Zone of Proximal Development
Teachers with a constructivist view of learning focus on students’ thinking about the material being learned and, through careful orchestrated cues, prompts, and questions, help students arrive at a deeper understanding of the material. Also, teachers with a constructivist view elicit students’ prior knowledge of the material and uses this as the starting point for instruction. In addition the teacher not only presents material to students, but he or she also responds to students’ efforts to learn the material. While teaching, the teacher must learn about students’ learning.
Students not only absorb information, but they also actively use that information to construct meaning. The teacher creates a social milieu within the classroom, a community of learners, that allows students to reflect and talk with one another as they construct meaning and solve problems. These approaches provide students with support, or “scaffolding”, as......
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