Constructivism and Instructivism in Teaching and Learning - Essay Example

Constructivism and Instructivism in Teaching and Learning Introduction The “No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001” was meant “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessment” (NCLB, 2002, Section 1001). As the NCLB’s main aim was to improve the quality of education in the U.S., educators and teachers have been forced to ask uncomfortable but important questions as to how such improvement can be attained. Foremost among their concerns is to know what happened, or why the quality of education has deteriorated to such an extent that a new law had to be drafted by Congress. Certainly, such a finding could only have been the result of acknowledged mistakes committed in the past, and of problems that were allowed to fester unresolved in our educational system, and since identifying the problem correctly is halfway towards finding the right solution, countless debates have since taken place in the academic world to pinpoint where the problems lie in the hope of identifying the right and the best solutions. Such debates are familiar to educators and teachers. After all, the teaching profession has been one of the most intellectually challenging precisely because it consists of identifying problems and finding solutions. Teaching is not just any science, but the science of teaching young minds the skills, attitudes, and habits needed to do science, that is, to know the world and everything worth knowing as to attain a level of mastery that leads to a person’s growth and fulfillment as a human being. This is where teaching gets its nobility and lasting value. The debates have been long and many, covering every topic in the field of teaching and learning: curriculum design, standards of achievement, instructional strategy, learning psychology, and so on. These debates have been heated and not without controversy, which is what makes them interesting. Of the wide range of debated topics, this paper focuses on one of the most basic battle lines – Constructivism versus Instructivism – which seeks to ask and answer the question: how do we learn? Constructivism and Instructivism These two are basic theories of how people learn (EBC, 2007). Constructivist Theory states that people learn by constructing their own understanding and knowledge of the world through experience and reflection on those experiences. Instructivist Theory states that people learn by the transfer of knowledge from teachers to their students in an orderly sequence over time. These definitions give an idea of the controversies that have marked the debate, which can best be summarized as in Table 1. The basic point of contention is in each theory’s focus: Constructivism is “student-centered” while Instructivism is “teacher-centered”. This is why instructivists are criticized as traditionalists and old-fashioned, teachers who teach as they have been taught. The achievement of learning depends too much on the quality of the teacher, which makes learning rather like the roll of a dice: students taught by good teachers are lucky, while those who end up with bad teachers are not. Improving the quality of education would therefore mean improving the quality of teachers: how they teach, how they assess learning, how they refine their methods, and so on. Table 1: Comparison of Constructivism and Instructivism Instructivism Constructivism Curriculum begins with the parts of the whole. Emphasizes basic skills. Curriculum emphasizes big concepts, beginning with the whole and expanding to include the parts. Strict adherence to fixed curriculum is highly valued. Pursuit of student questions and interests is valued. Materials are primarily textbooks and workbooks. Materials include primary sources of material and manipulative materials. Learning is based on repetition. Learning is interactive, building on what the student already knows. Teachers disseminate information to students; students are recipients of knowledge. Teachers have a dialogue with students, helping students construct their own knowledge. Teacher’s role is directive, rooted in authority. Teacher’s role is interactive, rooted in negotiation. Assessment is through testing, correct answers. Assessment includes student works, observations, and points of view, as well as tests. Process is as important as product. Knowledge is seen as inert. Knowledge is seen as dynamic, ever changing with our experiences. Students work primarily alone. Students work primarily in groups. [Source: Educational Broadcasting Corp., 2007] On the other hand, Constructivists are criticized as too modern; they depend too much on the quality of the students, and therefore may be ineffective because the learning process is based on the freewheeling and unpredictable nature of individual learning that needs to be combined in a classroom. And since every student is unique, its critics claim that this theory is like a chicken and egg problem: how can students who do not know much about a subject get to learn, much less ask the right questions, if they do not know much about it? All the other aspects of the debate hinge on these opposite starting points. Should improving the quality of education focus on the teacher or on the student? Is the recent drop in education quality due to a faulty curriculum, or the teaching strategy, or changes in the types of students entering the educational system? Is there a need to replace rote listening and memorization characteristic of instructivist methods with new constructivist ways of helping students learn through question and discovery? The list is endless. Which of these two really works and is more effective? Conclusion The best way to analyze the points raised in the debate is, as always, to go back to the basic beliefs pointed out so clearly by Glatthorn (1999, p.5). His emphasis on “learning-centered teaching that promotes authentic learning using performance assessments to measure student learning” would help any confused teacher to begin the path of enlightenment on this and any other issues being debated. As Glatthorn argued, learning is the bottom line, the basis of evaluating the effectiveness of every teaching experience. What matters is that students develop the ability to do their best in life, solving complex problems in the best possible way. This means that for learning to be achieved, the issue is not whether one of these two theories is right, but how teachers can combine the good points of each to ensure that students learn better by teachers teaching in a better way. Children are left behind when teachers allow themselves to be left behind. Perhaps, the debate has been fueled by critics focusing on the poor points of each. Constructivists and instructivists need to meet halfway, blending and balancing the transfer of knowledge from the teacher with motivation and encouragement of the student to learn. After all, a poor instructivist who gives boring lectures is as bad as a poor constructivist who is unable to ask the right questions or who gives the wrong answers. In the end, the burden of proof lies on the teacher. It is they who have to ensure that students learn. They have to foster learning and help students develop their knowledge, attitudes, and skills. They have to motivate so that students learn to love knowledge by feeling the joy that only knowing can give. This is the grand challenge posed by NCLB: the quality of education has gone down because the quality of the teachers deteriorated before it, perhaps by focusing on methods and not results, experimenting on teaching techniques and not on the substance of learning, or acting on a mistaken desire to try new things poorly to compensate for poorly doing something that worked well when used by dedicated teachers. Or worse, good instructivists who turned out good students were forced by peer pressure to adopt constructivism and ended up doing it badly. This has to stop. The best person to judge what went wrong is the individual teacher who is at the front lines of this war against ignorance. It is the teacher who knows which method works because it is effective. It is the teacher who knows which method does not work and, therefore, must be refined and improved. It is the teacher who needs to upgrade their personal knowledge and who must be humble enough to admit their limitations and daring enough to find ways to improve how they carry out their profession. The teacher must learn how to make learning fun once again. Every teacher must learn how to account for one of the greatest missions anyone can receive, that of shaping other human minds and launching them on their way to learning, discovery, and survival in a complex world. Reference List Educational Broadcasting Corporation (2007). “What is constructivism?” Concept to Classroom Website (updated 2004). Retrieved February 12, 2007 from: Glatthorn, A. (1999). Performance standards & authentic teaching. New York: Eye on Education. NCLB (2002). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: Public Law 107–110 dated January 8, 2002. Washington: U.S. Congress. Read More