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specifies little when used without further qualification. So, a high-profile debate
based in the United States considering the merits of what has been labelled as
constructivist instruction (Tobias & Duffy,
2009
) was significantly undermined
because some of those claiming to criticise what they consider constructivist
teaching characterised it in terms of setting learning activities with
minimal
guid-
ance from teachers, such that learners were expected to largely discover canonical
knowledge for themselves (Taber,
2010a
). Yet, it was that kind of naive teaching
for discovery learning that Rosalind Driver (
1983
) long ago argued was inconsistent
with constructivist thinking. Teaching which is genuinely informed by constructiv-
ist ideas about learning does not minimise teacher input but rather seeks an
optimal
level of guidance that can best
student learning in the light of the natural
mechanisms that make learning a constructive activity (Taber,
2011
). It is argued
below that optimal scaffolding is also important for the student
scaffold
'
'
s subjective expe-
'
rience of learning.
A naive notion of discovery learning sees science as unproblematically investi-
gating nature, when it is now recognised that the epistemology of science is far from
straightforward (Chalmers,
1982
; Losee,
1993
), and that science education needs to
carefully guide learners towards the models and theories that are canonical knowl-
edge, and which are often the outcome of many years of empirical and theoretical
work by professional scientists interacting in a community of practice. Construc-
tivism as a learning theory suggests learners will construct their own personal sense
of their experiences (von Glasersfeld,
1989
): constructivism as a perspective
informing teaching seeks to help teachers guide the processes of learners
'
constructing knowledge so that it matches accepted scientific understandings.
Teaching that is genuinely informed by constructivism as an education theory
(Taber,
2011
) is certainly
not
about minimal guidance. However, there are good
reasons to believe that it is important that learners are not given excessive guidance
but rather are required to—as far as possible—develop arguments and recognise
key links for themselves. This argument is normally made in terms of the impor-
tance of developing the learners
cognitive skills, but here, it will be suggested it is
just as important to consider the student
'
s subjective learning experience. From
both the cognitive and affective perspective, teacher guidance should be optimised:
to structure and support desired learning, without reducing the learner to a passive
consumer of instruction.
'
1.1 Constructivism in Science Education
Within science education, constructivism has become somewhat more clearly
defined than in education more widely, having been introduced into the field by a
range of scholars (Driver & Easley,
1978
; Driver & Erickson,
1983
; Gilbert &
Watts,
1983
; von Glasersfeld,
1989
) who have drawn upon key constructivist
thinkers (Ausubel,
1968
; Kelly,
1963
; Piaget,
1929
/1973;
Vygotsky, 1934/1986
).
There are still many
flavours
to constructivist
thinking reflected in science
'
'
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