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Life is too short for me to try to distinguish for readers the difference between true constructivism and guided discovery. It really is not an interesting issue, because readers only care if their kids are learning, and I dont think I have ever seen anything in a public school that could qualify as true constructivism, and there is almost nobody out there with any influence pushing for t. c. It doesnt exist except in a very few private schools, if there.
This is from a writer who no matter what arguments you proffer in opposition, will respond, "oh, but what I meant was..." From what I've seen, the theory of constructivism has manifested itself in textbooks such as TERC's Investigations, or Connected Math Program, or Everyday Math, or IMP, or Core-Plus. One can make arguments that EM is not really constructivist. Well go ahead and make them. It sure isn't guided discovery. And it isn't mastery learning either. So you tell me what it is?
Adherents of constructivism will of say "Well of course we don't use constructivist techniques every day; it would be impractical." But they use them often enough. Giving students problems for which they do not have enough information or skills to solve them is but one example.
But enough of me talking. How would you respond to this darling of the edu-journalism community in 50 words or less?
30 comments:
This is an email from a real writer?
For a major paper?
"Life is too short" ??
I remember one time I was working on an article about Patty Rodier's research (working for free, mind you, for NAAR).
I came up with a metaphor I knew would work fantastically well for readers. It involved a comparison to a spinal cord being severed, but unfortunately I no longer remember what I was trying to explain.
Patty told me the metaphor was wrong!
At first I thought: come on. It's a metaphor.
But I knew I had to take it out, because from the POV of the scientist it was glaringly wrong.
The thing is, I did understand what she was talking about. It wasn't that I was dead wrong; the problem was that my understanding was superficial, so my metaphor was superficial, too. It was so superficial that it was wrong.
I find it shocking that a non-fiction writer would say "Life is too short."
This is his/her job.
I need to know a little more before giving advice.
What exactly was the writer asking for?
Why did he/she object to the distinction between constructivism and guided discovery?
boy, guided discovery vs constructivism in 50 words or less - hmmm
here's a possibility
I would probably say that guided discovery is an inductive learning lesson "with scaffolding" (scaffolding, I tell you!)
I have no idea how curriculum designers define guided discovery, but in Saxon Math the "Investigations," which I assume would fall under "guided discovery," are highly-structured inductive exercises.
You go through a number of specified, short steps, and you draw the appropriate conclusions at the end by answering a "stepped" sequence of questions along the way.
It's a bit like doing an experiment in a high school science lab.
The irony is that constructivism has apparently been dominant in science ed since the era of Sputnik - that's when everyone decided that science had to be taught via labs, not lectures & testing.
Apparently the adoption of teaching via labs led to a decline in students actually learning science. (I wish I could remember where I read this. When I come across it again, I'll post.)
David Klein told me awhile back that science education is in even worse shape than math education, so I'm sure the history is part of it. (And think of Bill Gates' High Tech High - the school with no books.)
I think (can't fact-check at the moment) science educators decided that in order to learn science students had to do the same thing scientists did: they had to do experiments.
Constructivism appears to have a lot in common with Communism. The theory and the reality diverge. It isn't worth spending a lot of time discussing the differences between theory and reality if you reject both. Similarly, if you think constructivism, whether the theory or the practice, is fundamentally flawed, then parsing the issue is probably not worth your time.
Well, I can't divulge too much of the details without identifying the writer who is indeed real and does write for a major paper. A big one.
Anyway, the question pertained to something he had said about a teacher who wanted to try a different approach in her class. What she said amounted to the tenets of constructivism, (students discovering for themselves, etc). He said he had observed a class. So the question posed to him was whether this teacher indeed used constructivism or guided discovery. His "final answer" (which I omitted) was that she was using guided discovery, but along the way was asserting the constructivism is touted but not practiced anywhere. I tend to doubt this, and was looking for counterexamples rather than a response to the writer about the difference between guided discovery and constructivism. So, I shoulda been clearer.
I do think constructivism is fundamentally flawed as LynneG says, but often find that people tend to confuse "guided discovery" which is effective, with "constructivism" which is not.
I happen to think this writer is mistaken in his view that "true" constructivism is not practiced. From what I hear from parents writing in on various blogs, teachers are practicing it.
This sounds exactly like arguments I used to hear from liberal arts grad students (esp. history students) defending communism against the allegation that it's been failed every time it's been tried. The argument was that true communism has never been tried -- the societies and the people that tried it weren't pure enough or didn't do it quite right, or whatever.
In our school district, Everyday Math offers the best example of constructivism. I think your example is accurate. The program gives children problems before they've been taught appropriate procedures for solving them.
They kids might get a word problem requiring division when they haven't yet been taught to divide (although they may have been exposed to division). By figuring out the solution to the problem, they're supposedly teaching themselves how to divide.
The EM Teacher's Reference Manual explains:
"Central to all [of these definitions of problem solving] is the idea that solution methods are not known in advance. A problem is not a problem if the problem solver knows exactly what to do right away."
