Weekly Response #10 for EDP 610

R 10

Question:  The principles of constructivism are more frequently  recognized by educators in Eastern and Western cultures.  However, the application of constructivist instruction is being challenged at the same time.  What are the implications we can learn from these disputes?

Quotation: “The emphasis on the practical application of what is being learned seems very positive.  However, it may be an error to assume that the pedagogic content of the learning experience is identical to the methods and processes (i.e. the epistemology) of the discipline being studied and a mistake to assume that instruction should exclusively focus on application” (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006, p. 84).

            Kirschner et al.(2006) discussed a critical issue in the field of education: the dispute of using minimal guidance approaches, one of which place students in “inquiry learning contexts and asked to discover the fundamental and well-known principles of science by modeling the investigatory activities of professional researchers” (p. 76).  The leading instructional pedagogy from elementary to high school level in China is an exam-oriented system.  For a substantial number of students, the main motivation to study science or math is to pass the College Entrance Exam.  Some students’ learning interests are decreased partly because they did not get chance to build strong connections between course content and real life.    Because of these negative consequences, Chinese educators began to pay attention to constructivist pedagogy.  It is believed that instructional methods including discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching will be the solution because they can preserve students’ interests towards learning and are consistent with the law of genetic epistemology.  Some experimental schools have been developed in which these new pedagogies are employed. 

           The trend of development in China is similar to that in the States.  During our class discussion, the criticism of teaching math or other subjects without giving students the practical purposes for learning appeared frequently.  I agree with the principle that “learning is not governed by internal maturation or by external teaching.  It is an active construction process in which people through their own activities build increasingly differentiated and comprehensive cognitive structures” (Piaget, course slides, p. 35).  However, understanding the utility of a subject is only one form of external motivation; it does not necessarily lead to increased learning interests. 

              Kirschner et al. (2006) concluded that even though the principles of constructivism are reasonable, the practical application of constructivism is not flawless.  They believe that minimal guidance may not effectively change students’ long term memory and may lead to excessive working memory loading.  Although I cannot fully support their statement that “if nothing has changed in long-term memory, nothing has been learned” (p.77), their emphasis on a change of education is justified.  It is also true that the distinction between epistemology and pedagogy is not small.  Just as Piaget statedabove, students have little chance to learn new knowledge if they do not actively construct cognitive structures, no matter how qualified their teachers are.  But the emphasis on the central role of learners should not be identical with the negligence of teachers’ roles.  The method of minimal guidance might be useful for students whose learning processes are faster than most students in a class, but may not be suitable for all students or all subjects.  For example, how could we expect a six-grader to find the circumference ratio with little guidance, while famous mathematicians like Archmedes, Ptlemy, ZuChongzhi, Maimonides spent hundred years discovering it?  Kirschner et al. (2002) indicated that learning methods for novices and experts are different.  For  elementary school students, unidirectional educational approachessuch as Chinese exam-oriented education or Western minimal guidance are two extremes, neither of whichmay bean optimal choice.  Scaffolding with sufficient instructional information while providing space and opportunities for students to think independently might be an acceptable alternative.