Constructivist Viewpoint, BCED, and Reality

For those of us who have been looking closely at the new British Columbia Education Plan, the term "constructivism" will pop up once in a while. For those not familiar with the term, Constructivist theory, in basic terms, means that we "construct" our reality through our interactions with reality itself. In essence, this means that different people can have a different view of the same reality and that it is through communication, collaboration, critical thinking, etc., that we will begin to understand other points of view. In the educational field, this view has its beginnings with such prominent thinkers such as Dewey, Piaget, and Vigotsky and, when implemented in a school, classroom, or simply as an overall pedagogical approach, it has the effect of changing the role of the teacher from being the "holder of knowledge" to one that guides students to ask the right questions so that they can "construct" their own knowledge.

Though debates are always part of any change in education, I see constructivism as a positive change and one that better suits 21st Century learning. To clarify, let me give an example: students are to learn about "the urbanization and migration of people" in Grade 6 Social Studies in BC's curriculum. More specifically, students are to look at the impact (long and short) of each of these aspects (both positive and negative) and use standard competency skills to analyze, interpret and understand how this is impacting global economy. A teacher could

1. Assign the student a country or province
2. Tell them where people migrated to, or have them fill in a chart copied from an overhead
3. Explain for the student's their own interpretation of the impact of migration on Canada as a whole or even on the world in general (students take notes)
4. The teacher would then aggregate the notes and ask students to memorize what the textbook companies have said about it (this would be the learning)
5. Assessment would then be asking the student to spit the knowledge they acquired back out on the test at the end of the unit

The above is (or luckily was) a standard SS unit when I grew up. This is not a good unit, in my opinion, as it does not give any ownership of learning to the student. As well, units like this do not allow for transference of that knowledge to other circumstance, such as to other community or country urbanization situations. In fact, as students become more global, they will find (probably on their own through travel or other real-life situations) that other countries and their respective government offices see and do things differently (this is actually one of the Big Ideas for the Grade 6 SS curriculum in fact). To understand "WHY" other Governments and countries do things differently requires Critical Thinking, something the above example unit as it stands does not address. What teachers need to allow is for students to come to their own conclusions about topics, hear various views outside of their own experiences, and be able to analyze those other views against their own. It is only then that our students will be able to learn the importance of collaboration, differing viewpoints, and critical thinking.

Sounds great doesn't it? However, there is a concern: what if students come to the "wrong" conclusion? Are teachers not supposed to share their wisdom and knowledge with students so that they come up to the right answer? How can we steer them in the right direction if there is no standard end result? Are there no absolute truths in the world anymore? Also, taking any practice out of key areas and procedures can be detrimental to learning: should students never practice such things as math multiplication tables anymore?

These are very valid arguments and they do need to be flushed out - no educator wants to lead students down a path to nowhere, or a path that can lead to an untruth. I do not see this as being too big an issue if done correctly, however as the teacher, who acts as the mentor to their students, does have the responsibility of helping the student "understand" differing positions on topics - there is no untruth in this statement. However, we need to be very careful that we don't put our spin on their reality and that we don't try to put our truths to their possibilities. In essence, we need to make sure that students are allowed to learn and show their knowledge in their own ways (using their current strengths). This is true teaching (mentorship). Let me flush this out a bit more here: though mentorship is too broad to fit into this post, one of the most interesting key components of mentorship revolves around the question of what is the end product of the mentorship? Much research agrees that it is vital for the mentor and mentee to both agree with the final product before they get too deep into the mentorship. One example of this is in a student teacher / field teacher partnership. Hudson, 2014). To clarify, this does mean that for these two there is a "right" and a "wrong" way of doing things. However, it is important that the truth is clearly seen as quantifiable (what worked in the classroom and what did not), and not simply the mentor's ideas of what "will" work and what "will not". Why? Here are a few thoughts (not exhaustive by any means):
In this example, the mentorship between the student teacher and the experienced teacher will not be successful if there was no discussion between them around  “what it means to be a professional for teaching students” (

1. It puts the learning into a real life situation (the classroom)
2. It allows for critical thinking
3. The mentor can even learn something (life-long learning)
4. The student teacher can make the connections in their mind that best suits themselves 

This is the same for our students in K-2 classes: teachers and students must look at realities and learning and agree on what that learning meant (what truth is found from this learning) - but they should do it together. As a tech, I see this model of teaching in terms of being similar to a Web 2.0 (interactive) site and not Web 1.0 (just giving information) site.