The Manual quotes George Polyn who said "'Solving a problem is finding the unknown means to a distinctly conceived end."
By contrast, I assume supporters of direct instruction would teach the procedure first, and then provide the child with world problems requiring application of the procedure.
Invented algorithms are another example of constructivism. The Manual states that "children should be encouraged to invent and share their own procedures." I don't know if teachers in our district actually follow this advice. Some constructivist notions would fail with so many children, that I think teachers just ignore them.
Another example of constructivism in action is the elimination of textbooks. Children are supposed to construct their own knowledge, so we wouldn't want them reading about the subject matter in textbooks. I assume that's why EM doesn't have a text. In our district, they're also moving away from texts in science, I hear.
E.D. Hirsch Jr. defines constructivism as"
"A psychological term used by educational specialists to sanction the practice of 'self-paced learning' and 'discovery learning.' The term implies that only constructed knowledge -- knowledge which one finds out for one's self -- is truly integrated and understood.'"
Hirsch says that constructivism is valid as a psychological theory; apparently, it means that when we remember what we've learned, we reconstruct it and give it meaning, something like that. But we construct all of our learning, even what we learn from reading and lectures.
"Constructivism" as an educational theory is a whole different thing. Educationists misapply the psychological research to claim that only what you discover for yourself is truly understood.
Maybe constructivism should be called "discovery" learning. And maybe there's no bright line between pure discovery and guided discovery. It's a continuum. Certainly in the math curriculum, IMO, we've strayed too far in the direction of unguided discovery.
THANK YOU ALL! Very helpful. I shall get back to said edu-philosopher-king and let you know what his highness has to say.
You know, I think my own district would support the writer's assertion that "real" constructivism is not being practiced.
I can't speak for the K-5 classes, but I suspect that our K-5 teachers aren't having kids spend hours discovering knowledge. I suspect that our K-5 teachers, who are very good, are combining the superior word problems TRAILBLAZERS provides with the direct instruction they've always been doing.
TRAILBLAZERS off-loads the learning of math facts to parents, but my neighbor says that was true for her, too. I know I bought every flash card under the sun back before TRAILBLAZERS was adopted.
Then I "discovered" that flash cards didn't work for my own kid; I needed worksheets. After that I "discovered" that the Saxon Math Fast Facts worksheets did the trick.
The main person constructing her own knowledge around here seems to be me.
I think my own school fits David Klein's observation that there are "constructivist elements" everywhere, in all math textbooks. You could probably say the same of classrooms. There are constructivist elements everywhere, but no (or few) constructivist classrooms & no (or few) constructivist teachers.
The middle school math program - the accelerated program, at least - is an unholy mess, but it has nothing to do with constructivism. We have appalling curriculum & pedagogy, a course that could have been designed to defeat learning and love of math (no exaggeration) taught by a teacher who is universally perceived to be weak and who is receiving no apparent mentoring or on-the-job training whatsoever from her department chair.
I'm beginning to think that in many schools the idea of "constructivism" serves to justify, theorize, and reinforce lack of accountability for individual student learning.
"Constructivism," the abstract ideal of constructivism, probably also serves to rationalize, justify, and excuse the very slow pace of curricula. Parents here have copied me on emails from administrators saying things like, "I don't believe students should rush through the curricula."
acceleration = rush
Public schools have never been accountable for individual student learning; it's only recently they've been accountable for student learning in the aggregate.
Constructivism rationalizes and justifies a system based on inputs, not outputs.
That could explain why, once you get to middle & high school, constructivism disappears. By the time a child has turned 11 (some) teachers & administrators will simply tell you flat-out that it's up to the child to "take ownership of his learning."
Barry
David Labaree's Progressivism, Schools and Schools of Education: An American Romance (pdf file) is terrifically helpful on the subject of whether constructivism is or is not being used in classrooms systematically.
You go through a number of specified, short steps, and you draw the appropriate conclusions at the end by answering a "stepped" sequence of questions along the way.
Your description of how Saxon works serves as a contrast to how math teaching is approached in many classrooms, whether you call it constructivist or not. EM does not give proper sequencing, gives students problems for which they are not prepared to solve, and CMP, a middle school problem is more of the same. The two programs are informed by constructivist theory. So while "pure" or "true" constructivism isn't practiced in the classrooms, the "student-centered" ethic of these programs carries through. As opposed to how Saxon or Singapore does it.
And you're correct in characterizing constructivism as a means for justifying the poor methods used to teach math in Irvington and other school districts.
EM does not give proper sequencing, gives students problems for which they are not prepared to solve, and CMP, a middle school problem is more of the same. The two programs are informed by constructivist theory. So while "pure" or "true" constructivism isn't practiced in the classrooms, the "student-centered" ethic of these programs carries through.
Absolutely.
I think this is probably David Klein's point about "constructivist elements" pervading all math textbooks.
SRA Math was a mess in that way. It was impossible to learn anything from the huge, colorful textbook, in large part because the textbook constantly poses questions to the student without providing the answer - and without so much as hinting at a how to go about finding the answer.
student-centered
It's amazing how withholding and even punitive the concept of "student-centered" teaching can be.
