The Impact of Constructivism on Education

The constructivist view of learning is a revolution in the traditional view of learning, emphasizing that knowledge is not passively accepted, but actively constructed by the cognitive subject, which has had a profound impact on education at all levels. The following is what I have organized for you the impact of constructivism on education, welcome to read and learn!

First, the development of constructivism and its view of learning characteristics

The development of constructivism. Constructivism is a theory of knowledge and learning that addresses the question of what it is to know and how individuals know. ...The philosophical foundations of constructivism can be traced back to the Renaissance Italian national philosopher and humanist Gambatista Vico, who argued in his book On the Oldest Wisdom of Italy that "all movement is constitutive," and that "one can only The idea that "all movement is constitutive" and that "people can only understand clearly what they themselves construct" is considered the philosophical basis for the development of constructivism. In the 20th century, the most direct contribution to the constructivist view of learning was Piaget's theory of children's cognitive development. According to Piaget, children develop their cognitive structures by gradually constructing their understanding of the external world as they interact with their surroundings. On the basis of Piaget's theory, Stenberg and Katz emphasized the key role of individual initiative in the process of cognitive construction and explored how to bring individual initiative into play in the cognitive process; and the "cultural-historical theory of development" created by Vygotsky emphasized the role of the socio-cultural-historical background of the learner in the cognitive process. Vygotsky's theory of cultural-historical development emphasizes the role of the learner's socio-cultural and historical context in the cognitive process. All these studies have laid the foundation for the enrichment and improvement of constructivist theory, the formation of the constructivist view of learning and its use in the teaching process.

The Characteristics of Adult Learning

A person called "adult" generally has five signs of psychological maturity: first, an autonomous self-concept; second, a consistent sense of self-identity; third, the ability to self-regulate and control; fourth, a rich variety of personalized experiences. The first is an independent and autonomous self-concept; the second is an overall and consistent sense of self-identity; the third is the ability to self-regulate and control; the fourth is a rich variety of personalized experiences; and the fifth is the concept of time that focuses on the "present. Therefore, compared with minors, adults have richer life experience, more complex ideas, higher requirements and expectations for learning, thus showing the unique characteristics of adult learning:

1. Adults have independent and autonomous self-concept. They can clearly determine the learning goals and learning needs, can take the initiative to develop learning plans with teachers, more objective evaluation of the learning effect. More importantly, they need others to respect their learning autonomy, and they may have a stronger sense of self-esteem than minors, more "face". According to this sign of psychological maturity, adults should be given full autonomy in the learning process, giving them the opportunity to make their own choices. At the same time, adult learners should be given due understanding and respect. Therefore, the relationship between adult learners and teachers is a new type of ', partner-like cooperative relationship."

2. Overall consistency. Adults have an overall coherent sense of self-identity. They can unify and integrate their past, present, and future into a complete social image, and take learning as an essential way of life. In the learning process, if they can maintain this overall sense of self-identity, and teachers to maintain a good partnership, peer to peer to maintain good relations between students, can trigger the adult learning motivation, improve and promote learning activities, and achieve good learning results.

3. Self-regulation. Adults only learn what they think they need to learn. Adult learning is often based on the consideration of personal career development, or based on the need to seek spiritual fulfillment, change lifestyle, and escape from unsatisfactory life conditions. Therefore, adult learning has a strong sense of purpose. They are more willing to learn knowledge and skills that can be used immediately. This is one of the main motivations for them to learn.

4. "Present". The adult concept of time is "present", they are very sensitive to the "present" feeling, the value of time is unimaginable for minors. Therefore, in the process of learning, what they earnestly seek is not to prepare for the future life, but to "learn and use the same", and can "learn and use". For this reason, the content of adult teaching should give full consideration to the practicality, pay attention to the practical, especially those with close contact with the reality of knowledge and skills can attract the attention of adults. Because of this learning can make knowledge quickly into the ability to solve practical problems.

5. Adult teaching should be based on the rich experience of personalization. Adults have rich personalized experience. They are more concerned about why they learn, how they learn and the effect of learning, like to compare the new knowledge with the old experience, and based on experience to judge. Adult experience is a valuable resource in teaching, which not only helps adults to improve their observation ability, comprehension ability, analyzing and problem solving ability, but also makes it possible for adults to have various forms and contents of learning activities.

It should be noted that the accumulated experience of adults, while serving as a basis for learning, may also hinder the acceptance of new ideas. The older you are, the more cautious you are about accepting new things and new ideas, and the more resistant you are to learning. The more you instill, the more you overflow, just like a spring, the more pressure you put on it, the more it bounces back. Therefore, it is important to help adults have an open mind to learning, what we often call an "empty cup mentality"."

Implications of the Constructivist View of Learning for Adult Education

1. Pedagogical Implications of the Constructivist View of Learning. The constructivist view of learning has had a revolutionary impact on the traditional teaching model and has formed a unique teaching model: centering on students' self-control learning, encouraging students to actively construct, cooperate with each other, and carry out learning based on real situations and real tasks; teachers play the roles of monitors, organizers, guides, and facilitators of students' learning, and give full play to the students' initiative, motivation, and spirit of initiative. The teacher's role in monitoring, organizing, guiding and facilitating students' learning is to give full play to students' initiative, enthusiasm and creativity, so that students can effectively construct knowledge and become lifelong learners who can control their own learning and correctly understand the world. The constructivist view of learning emphasizes that teaching goals are negotiated, not imposed, in the design of teaching; in classroom teaching practice, we attach importance to the learner's spirit of inquiry, and regard authentic problem solving as an important teaching method; in the design of the curriculum, we attach importance to the participation of students, student experience, complex problems and authentic situations, and encourage learners to have more contact with the community and to learn through social practice.

2. The constructivist view of learning on adult education.

(1) The choice of teaching content should be suitable for the learners' social role needs. Adult learners' learning motivation mainly comes from their social role needs, so adult learning is characterized by "present". The constructivist view of learning advocates "learning through authentic problem solving". Therefore, in the process of teaching adults, teachers should fully take into account the "social role needs" of adults, and purposefully design the learning content into a thinking value, and their daily work similar problems, encourage them to think, try to solve, and really make learning become their internal needs.

(2) Create an atmosphere of mutual cooperation, communication and self-regulation for learners. Learning under the constructivist view of learning is a kind of self-regulation learning, and adults have independent self-concept and self-regulation ability. Therefore, the autonomy and independence of adult learning coincide with the requirements of the constructivist view of learning. The constructivist view of learning emphasizes the interaction of people, things and objects in the learning process, and regards the enhancement of interactions among learners as the basic task of teaching. Adult learning requires an atmosphere of mutual cooperation, communication and support. On the one hand, they need a learning community to *** with the design and control of the entire learning process, through group discussion, exchange of views, to communicate more fully, and learn to look at the problem from different perspectives, so as to produce new insights into the problem.

(3) Provide learners with authentic information to promote knowledge construction. The constructivist view of learning pursues learning about complex problems and encourages learners to solve authentic problems. Therefore, in the teaching process, contextualized and authentic information should be provided for, or by, adult learners themselves. Teachers need to make full use of this information to extend the meaning of the curriculum and materials. When utilized appropriately, information for adult learners can often be more powerful than conventional learning materials in supporting learners' thinking and inquiry activities.

The primary activity of constructive learning is not memorization, but high-level thinking, the processing, synthesis, hypothesizing, and arguing of new and old knowledge and experiences by the learner. Therefore, in addition to the conventional classroom, library, on-site practical work, radio and television and other ways of obtaining teaching and learning resources, information technology centered on computer applications also provides a powerful support tool for adult learners.