I appreciated reading the article this week by Angela O’Donnell. It helped clear up some confusion I had regarding constructivism as an epistemology vs. pedagogy.  Last semester, I was told that it was logically inconsistent to teach in a constructivist manner if one held an objectivist epistemology.  To believe in an accurate knowledge external to the individual necessitated using direct instruction as a teaching strategy.  I don’t believe this way.  I believe that we construct our views of the world, but that these views can “correspond, more or less adequately, to reality,” to borrow the words of Piaget (as cited in our Module 3 PowerPoint).  Therefore, I think constructivist strategies are appropriate in the classroom.  Students must actively engage the environment in order to learn, even though I think that some forms of knowledge ultimately reside outside of the individual.  (I must qualify “some” because there are clearly some forms of knowledge which are socially constructed.  Unlike many social constructivists, though, I don’t believe that all knowledge is socially constructed.)  I appreciated O’Donnell’s explanation of Moshman’s three kinds of constructivism.  Moshman distinguished between exogeneous, endogenous, and dialectical constructivism.  Endogenous constructivism is the kind I encountered in my course last semester.  It is based on the idea that knowledge is internally developed and different from person to person.  In exogeneous constructivism, however, knowledge resides in the environment, but constructivist strategies are appropriate in helping learners to assimilate accurate mental models.  Dialectic constructivism is a blend of these two forms of constructivism.  I relate most to dialectic constructivism due to the distinction I made earlier between external and socially constructed knowledge.  I now understand much better from a theoretical perspective why I have been so drawn to Vygotsky, who I was previously led to believe resided in a much different intellectual camp from myself.  While I don’t think Vygotsky would have completely agreed with my epistemology, I can now see from O’Donnell’s explanation how Vygotsky’s perspective is more closely aligned with mine than many of the other education theorists.

O’Donnell, A. M. (2012). Constructivism. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, & T. C. Urdan (Eds.) APA educational psychology handbook, Vol. 1: Theories, constructs, and critical issues (pp. 61-84). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.