Notes on Jean Piaget & John Dewey

John Piaget and John Dewey were both construvtisit as they believe that children
comes to school with prior knowledge andour role as teachers is to expand the
existing knowledge by linking new information with existing knowledge.

John Dewey and Education

John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, on October 20, 1859. At the
University of Vermont, Dewey studied philosophy.He graduated with a
bachelor's degree in 1879. He then began his teaching career. Dewey
received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and spent most of his early
career there. In 1904, Dewey became a professor at Columbia University,
where he retired in 1930.

The Views of John Dewey

John Dewey is famous for his belief in what he called as the progressive
education. Progressive education is essentially a view of education that
emphasizes the need to learn by doing. Dewey believed that human beings
learn through a 'hands-on' approach. Dewey is a pragmatist.
Pragmatists believe that education must be experienced. From Dewey's
educational point of view, this means that students must interact with their
environment in order to adapt and learn. Dewey felt the same idea was true
for teachers . He felt strongly that teachers and students must learn together.
He saw classroom as having deeply rooted democratic ideals, which
promoted equal voice among all participants in the learning experience.
A child-centered approach in education gives emphasis to learning based
on the needs and interests of the child. In Dewey's view, children should be
allowed to explore their environments.
He believed in an interdisciplinary curriculum, or a curriculum that focuses
on connecting multiple subjects, where students are allowed to freely move in
and out of classrooms as they pursue their interests and construct their own
paths for acquiring and applying knowledge. The role of the teacher in this
setting would be to serve more as a facilitator than an instructor. In Dewey's
view, the teacher should observe the interest of the students, observe the
directions they naturally take, and then serve as someone who helps develop
problem-solving skills.
Traditionally, a teacher would stand in front of a group of students who are all
sitting in rows. The teacher is usually the deliverer of information and the job
of the students is usually to receive this information and regurgitate it in some
form of a written test.
In contrast, in a classroom based on the ideas of John Dewey, you may see a
teacher deliver background content information, but you would also likely see
students working in groups, with those groups exploring differing concepts
within the content. You would see lots of conversation and lots of
collaboration. While you

The Views of John Piaget

Formalization of the theory of constructivism is generally attributed to Jean
Piaget. According to Jean Piaget knowledge is internalized by learners. He
suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation,
individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences. When individuals
assimilate, they incorporate new experiences into the already existing
framework without changing that framework. This may occur when individuals'
experiences are aligned with their internal representations of the world, but may
also occur as a failure to change dut to a faulty understanding; for example, they
may not notice events or may misunderstand input from others.

According to the theory, accommodation is the process of reframing one's mental

representation of the external world to fit new experiences. Accommodation can
be easily understood as the mechanism where we learn from our mistakes. When
we act understand that the world operates in one way and what we experience is
different , we often fail, but by accommodating this new experience and
reframing our model of the way the world works, we tend to learn from the
experience of our failure, or other peoples failure.

It is important to note that constructivism is not a particular pedagogy. In fact,

constructivism is a theory describing how learning happens, regardless of
whether learners are using their experiences to understand a lecture or
following the instructions for building a model airplane. In both cases, the theory
of constructivism suggests that learners construct knowledge out of their
experiences. However, constructivism is often associated with pedagogic
approaches that promote active learning, or learning by doing.

Note : You are encourage to read further on Constructivist theory by Jean Piaget
to have a deeper understanding on how assimilation and accomodation works.