Instructional Strategies: Constructivism (constructionism)

As a teacher there are many people with different beliefs about how it is that we are supposed to teach the youth of today. These beliefs vary from project based learning, to inquiry learning, to teaching to the test, to wrote memorization etc. There are thousands of teaching strategies out there each with someone advocating for them in some form. A recently published article in the New York Times by Pam Belluck (January 20, 2011) stated that "students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods." She was citing a paper published in Science Journal. This paper compared one study session, concept mapping, retrieval practice (test taking), and repeated study techniques for retaining knowledge. The overwhelming results where that retrieval practices or test taking helped to produce the highest percentage of knowledge retention. (Hans 2001)

All of this is an interesting contrast to information I am currently learning in a course I am taking online about Educational Constructionism. This article states that learning (in the constructionist point of view) is more complex than just simply transmitting knowledge from teacher to learning, rather it is built or constructed by the learner by building an external artifact. This lends itself directly toward project based learning where a learner tackles a real world problem and "provides opportunities to address broader learning goals that focus on preparing students for active and responsible citizenship" (Glazer 2001). Both constructionism and project based learning are student centered approaches the rely on student engagement and ensuring that the project or artifact is meaningful to the student. In the constructionist model the student assimilating or accommodating new knowledge into preexisting schema (Orey 2001). For each student there is a different base of schema and so the learning process is individual and should be treated as such. In project based education the intent is to "engage students in relevant, realistic problems" (Hans 2001).

Now, I am struggling with the contrast of these three resources. On the one hand the NY Times/Science article that just came out states that all this concept mapping and study groups is for not. As simply studying for the test is enough 'engagement' that is needed to retain information. On the other hand I know as a life long learner the information I have retained the most is that which has personal meaning to me. When knowledge I have gained as real world application and I can see it, I tend to remember it more. Like coefficient of friction from physics. It recently snowed here in New York City and I can't help my dorky side but remember how the coefficient of static friction is always higher than that of sliding friction... What that really means is that when your tires are spinning they have less ability to move you forward. So all these people spinning their tires on ice should just slow down and wait for them to catch before punching the gas. That being said I still do remember the Pythagorean theorem because I was tested relentlessly on it.

My bottom line is as it almost always is: The solution lays somewhere in the middle of it all. A combination of all techniques is probably the best approach to learning and educating. This is why being a life long learner as a teacher is ever important. We should always continue to learn and incorporate new strategies into our "schema" as teachers.




Glazer, E. (2001). Problem Based Instruction. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved , from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Han, S., and Bhattacharya, K. (2001). Constructionism, Learning by Design, and Project Based Learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved 1-26-11, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Orey, Michael (2001) “Constructionist and Constructivist Learning Theories”, Laureate Education DVD,