Constructing constructivism: how student‐teachers construct ideas of development, knowledge, learning, and teaching

Abstract

This case study investigates the development of the understanding of constructivist theory among students in a Masters level elementary teacher education program within a particular course. The focus of the study is a seminar entitled ‘Advanced Seminar in Child Development’. The questions explored include: How do students’ ideas of teaching, learning and knowledge develop within the context of their experience in this course? How do they come to understand constructivism? What are their definitions of constructivism? What is the course of the development of this understanding? The nature of the students’ learning processes is examined through three sources of data: dialog journals, videotaped sessions and the instructor’s reflective teaching journal. The study looks both at student development and instructional practice to further understanding of how student‐teachers can learn to apply constructivist theory to their teaching and to understand the learning process, both within themselves and their students. Their development is placed in the context of Korthagen and Kessels’s model of teacher understanding and practice, and within a broader context of principles of practice that emphasize a belief in equity and social justice. The case illustrates how the way student‐teachers are taught theory can help them integrate their own ideas of learning and teaching with constructivist theory in order to think critically about their own practice in an ongoing developmental manner.

Notes

* Professor and Dean of Education, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94613, USA. Email: [email protected]

A version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, April, 2002.

All regular education credential programs at Mills College are CLAD emphasis programs. The ECE emphasis is an additional part of these particular students’ education.

The other seven journals were not available because I failed to copy them before returning them. These seven were primarily handwritten, which made them more difficult to copy clearly and to use them as data. However, they were as complete as all the other journals and quite comparable.

To assure reliability in identifying these categories I asked a colleague to read and categorize five different entries from two students’ journals. The agreement between us was 95% both for differentiating between categories and identifying an entry as falling into a particular category.

This comparative data is included to provide a further context for the case study.

All student names are pseudonyms.

In this section I will use examples from other students, in addition to the original three.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linda R. Kroll *

* Professor and Dean of Education, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94613, USA. Email: [email protected]