John Dewey's Instructional Constructivism In The Modern Classroom

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Introduction

John Dewey once said, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” You may ask why John Dewey should be given merit for anything he says. In truth, John Dewey was one of the biggest supporters of constructivism in classroom. On a basic level, constructivism is described as learning by doing. This concept, while not necessarily new, is considered progressive. Today, we will explore the history and details of this concept, analyze how constructivism effects the modern classroom, and wrap it up with some concluding remarks.

Historical Context

Constructivism is considered to be a new concept in the epistemological sense, however the ideals of this impression have been floating around since Greek Philosophers …show more content…

The concept describes that our knowledge is something to be constructed internally rather than reflected from external realities. After the initial proposition of constructivism there came about the idea that “a reasonable conclusion is that at least three levels of constructivist advocacy appear frequently in contemporary educational literature”, according to Null 2004. Those three levels include epistemological constructivism, which focuses on issues like race, gender, and class and how issues like these need to be fixed. Next is instructional constructivism, which focuses on individual learning in the classroom. The last is prescriptive constructivism, which focuses on the relationship between teacher and student and proposes that teachers instruct with their students rather than at their students. No matter what level it is being taught, the basis of constructivism is to move away from the traditional practice of teaching the classroom through lecture primarily, and to adopt teaching the classroom through …show more content…

Because of its many facets and definitions, constructivism is in a constant state of battlement. All in all, constructivism is a new approach to education that has put education persons on the fence. Either they whole heartedly believe that constructivism is the key to overhauling our education system, or they don’t believe that constructivism has enough merit to change our system. Because there is still a strong representation of opposition against the methodology of constructivism it is my strong opinion that constructivism will not be fully immersed in our education system for years to

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