Essay On Constructivist Theory

2.4.2 The Constructivist Theory

The Constructivist Theory of child development believes that learning is hierarchical. When teaching the child, new learning needs to connect to prior learning. Learning is sequential in nature. Human beings need to link new information to knowledge that is already established in memory (as cited by Feinstein, 2006).

Piaget (1974), a constructivist, believed that learning starts as early as babyhood, beginning with things that are innate, such as reflexes and information taken in through the senses. Children are not blank pages when they come to the classroom (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999). They have years of listening, observing and doing which gives them a foundation for learning more complex concepts.

Constructivism holds that learning is essentially active (Jacobs, 2010). Teachers are to teach through concrete and simple concepts first, helping the child to achieve mastery, and then move on to more abstract, difficult concepts as the child is ready, laying the foundation for future learning (Piaget, 1974).

Davis (1967) found that dendrites grow and connect as new learning connects to both new and prior learning. It is a “use it or lose it” process. If fostered in interesting and novel ways, stimulated brains grow dendrites which create neural synaptic connections which enhance memory and utilization (as cited by Feldstein, 2006). As children learn in the classroom, the teacher layers the instruction, adding new information to prior learning, inviting the child to participate in the learning process with all his or her senses, making his or her own discoveries at the same time (Jacobs, 2010).

2.4.3 The Sensory Integration

Individuals who have a decreased ability to process sensation also may have difficulty producing appropriate actions, which, in turn, may interfere with learning and behaviour.

3. Enhanced sensation, as a part of meaningful activity that yields an adaptive interaction, improves the ability to process sensation, thereby enhancing learning and behaviour (Bundy et al., 2002).

Ayres believed the brain to be plastic and malleable; that it functions as an integrated whole; and that lower ordered (sub-cortical) integrative functions develop first, through the senses, which inform higher ordered structures (cortical), as the child takes in information from instruction, self-discovery, and interaction with the environment. Ayres, like Piaget and Montessori, incorporated hierarchical concepts into her theory.

“Sensory Integration Theory was designed to describe the difficulties of a particular group of individuals and to explain mild to moderate problems in learning and behaviour” (Bundy et al., 2002). Sensory integration activities are designed to strengthen weak modalities (visual, auditory, aural, motor, touch) in order to stimulate the brain to learn (Wrighton,