Education Atlas
Constructivism as a Question About Authority
Constructivism is usually described by what learners do: build their own understanding, often through discussion and group work. Read as a question about authority, it is really asking who is allowed to hold knowledge in a classroom, the teacher who states it or the learner who arrives at it.
Three Thinkers, One Redistribution
Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky arrived at constructivism from different directions, developmental stages, discovery learning and social interaction respectively, but each version moves the same authority away from a lecturer delivering settled facts and toward a learner actively connecting new information to what they already know.
That redistribution is also why constructivism is reported effective for problem-solving and critical-thinking tasks rather than for rote transmission: a task with one correct, already-known answer gives a learner nothing to build, while an open problem gives the redistributed authority something to do.
Where To Read More
- ConstructivismLearning Theory ParadigmsConstructivism, the subject entity of this essay
- Jean PiagetLearning and Cognitive TheoristsJean Piaget, one of the three thinkers this essay names
- Jerome BrunerLearning and Cognitive TheoristsJerome Bruner, one of the three thinkers this essay names
- Lev VygotskyLearning and Cognitive TheoristsLev Vygotsky, one of the three thinkers this essay names