Having read this article, I’m still confused about what constructivism is.  I don’t think I am a constructivist because it seems like the constructivist teachers just provide a nice fuzzy environment and then wait for something to happen, but maybe I just don’t understand. 

I think it’s important to let kids study the things that motivate them, but I’m not sure if that’s key to constructivism.   I think there must be some relationship between Whole Language and Constructivism.  I believe that Camborne (2002) is sometimes at odds with what I’m reading in Wikipedia. Here’s what I was able to gather from the Camborne article:

Constructivism

1. “What is learned cannot be separated from the context in which it is learned.”
   • Understanding and learning is not just a result of the learner’s effort and ability, but it is also the result of the context and the environmental variables.
   • Constructivism rejects “The ends justify the means.”  The means and the ends are inextricably tied together.
   • The types of methods chosen for reading instruction result in different types of readers.
2. “The purposes or goals that the learner brings to the learning situation are central to what is learned.”
   • Engagement is key to learning.
   • Demonstration is not enough.
   • Learners are unlikely to attend or learn if they don’t perceive a need to do so.
   • Learners need to be active participants.
   • Learners need to be free from stress or anxiety (Krashen’s Affective Filter).
   • Learners need to trust their teacher, coach, or exemplar.
   • Teachers need to set an environment that will encourage all to see the need to engage and learn.
3. “Knowledge and meaning are socially constructed through the processes of negotiation, evaluation, and transformation.”
   • There isn’t a single truth or piece of knowledge that exists out side of human social experience. 
   • Group interactions enrich learning.

Constructivist Advice for the Reading Classroom

1. “Create a classroom ethos/culture that supports and encourages deep engagement with multiple demonstrations of reading behavior.”
   • Through communicated expectations.
   • Creating opportunities to engage in reflective learning.
2. “Employ teaching activities and strategies that are a judicious mix of the four dimensions of teaching and learner.”
   • Explicit teaching (not implicit)
   • Systematically planned teaching
   • Mindful (not Mindless) teaching
   • Contextualized teaching
3. “Employ structures and processes that create continuous opportunities for the development of intellectual unrest.”
   • Transformation
   • Discussion
   • Reflection
   • Application
   • Evaluation
4. “Develop learners’ metatextual awareness of the processes and understandings implicit in effective reading behavior.”
   • Explicit Teaching Strategies
5. “Design and use tasks that will coerce authentic use of the processes and understandings implicit in effective reading behavior.”

The Controversy

1. Apparently constructivists and objectivists don’t like each other much.
2. Religious objections.
   • Belief in absolute truth conflicts with socially constructed reality.
   • Belief that children are born evil suggests that children need discipline more than they need the freedom to explore and reflect.
3. Instructivists and constructivists dispute with each other over philosophy.
   • Constructivists accuse Instructivists of using repressive tactics
   • What is the difference between scientific truth and constructed truth?
   • Government control of Education equals thought control?

What it is and isn’t

1. “Focus on learners as constructors of their own knowledge.”
2. Social negotiation of meaning.
3. Learners do creative and critical thinking.
4. Not Socratic Process.
5. Not Discovery Learning.
6. The teacher is a participant observer.
7. Teacher is not a director or facilitator.

Cambourne, B. (2002). Holistic, integrated approaches to reading and language arts instruction: The constructivist framework of an instructional theory. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels, What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd ed., pp. 25-47). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.