Piaget
The father of constructivism and
conceptual change theory
Is the mind really
like a computer?
Quotes from college student exams & papers:
(taken from Non Campus Mentis by Anders Henriksson)
“Old Testament profits include Moses, Amy, and Confucius”
“Martin Luther Junior’s famous ‘If I had a hammer’ speech”
“Joan of Arc was famous as Noah’s wife”
“The airplane was invented and first flown by the Marx
brothers”
“The Boston Tea Party was held at Pearl Harbor”
“Judyism had one big God named ‘Yahoo’”
Constructivism
When ever we take in new information, we
interpret, distort, elaborate, and impose
meaning on it.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
We never encode information in a pure,
unaltered form.
Constructivism
When we recall information, we often
distort, elaborate, and transform it.
There is no pure, unaltered memory
recall.
We can even construct memories of things
that never happened - and believe they’re
true!
Piaget The Father of Constructivism
Children are active and motivated
learners.
Through their action, they construct
schemas.
A set of perceptions, ideas, and/or actions, that we
construct and use to understand and respond to the
world.
Ex. “Fast food joint”schema.
What were some of the unique schemas
that the kids had?
Where might these schemas have come
from?
Piaget
These schemas affect how we make
sense of the world and learn new things.
Learning is not so much a process of
acquiring new knowledge, but of
reconstructing our existing schemas.
Assimilation - fitting new info into existing
schemas, often by distorting, transforming,
and imposing meaning on the information.
Accommodation - modifying, transforming,
and reconstructing existing schemas.
Piaget
A disturbed mind is a good thing!
Disequilibrium - your schemas don’t match up with
the world (cognitive dissonance).
(Hopefully!) this lead to a restructuring
(accommodation) of your schemas.
Which then leads to equilibrium again.
This process is known as equilibration. And Piaget
believed equilibration is what makes you smart - it
leads to the development of more complex levels of
thought (e.g., critical thinking, abstract thinking).
Equilibration Demo
Did we see examples of assimilation with
the kids?
What about equilibration? Did they ever
express disequilibrium and accommodate
their schemas?
We cannot receive knowledge -- only
construct it.
A teacher cannot give knowledge -only foster its development.
Behaviorism gave us the scientific revolution in
psychology, Information Processing gave us the
cognitive revolution. Now Piaget gives us the
Constructivist revolution.
Implications
Peer Puzzle Activity
What are the implications of students
having schemas different from yours?
Metaphors for Constructivism
Painting with watercolors.
Growing a garden.
Change in an ecosystem.
Duckworth Article Discussion Questions
What type of learning does Duckworth
value? Why?
What type of instructional model does she
seem to value? Why?
How does her view of learning and
instruction relate to Piaget?
Problem-based Learning
Instead of presenting content, present a
problem that students can explore.
Carefully design the problem so that solving it
will lead students to engage with the content
you want them to learn.
MAKE SURE THEY WILL HAVE THE
OPPORTUNITY TO PUT FORTH AND TEST
THEIR IDEAS.
Provide appropriate guidance and scaffolding
(this is getting into social constructivism)
Conceptual Change
What is a misconception?
What misconception do students in the article have
about heat?
What misconceptions do students have in the video?
What misconceptions did the kids who visited our class
have?
Where do misconceptions come from?
Where might the heat, phases of the moon, reflected
light, and other misconceptions come from?
Why do individuals hold onto misconceptions?
Why do some students in the article and video hold onto
their misconceptions?
Reasons for holding on to
misconceptions
Pride; don’t like to be wrong
Mistrust source of new idea.
Stick to what makes SENSE!
New idea doesn’t make sense.
Comfort. Change is uncomfortable.
Risky
Takes work! We’re lazy.
Lack of motivation. Who cares?
Hard-core ideas vs. protective belt ideas
Language
Reasons for holding on to
misconceptions
 Uncomfortable to be in a state of not knowing.
 Believe it’s true! Stubborn about being wrong.
 Our beliefs are connected. Changing one belief may
cause Chaos.
 Prior belief MAKES SENSE.
 New idea might NOT make sense.
 Change takes work. We’re lazy.
 Might question the source of the new idea.
 Source of the prior idea may be powerful
 Hard-core vs. protective belt beliefs
 Prior idea has time on its side.
Reasons for holding on to
misconceptions
 Richer network in brain.
New idea is just some abstract thing out there.
It MAKES SENSE!
 Habit
 Tied to particular experience/situation.
 Part of personality, values, identity
Hard core beliefs vs. protective belt beliefs
Discount evidence, opinions, ideas that are different
 Reluctant to change. Change is uncomfortable.
 Change takes time (time for change in network)
 Pride; stubborn. We like to be right!
 Change is hard. We’re lazy.
 Prior belief may be socially embedded.
Conceptual Change
In the video, the girl often first gives a correct
explanation. But when pressed, her bizarre
misconceptions come out. What is going
on?
How do misconceptions relate to Piaget’s
ideas (schemas, assimilation,
accommodation, equilibration)?
Demo
Conditions needed for
conceptual change:




Dissatisfaction with existing idea
New idea must make sense
New idea must be plausible
New idea must appear fruitful
Implications
Given that
We construct schemas based on our experience
(Piaget),
we learn and make sense of the world according to
our existing schemas (Piaget),
and we resist changing our existing schemas
(conceptual change theory),
what are the implications of people having
different experiences?
How can this knowledge help us understand
what goes on in the world?
Implications
Conceptual change theory states that we
resist changing our existing ideas.
I recently saw a program about two
teenage age singers who were being
raised to believe in white supremacist
ideas.
Is there anything you could do to try to
change their beliefs? What could you try?
Teaching for Conceptual Change
What advice do they give in the video about
dealing with misconceptions?
How does the teacher in the article teach for
conceptual change?
Conceptual Change Instructional Model
1. Identify misconceptions.
2. Convince students that existing beliefs
are inadequate.
Challenge beliefs
Direct confrontation: “The seasons are not caused by the earth
getting closer to the sun!”
Critical questioning: “How can it be winter in New Zealand
when it is summer in the United States?” (better option)
Engage students in inquiry experiences where
they can test their ideas and receive disconfirming
evidence.[note: this is problem-based learning]
Conceptual Change Instructional Model
3. Motivate students to learn correct
explanations.
Show them the usefulness of the correct
explanations
 In other words, help students have a meaningful,
transformative experiences with the correct
explanations.
Designing an Inquiry Experience
Choose a topic in your subject area.
What problem could you present to your
students that relates to this topic?
How will you provide students with the
opportunity to put forth and test their ideas?
How will the students engage in the
processes of assimilation and
accommodation?
Relationship between experience
and learning
Prior Experience
Schemes
Exploratory experience
Accommodation of schemas
cognitive development