LEARNING THEORY

Provide a statement (no more than 300 words) indicating how your project is underpinned by

established learning theory (e.g., social constructivism).

Social constructivism is defined as the “focus on nature of cognition, and suggests approaches

that” gives the students an opportunity to have a meaningful experience through their learning,

allows the learners to engage in activities and, encourages learners to take ownership of their ideas

and learning (Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, 2018). The project that I have

created is underpinned by social constructivism as it implements various examples of utilising ICT

tools in the classroom which encourages “teachers to adopt an active, constructivist and experiential

approach to teaching and learning” (The University of Sydney, 2018). My project encourages year 4

students to make the decision to choose a particular country they want to research and “collect

information from a variety of sources” in order to make a travel brochure (School Curriculum and

Standards Authority 2014). By enabling students to participate in these lessons it persuades students

to use techniques and various sources to create a product that reflects their learning from the

research they have done about their selected country. This can then later be reviewed and allows

conversation to take place about what they have done and what new information they learned about

the country they researched (Thirteen, 2004). I believe that the project that I have created reflects

the theory of Lev Vygotsky who is known for his social constructivist theory of the Zone of

Proximal Development (ZPD) (Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, 2018). The ZPD

follows the theory that students learn best through scaffolding, where an individual with advanced

abilities and knowledge assists the learner to complete activities until the learner no longer requires

the assistance (Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, 2018). My project follows this

theory as the teacher and the ICT tools act as a scaffold for the students. The teacher is able to assist

the year 4 students in how to use the designated tools, but as soon as the students understand what

to do, they are then able to use these tools to complete their travel brochure.

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References

Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong. (n.d.) What teachers should know about social

constructivism. Retrieved from http://kb.edu.hku.hk/theory_social_constructivism.html

School Curriculum and Standards Authority. (2014). “Humanities and Social Sciences V8.1”.

Retrieved from https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au.

The University of Sydney. (2018). Constructivism. Retrieved from http://sydney.edu.au/

education_social_work/learning_teaching/ict/theory/constructivism.shtml

Thirteen. (2004). Constructivism as a paradigm for teaching and learning. Retrieved from http://

www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism

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