Constructivist views of learning emphasise the active role of the learner in building understanding, that is; effective learning occurs when individuals construct their own understandings. Rather than feeding students information for them to memorize and regurgitate to pass an exam from the authoritative, all-knowing position as the teacher, a constructivist approach is a mutual discovery. Under the teachers guidance students draw on their own experiences and understandings to further their knowledge on a subject. A process of scaffolding guides the student from what he currently knows to what he is able to know.


Jean Piaget 1896 – 1980




Piaget, a Swiss biologist and psychologist came to study “how children come to know things”. Through this study Piaget developed his theory identifying four stages of child development.




1 Sensorimotor stage (birth - 2 years old)--The child, through physical interaction with his or her environment, builds a set of concepts about reality and how it works. This is the stage where a child does not know that physical objects remain in existence even when out of sight (object permanence).

2 Preoperational stage (ages 2-7)--The child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations.

3 Concrete operations (ages 7-11)--As physical experience accumulates, the child starts to conceptualize, creating logical structures that explain his or her physical experiences. Abstract problem solving is also possible at this stage. For example, arithmetic equations can be solved with numbers, not just with objects.

4 Formal operations (beginning at ages 11-15)--By this point, the child's cognitive structures are like those of an adult and include conceptual reasoning.

Piaget’s study led him to believe that children construct their own understanding through interaction with their environment.



Lev Vygotski 1896 – 1936


For Vygotsky, a contempory of Piaget, the students learning process is not a solitary exploration by a child of the environment, but rather the unfolding of cognitive understandings of social beings within social contexts. That the social system in which children develop is crucial to their learning.

Children learn through socially organized instruction with teachers, parents and peers.

Vygotsky developed the Zone of Proximal Development. This is described as each persons range of potential for learning, or; the distance between the actual developmental level of a chills as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.


Jerome Bruner


Jerome Bruner advocates that if students were allowed to pursue concepts on their own they would gain a better understanding. The teacher would provide guidance, organizing the curriculum in a spiral manner so the students are continuously building upon what they have already learnt. The intelligent mind creates from experience.


Bruner’s theory of child development. As children develop they master each of these increasingly more complex modes:


1 Enactive representation - this is the earliest stage present from infancy where a child's world is represented through objects in terms of their immediate sensation of them. For example their muscular and motor responses or ways they manipulate the environment.
2 Iconic representation - develops at around two to three years old and involves the use of mental images that stand for certain objects or events; imagery that is relatively free of action.
3 Symbolic representation - develops around seven years old and is the ability to transform action and image into a symbolic system to encode knowledge. Primarily these symbols are language and mathematical notation.

Class: Kindergarten
Subject: Craft/Sewing
Object: Frog

The frog character was first introduced in a curative nature-based story. Through this story the children learnt of the development of tadpole to frog and about the frogs living environment. I was able to weave a curative aspect into the storyline to help some behavioural issues the class have been dealing with.

The children were given a (fabric) frog that had been sewn together with a hole for the filling to go into. They filled the frog with rice – manipulating the rice into the all the legs and the head, and then were able to sew up the hole and along the seam of the entire frog decoratively.

The children were taught blanket stitch for this lesson and were also required to felt balls for the eyes and sew them on.

The result: the children have a very beautiful toy to play with and to snuggle at rest-time.


Viewing this lesson in a constructivist learning environment I have highlighted the key learning features.

Active – I introduced blanket stitch to the children by doing 2 stitches in front of them and each child would do one stitch in front of me, then leave them to continue. As this was the first time most of the students had done blanket stitch I was aware this wasn’t enough guidance but I wanted to allow them to discover how to do it with only just enough guidance from me.

Constructive – This lesson built on already learned skills. Our first sewing a cardboard art folder, using beeswax on the end of the wool as a “needle”, sewing through already punched holes. We moved onto a simple running stitch with a real needle, then onto our decorative blanket stitch.

Collaborative – Having left the hole for filling the frog between the back legs it was quite difficult to manipulate the rice filling into the hind legs. A couple of children discovered how to do it and when a child expressed their difficulties these children in their naturally helpful way would show them how to do it – leaving me free to solve the “bigger problems”.

Intentional – The children’s goal was to learn blanket stitch and to create their own beautiful toy.

Complex – During the story for this lesson the children were taken on an adventure with the “croaker loaker chorus”, as I was dealing with behavioural issues in this story one frog had been “led astray”. The children are very involved during story-time and can’t help but call out “solutions” to the problem – which I then incorporate into the story.


Contextual – This story “happened” at “crystal creek”, when the class were taken on a bushwalk they “discovered” crystal creek. Much excitement ensued as we looked for (and found) the characters from our stories.


Conversational – The children are divided into 5 work tables where they are able to chat and help each other as they work, sometimes travelling to other tables to help them.


Reflective – The children are so proud of their beautiful frogs – I love to see them showing their parents their work and hear them explain how they did it (often in great detail). I have reports back from parents that they have been taught blanket stitch at home by their children.

Howard Gardner
Through his research, Howard Gardner believes a multitude of intelligences exist, independent of each other, with their own strengths and constraints. He questions the idea that intelligence is a single entity or that knowledge at any one particular developmental stage hangs together in a structured whole, or that it can be measured simply by IQ tests.


Gardner outlined his view of multiple intelligences

Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals. This intelligence includes the ability to effectively use language to express oneself rhetorically or poetically; and language as a means to remember information. Writers, poets, lawyers and speakers are among those that Howard Gardner sees as having high linguistic intelligence.

Logical-mathematical intelligence consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically. In Howard Gardner's words, in entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically. This intelligence is most often associated with scientific and mathematical thinking.

Musical intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms. According to Howard Gardner musical intelligence runs in an almost structural parallel to linguistic intelligence.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements. Howard Gardner sees mental and physical activity as related.

Spatial intelligence involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.

Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others. Educators, salespeople, religious and political leaders and counselors all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.

Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations. In Howard Gardner's view it involves having an effective working model of ourselves, and to be able to use such information to regulate our lives.