worksheet: a traditional view of learning / a constructivist view of learning

A Traditional View of Learning

Complex skills can be broken down into simple skills.
Each simple skill can be mastered independently, out of context.
Only when all components are mastered can more complex thinking skills develop.
The teacher is the active agent, imparting knowledge to the passive learner as though filling an empty vessel.

A Constructivist View of Learning

Learners are not passive vessels, but active participants in their own learning. Learners actively doing, trying, making mistakes, and trying again are important parts of learning.
Knowledge is acquired from experience with complex, meaningful problems rather than from practicing subskills and learning isolated bits of knowledge. Humans want to understand things and pull them together.
Learners bring prior knowledge and experience with them to class. The instructor does not write on a blank slate, but works with learners to confirm, critique, modify, replace, and add to what is already there.
Skills and knowledge are best acquired in context. Context is critical, for it provides meaning to learning.
People do not easily or predictable transfer learning from school to real life, from real life to school, or from one subject to another. We should thus "teach for transfer."