Toward Social Constructivism in Preservice （对职前的社会建构主义）.pdf

CHAPTER 1 Toward Social Constructivism in Preservice Education [E]ducation is not an affair of “telling” and being told, but an active and constructive process. —John Dewey, Democracy and Education As stated in the introduction, we believe social constructivism can provide crucial direction for preservice education and we see evidence of it in the strong, innovative programs described in this book. But what exactly is meant by this term? As Richardson (1997) notes, constructivist teaching is not “a monolithic, agreed-upon concept” (p. 3). It is often barely understood, or actually misunderstood. For example, some identify it just as an activity approach, overlooking its role in empowering learners and critiquing prevail- ing ideas and social practices. Others understand it as unstructured “discovery learning,” where anything goes. Still others interpret it as a highly subjective and individualistic process that neglects experience of the world and collabo- ration with others. Misunderstandings of these kinds give constructivism a bad name and create obstacles to gaining support and resources for construc- tivist teaching and teacher education; they also make implementation of the approach difficult even under ideal conditions. In this chapter, through discussion and examples, we will attempt to clar- ify the nature of social constructivism, and we will continue to illustrate it throughout the book, especially with reference to preservice programming. In exploring social constructivism, we will draw on past interpretations of con- structivism, notably, those of Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky, and also bring insights from more recent writers on sociocultural theory, such as Foucault,