Learning in U.S. classrooms has traditionally involved having students repeat newly presented information in reports or on tests. Constructivist teaching practices, in contrast, help learners internalize, or transform, new information (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). According to Müller, Sokol, and Overton (1998), in the constructivist model, humans construct mental structures that, in turn, organize experiences and make further understanding possible.
Good and his colleagues believe that the term construction is attractive to educators, but that the idea of "knowledge construction" may actually be misleading (Good, Wandersee, & St. Julien, 1993). They urge educators to exercise caution before going down this road. Because our view of how the mind works is continually being revised, the best strategy may be to reserve judgment about constructivism while monitoring how it compares with new theories of learning and the findings of cognitive science. Good and his colleagues state that "learning may be more than just 'carpentry' and teaching may be more than just 'negotiation' and 'building inspection'" (p. 85).
Brooks and Brooks (1993) advocate the constructivist approach. However, even they caution that although deep understanding, not imitative behavior, is the goal of constructivism, the downside is that capturing another person's understanding is problematic. They admit that one common criticism of constructivism is that it subordinates the curriculum to the interests of the child. They also cite critics who contend that the constructivist approach stimulates learning only around concepts in which the students have a prior interest. Brooks and Brooks believe, however, that such criticisms are misdirected and that appropriate intervention can overcome these possible problems.
Although teacher intervention is an essential component of all instructional strategies, Klein (1997) discovered a problem while teaching preservice mathematics teachers about the constructivist view of learning and teaching. When she tried to get her students actively engaged in developing a personal construction of knowledge, Klein ran into trouble. She found that although some of her students were adopting the required terminology and some of the strategies of constructivist practice, they changed neither their epistemological beliefs about the nature of mathematical knowledge nor their view of how mathematics should be taught.
Dick (1992), an instructional designer, has another concern about constructivism. He believes that no ultimate, shared reality exists between the student and the teacher; rather, that reality is the outcome of constructive processes. When two people carry on a discussion, person B is always concerned about whether person A "really" understands the point being made. They can never be certain that their understandings are identical.
Crick (1994) seems to agree with Dick. In his research on how the brain attempts to make sense of the world, he found that what we see is not what is really there; it is what our brains believe is there. In many cases, this perception corresponds with the characteristics of the real world, but in some cases, our beliefs may be wrong. In this active, constructive process, the brain makes the best interpretation it can, according to its previous experiences and the limited information available.
Dana and Davis (1993) share a concern about how teachers should assess this student-constructed knowledge. When learning occurs as students give meaning to experiences in light of existing knowledge, assessment techniques must permit students to express their personal understanding of concepts in ways that are uniquely theirs. Traditional classroom assessment is not sufficient. As a result, teachers must use other strategies to measure what students know.
Not only must assessment practices change, but also other elements of the educational process within the classroom must also be considered. Battista (1999) believes that even the most accomplished curriculum developers do not pay adequate attention to research on how students learn. And, supporting the work by Klein, he further contends that teachers with incorrect conceptions of how learning occurs can distort the original ideas of the curriculum's creators.
In addition, Battista research shows that publishing companies contribute to this problem. Almost all commercially available mathematics textbooks, he says, claim to be consistent with the constructivism-based mathematics content, teaching, and assessment standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, but many, in fact, are not. As a result, although many school districts claim to be implementing a curriculum based on constructivist reform, their implementations often fall short. His conclusion is that the mechanisms for bringing constructivism to the classroom, such as teacher preparation, textbook creation, and teaching itself, may be flawed.
To smooth out the road ahead, we must learn what research is saying about the impact, both good and bad, that constructivism has on teaching and learning. Only then will educators be equipped to make accommodations for the inevitable speed bumps inherent in this powerful concept.
