While behaviourists believe in nurture and maturationists believe in nature, constructivists advocate for a balance between the two.
Under the realm of constructivism, we have 3 theorists, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Gardner. We have to provide opportunities for children to have active engagement, through the use of
1.Relevant, meaningful learning experiences
2.Concrete, open-ended materials
3.Unrushed time
4.Differentiated learning.
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory entails 4 stages: Sensorimotor (0 to 2), preoperational (3 to 7), concrete operational (7 to 11), formal operational (11 onwards). Children may deviate from these stipulated age groups, as according to their individual development.
Piaget also describes an ability known as adaptation, which involves assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is when children transform new information into what they already know, while accommodation is about changing what is already known to make sense of new information. So if I know that tables have 4 legs, and I see a chair, I will still call it a table as I change it to fit what I currently know. But, if a teacher tells me that it is not a table, but a chair, I change what I know to fit this new information. Hence, this is a back-and-forth process.
Equilibrium or disequilibrium is simply about whether a balance between new and current information is achieved.
Vygotsky defines the zone of proximal development as the gap between the most difficult independent task a child can do, and the most difficult task the child can do with support. A more knowledgeable other has to guide the child, but ensure the level of support slowly reduces to enable the child to be capable of his or her own.
This process is defined as scaffolding. Scaffolding entails 5 components: Instruction (information on what to do), Modelling (showing behaviour for children to imitate), Feeding-back (offering information based on what child as done concerning task objective), Questioning (enable children to think in new ways), Cognitive Structuring (structure for thinking and acting, like stating the steps to do). Vygotsky also believes in the importance of language. Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky believes in the role of social relationships.
As for Gardner, Multiple Intelligences are in every person, in various degrees. It is possible to have more than one. Learning can involve multiple intelligences too, for instance, a cookery lesson must have logical-mathematical competency, but it can also involve naturalistic intelligence, as they begin to discover and wonder how do ingredients work with each other.
Children learn through play and play is defined as an activity that is: voluntary, requires active involvement, symbolic, free of external rules, focuses on action rather than outcomes, and pleasurable.
Play can also be divided into types, such as constructive play, or Parten’s Six Levels of Social Play: Unoccupied behaviour, solitary, onlooker, parallel, associative, and cooperative.
Smilansky defines Four Types of Cognitive Play, further enhancing Parten’s theory: Functional (Repetitive physical action), Constructive (Sensorimotor or creativity to build something), Games with rules (Understanding and accepting rules), and Dramatic (substituting an object for something imaginary).
Play is beneficial in teaching pre-academic skills. Using objects to represent supermarket groceries is one such example, and the use of symbols benefit them in learning to read. Using a toy phone to represent a real phone is no different from using a word to represent an idea or concept.
Finally, purposeful play, as defined by MOE, it must be enjoyable to children, requires the active involvement of children in exploring, developing and applying knowledge and skills, involves learning objectives that have been carefully thought through by the teacher while taking in consideration children’s interests and abilities, and it requires facilitation by teachers and this involves observing children at play to discover what they have learnt, and then designing learning activities to reinforce and/or extend their learning based on clearly identified learning objectives.
References
Chen, D. (2020). ECE102 Children as thinkers and meaning makers (study guide). Singapore: Singapore University of Social Sciences.
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