Terhart, E. (2003). Constructivism and teaching: a new paradigm in general didactics?

Journal of

curriculum studies, 35(1), 25-44.

constructivist didactics: Focusing on various variants of constructivism in epistemology, micro-

sociological theory (social constructionism). Concepts of brain physiology and cognitive science.

Also, It is significant that this constructivist understanding of teaching and learning, of instruction
and didactics

Theoretical background of the constructivist argument in didactics

He talked about 4 backgrounds that have the theory, they are 4:

Radical constructivism – what it is?

Radical constructivists do not use the empirical insights about the brain only at an epistemological
level. (this is found in the “systems theory” part)

Knowing is bound to the perspective of the observer, and observing systems are only able, and,
therefore, forced, to construct because they are ‘operationally closed’. *

Nothing of knowledge is ever discovered, everything is invented, even this sentence.

We can understand our reality only in the form in which it has been constructed
by ourselves.

Constructions not only have an individual character; they take place as co-
constructions in social contexts.

The neurobiology of cognition

It is used to support empirically the epistemological assumptions of radical

constructivism. This naturalization of epistemology implies that empirical
research on brain functions and so on is also subject to the constructivist
credo, a state of affairs which constructivists love to overlook.

Systems theory
This systems theory, which is not especially connected with any specific subject-matter area, refers
to ‘systems’ that are structured configurations which can be observed (by other systems) and are
themselves able to observe (other systems).

The environment does not determine what happens inside the system—systems are autonomous
in that it is not the environment but the structure of the system and its experiences up to a given
point that determines the leeway in the set of possible developments within the system.

New conception of learning

Radical constructivism, the neurobiology of the brain and moderns systems theory can be
naturally and easily integrated with modern cognitive conceptions of learning.

learning has become understood as information-processing

This changes when one moves from the conception of learning as information-processing to the
conception of learning as a construction of knowledge (Wissen).

learning is not determined by general laws but depends very much on the situation and the
context in which it takes place.

(…) the idea of learning as controlled by external factors has completely

receded in favour of the idea of learning as influenced by internal
structuredness. (…) the participation of the learner in the learning process has
changed from largely passive to (hyper)active.

The systematic core of constructivist didactics

In a constructivist didactics, we are dealing with a revisiting of the total field of didactics in that it
develops comprehensive conceptions of the learning process, of the character of the content of
instruction, of the instructional situation and interaction, of the task of the teacher, and of the
overall perspective and goal of didactic activity. These are inspired by the following fundamental
ideas.

the concept of instructivism

it is possible and responsible to understand teaching, and the practice of teaching, as something
that makes stimulating environments available, which make things easier. Through these
environments, independent learning can be facilitated, both in the form of acts of constructing
and reconstructing knowledge and acts of gaining insight and understanding, i.e. the concept of
constructivism.

The responsibility for learning lies with the learner.

The task of the teacher consists of setting up, or staging, learning environments in which learning
as co-constructing and restructuring in social and situated context becomes more portable.

For a constructive didactics, the highest general goal of teaching and learning
in school is to help build a world in which human beings are able to leave
behind all dogmatism, lead a self-determined existence, and live in tolerant
and relaxed togetherness with other human beings and nature—all on the basis
of insight into and experience with the constructedness of all knowledge.***

In didactic contexts, constructivism is never championed in its radical form, but

always only in an already moderated form, as a ‘moderate constructivism’

To the extent that constructivist didactics limits itself to the claim that all learning starts from
already existing knowledge, and the teacher, therefore, has to start always with students’ pre-
existing knowledge in order to facilitate construction processes in the direction of the
acknowledged instructional goal of transmitting book and scientific knowledge, it is dismissed by
more radical exponents of constructivism with some justification as ‘trivial constructivism’ (von
Glasersfeld 1996).
What does class instruction based on constructivist principles actually look like?
Wolff (1994) enumerates the following constructivist learning principles for the school:
- Contents to be learned should not be fixed and systematized beforehand, for then they
cannot be connected (or can only be accidentally connected) with the subjective
experience and knowledge which the students bring with them. Only the core content of
the curriculum can be fixed, ‘for otherwise it would be impossible to properly work with
the contents of knowledge’ (Wolff 1994: 417). And, further, ‘it is then also not meaningful
to work with textbooks which fix such contents. Authentic materials, which illumine a
topic from different perspectives, provide a better opportunity, that the learner can bring
his individual experiential knowledge into playin the construction of what is to be learned’
(Wolff 1994: 47).
- Learning goals are guided by the fundamental principle that “the interaction with the
environment has the sole goal of securing the survival of the learner as an autopietic
system” The aim is to develop skills or abilities.
- Learning environments have to be structured in such a way that they are authentic and
complex in the sense of real-world experience. (…) that contents of learning can be
embedded in them, and that what has been learned can, in such a learning environment,
be made useful in a concrete way (Wolff 1994: 418).
- The learning of learning p. 11
- Cooperative learning. The learner needs interaction with others in order to achieve
consensus regarding the wayin which the environment is constructed.

Dubs (1995: 890–891) formulates the following principles of constructivist instruction:

- Hence learning should be understood as an active process, during which the individually-
existing knowledge and skills are adapted and personalized through the individual’s own
new experiences, that is, become adjusted to the learner’s own interpretation and
understanding. Only in this way is high-level thinking possible, because the knowledge that
is necessary for it is newly constructed in the context of one’s pre-existing knowledge and
one’s own experience.
- Constructivism does not confine itself onlyto the cognitive aspects of learning. Feeling, i.e.
dealing with joys and anxiety, as well as personal identification (with learning contents)
are important. (…) because the goal is the student p. 13
- Self-evaluation, where the student evaluates her own progress in learning and there by
the improvement in her own learning strategies, is more meaningful.

Meixner (1997: 97) summarizes the principles more briefly:

Bring the learner to the point where she builds her knowledge autonomously from the context
and interactions and where she learns from her own mistakes. Aim at flexible application of the
knowledge; generate learning environments which promote knowledge transfer. There are no
preplanned end-points for learning.

Problems of constructivist didactic thought in the context of school and teaching—some critical
considerations
 Situated learning—systematic learning: the purpose of the school

Uljens, M. (2004). School didactics and learning: A school didactic model framing an analysis of
pedagogical implications of learning theory. Psychology Press.

2 didactics and teaching – studying – learning process

Fenstermacher and Soltis (1986) distinguish between three conceptions of teaching; the executive
approach, the therapist approach and the liberationist approach. Various aspects of these
conceptions will occur in the discussion of what didactic theory is needed for, what questions it
should answer and how the problem of normativity and prescriptivity is handled."

Teaching is understood as one form of educative instruction (Herbrta) p. 17

Educational theory and pedagogical practice

Thus, in order to decide which model is relevant and which is not, we must also ask for what
reason and for whom a model is developed. A common answer is that we want to create
knowledge both for active teachers, for the education of teachers and for the administration of
schooling. However, it seems that pedagogical theory is sometimes developed more in relation to
the needs of teacher education and less in relation to the reality it is thought to describe and
explain. P. 19

Vollmer, H. J. (2021). Powerful educational knowledge through subject didactics and general
subject didactics. Recent developments in German-speaking countries. Journal of curriculum
studies, 53(2), 229-246