Bit of a long shot but doe anyone know anything about early educational theories, esp constructivism?

[Pennies]

Long question, quick query.

Is the Montessori teaching method an example of constructivism theory in practice?

IIRC constructivism is about using the pupils' prior knowledge - starting from where they are, including all their misconceptions.

• it was a big part of my PGCE, and I can't really remember much about it.

Montessori focuses on being self-directed. The children have a certain amount of things they need to accomplish within a day or week, but they get to self-direct when they want to do stuff.
Constructivism is a 'discovery-learning' method where rather than being "taught from the front", there is a facilitator or instructor who "supports from the back" - I remember these two statements making the whole thing clear for me, hope they do the same for you

I think you could debate all day whether they are overlapping, whether Montessori is an example of constructivism or not.... IMO it is but if it's an essay question or something then I'd be very clear about their similarities and differences too Rather you than me!!

Montessori's educational practice demonstrates three educational philosophies. Her conception of sensitive periods reflects nativism, while her emphasis upon the inductive nature of imagination suggests empiricism,, her description of the child's constructing and transforming the world through his or her own activity is evidence of her constructivism.

The High Scope method is more aligned to constructivism.

Thanks for that ScienceTeacher & gigglewitch.

So is it more High/Scope then if the adult is the facilitator?

I'm really hating this subject - it's really hard going and pretty turgid too.

mrz - we crossed posts. Thanks for that - v. helpful.

the learning-by-teaching aspect of Montessori is constructivism tho isn't it?

High/Scope good explanation

Thanks for the link - it all seemed rather familiar as I read it and then I sussed that my course handbook has lifted it all verbatim from the Wiki article. .

Look up Piaget, Vygotski (and his ZPD!) and Bruner. Good luck with reading Bruner, btw. Reading him is like trying to dig a hole in a steel wall using only a toothpick!

I would say look up wikipedia

good article on Montessori and constructivism
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4097/is_200301/ai_n9199626/pg_1

MB the knack is not to read Brunner in the original form, get a lovely cognitive development generic text and they give it to you in lovely understandable lingo
Piaget is v.reader-friendly tho, I have to confess to re-reading it for fun.

Message withdrawn

fab link, mrz - am fascinated
(have an uninteresting sunday afternoon going on atm, babysitting my three lethargic/sleeping ill children)

When I last read Brunner, it was in one of our course readers. When I did so I realised that not one of the references was none properly.

and it had gone through all the 'proof reading stages' when the book was edited.

Only then did I realise that I was problaly the first person to actually try to read it! (I was in the first group to do the course) And very possibly the last!

A good article comparing Monetssori High Scope and Reggio Emilia www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=367

rofl MB

Excellent link mrz, thank you for that. (Although I did keep reading "epistemology" as "episiotomy" which confused matters a little...)

MB it's depressing when you suss out the teachers / course materials isn't it, it really makes me wonder what kind of tin pot qualification I'm doing.

Out of interest "what kind of tin pot qualification are you doing?"

making tin pots is very skilled, I'm sure

To be fair, I did my PGCE with the OU and most of the rest of the course was well put together and well structured.

It was only that one article that had obviously not been read!

Though I would tend to agree with my esteemed colleague Cod that none of this is particularly helpful to me on a day to day basis.

It was interesting to read, and gave me a reasonable foundation, but to a degree you really learn to teach by watching others and doing it yourself....a degree of constructivism there ;-)

I'm doing a Diploma in Childcare Learning and Development.

Good Luck