Thanks for the link to the Larabee article. I'm familiar with his work and have his book about ed schools. His thesis is that ed schools talk a good game about constructivism but it doesn't end up practiced as they envision it in the "real world" of schools. My point (and yours and Klein's) is it doesn't have to. The NCTM has embodied the principles of constructivism, embedded them in their standards, and the textbooks that grew out of them (thanks to NSF funding) force classrooms to adhere to the constructivist non-think ethic whether they like it or not.
The NCTM has embodied the principles of constructivism, embedded them in their standards, and the textbooks that grew out of them (thanks to NSF funding) force classrooms to adhere to the constructivist non-think ethic whether they like it or not.
wow
well-put
this would be a good example of the UK approach to teaching writing - taking 100 words, boiling it down to 50, then to 25.
Constructivism works by definition. If something doesn't work, then, by definition, it isn't constructivism.
Constructivism (in any form) is neither necessary or sufficient. Mostly, it benefits few and wastes a whole lot of time.
In its student-centered form, perhaps only one student achieves the light bulb effect (perhaps wrong). The rest of the students get directly taught by this untrained teacher (student).
When I was in school -- and I'm the sputnik/duck and cover generation -- science classes were lectures, labs, and tests, all. There was nothing I'd call constructivist about any of our science classes.
I can make that response in 10 words, Barry:
"The fallacy you are looking for is, "No True Scotsman".
science classes were lectures, labs, and tests, all.
And all the labs were tightly scripted at both the high school and undergraduated level. In high school, the reason was because we were stupid high school students juast learning the material for the first time and had no idea how to conduct a real experiment on our own. In undersgrad, the labs were usually postponed until after we learned the subject matter, but still the labs were tightly scrtipted since we still did not have the domain knowledge to conduct them on our own, especially given the time constraints.
We didn't discover or construct much of anything. We did, however, learn how to conduct a scientific experiment through sheer scripted practice. As it should be.
Thanks Doug for the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. I hadn't heard of that but it sounds like that's what is it play here.
On labs: I had labs in high school also. They were as Ken described. Tightly scripted, and they were mostly illustrative of what we were learning during lectures and the chapter we were reading at the time.
The only one that was mildly "discovery" was to write down all our observations of a burning candle, which is the famous "experiment" that Faraday wrote up. After we wrote our observations, the teacher then read us Faraday's observations. The shock of finding out through that reading what constituted observation in Faraday's experiment has stayed with me to this day, and helped shaped the way I thought about science and experimentation. But I wasn't asked to come up with conclusions about candles or any such thing. It was to learn about observations and that particular lab did it well.
My experience with labs is similar. In fact, they were scripted enough that a halfway decent student should have been able to arrive at the correct results without doing the lab work.
Of course, getting a credible result is something of an art form; precisely correct results are rightly viewed with skepticism. The important thing is to get just the right amount of jitter in your data.
Not that I can say that I ever saw anyone try that, of course.
Well, the flip side of "getting the right result without doing the lab" (which was known as "dry labbing") was getting a result that you knew was not going to fly. My physics teacher handled such results incredibly well. A student would describe something that had gone awry. The dialogue went something like this:
Student: Was that supposed to happen that way?
Saporsky: Did it happen?
Student: (pause; puzzled)...Uh, yes.
Saporsky: Then it was supposed to happen.
Another lesson in observation!
There might be more value in getting the wrong answer in the practical lab than in getting the correct answer. (As long as you know the answer you should have gotten.)
Searching out the reason things went wrong is (or at least can be) both interesting and instructive.
Think a minute. How much easier would it be to give a definition or explanation of "instuctivism" instead. There's no doubt about what it is, we all recognize it when we see it, and we don't have to deny it's "instructivism" because when direct instruction, students "get it" and feel successful.
One other thought:
Imagine a brain surgeon learning his skill by the "constructivist" approach. Who would want to go to him in the first place? And if his surgical procedures don't work, can he get off the hook by saying, "Oh well, that wasn't really brain surgery"?
Imagine a brain surgeon learning his skill by the "constructivist" approach. Who would want to go to him in the first place? And if his surgical procedures don't work, can he get off the hook by saying, "Oh well, that wasn't really brain surgery"?
Hi Concerned!
That's what always gets me.
Often enough I find that when you examine the premises of edu-talk you find that the premise is that it doesn't matter if students learn the material or not. It's not critical.
With a brain surgeon everyone agrees that it is critical for the brain surgeon to a) know (i.e. remember) and b) be proficient in his specialty.
It all goes back to the anti-knowledge bias of education schools.
This sounds exactly like arguments I used to hear from liberal arts grad students (esp. history students) defending communism against the allegation that it's been failed every time it's been tried. The argument was that true communism has never been tried -- the societies and the people that tried it weren't pure enough or didn't do it quite right, or whatever.
That was also my experience. Then these advocates of true communism got on their hindlegs to defend phony communism to the death when it was attacked.
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