learners should talk with each other and interpret and
construct the hidden knowledge by asking questions.
By simply asking questions of the teacher to students
and vice versa they formulate knowledge, they both
learn with each other and their shared experiences can
be a basis for their understanding of a concept.
What is Contructivism?
Constructivism is the philosophical and scientific
position that knowledge arises through a process of
active construction.
Just like what I’ve said earlier, constructivism is all about
constructing knowledge therefore, learning is perceived
as an active, not a passive process, where knowledge is
constructed, not acquired.
As long as there were people asking each other
questions and relating their experiences on what they
are reading we have constructivist classroom.
In activating our schema we can understand the literary
work that we are reading. So what is schema? It is our
prior knowledge or the things that we already know
about certain concept or topic. We can activate our
schema by making connections. Ellin Oliver Keene and
Susan Zimmerman in Mosaic of Thought (1997), have
identified three main types of connections students
make as they read: 1.) Text to self 2.) Text to text 3.)
Text to world.
When we say text to self, we are connecting ourselves
and our experiences to the piece or to the material that
we are reading, next is text to text when we are doing
text to text connection we are relating or connecting
the text or the book that we read before to the written
material that we are reading now, lastly is text to word,
in here we are connecting the events that we read from
the book to the recent happening or the event
Knowledge construction is based on personal
experiences and the continual testing of hypotheses.
Each person has a different interpretation and
construction of knowledge process, based on past
experiences and cultural factors.
Thus, constructivism refers to how of learning and
thinking. Why do you think so? Constructivism happens
when there’s a construction of knowledge, relating
facts to certain topic, relating experiences and schema,
it is also about thinking because when we are relating
our schema to the new knowledge we automatically
thinking about it, and thinking about what we already
know and how it will help to construct a knowledge?
Right? So activating schema will be a big help in
constructing knowledge. Constructivism describes the
way that the students can make sense of the material
and also how the materials can be taught effectively.
With Constructivism as an educational theory in mind,
the teachers should consider what students know and
allow their students to put their knowledge in to
practice.
Major Strands of Contructivism
We have two major strands of constructivism.
Constructivist theory postulates that personal
experience cannot be separated from knowledge.
In analyzing the literature, the author found that
constructivism can be viewed at the cognitive
(individual) and social (community) levels.
So lets talk about the first one, Cognitive constructivism
maintains that individuals develop their own models of
reality using personal experience and research-based
data.
It is a theory of development that describes how
learners develop cognitive abilities.
Cognitive development proposes that humans cannot
be given information, in which they immediately
understand and use. Instead, learners must construct
their own knowledge. They build their knowledge
through experience. Experiences enable them to create
schemas. These schemas are changed, enlarged, and
made more sophisticated
However, social constructivism maintains that
individuals use their membership in a community to
continually refine and shape their models of reality. It is
a sociological theory of knowledge according to which
human development is socially situated and knowledge
is constructed through interaction with others.
Benifits of Constructivism
 Students actively engage in their learning
process.- It is very important, because we cant
construct ideas and knowledge if we are just
absorbing the facts and ideas from our teacher,
as a studeny we need to engage ourselves to
teaching and learning process or construction of
knowledge.

 Develop thinking skills- It’s not all about

acquiring knowledge from the teacher, students
given an opportunity to develop their thinking
skills, by means of relating schemas and
experience.
 Develop communication and social skills- Since
we talk about construction of knowledge, we
can construct knowledge and discover facts
while socializing. We develop our
communication by asking, collaborating and
cooperation to construct knowledge.
 Helps students transfer skills in the real word-
When we learned about something by means of
constructing knowledge, we can apply it or we
can transfer the skills or the things that we
learned in real life situation and on what society
required to us.
 Promotes intrinsic motivation to learn-
Disadvantages of Contructivism
 Lack of teacher preparation for constructivist
classroom- The teacher tend to finalized
his/her lesson without planning how her
students be actively participating in teaching
and learning process. They just introducing the
lesson and supplying what the students needs,
or simply to say spoon feeding.
 Difficult to break cycle of those who have been
taught in a classroom where they were
expected to solely absorb information.

Advantages of Contructivism

 Each person in the world builds their own

knowledge- By means of constructivism
knowledge will be more further, because each
person the students and the teacher builds their
own knowledge, they tend to think for them to
build their own knowledge.
 Focuses on student centered learnning-
Constructivism is highly student centered,
because the student will give an opportunity to
build their own knowledge, they need to
become active in absorbing knowledge and the
teacher will be facilitator, they assist the
students to construct knowledge.
 Teacher guides students in buildong their own
understanding and knowledge- just like here,
the teacher will just a facilitator and guides
students.