| In an attempt to understand the way social and individual forms of constructivism might manifest themselves in classroom practice, this dissertation studies the theoretical discourse over constructivism in education, and, empirically studies the shift in one teacher's praxis as he moves from an individual constructivist pedagogy to a social constructivist pedagogy, in middle school philosophical inquiry classes. Since this is a study of my teaching, this work is, in part, a self-study of teaching practice. While there has been theorizing about the ways individual constructivism translates into pedagogy, social constructivists do not say much about the specifics of teaching and learning as they are mostly engaged in postmodern critiques of modern epistemology. This leads me to ask the following questions: (1) How does a postmodern social constructivist pedagogy differ (for the teacher) from a modern form of constructivism? (2) How does a teacher trying to enact a postmodern social constructivist pedagogy remain faithful to both subject matter content and their students' ideas, experiences, and developing understandings? (3) What role does “community of inquiry” play in modern and postmodern forms of social constructivism?; Two significant dilemmas appeared through my study of the discourse and practice of social and individual forms of constructivism. First, taking a constructivist stance towards teaching can create an illusion for a teacher committed to a discipline based pedagogy. This illusion can make a teacher think he is being more humane to his students when he may be seducing them into learning what he was going to teach them anyway. This introduces the issues of sincerity into the discourse over constructivist teaching by examining what of a teacher's pedagogical motivations he is obliged to reveal to his students. Second, the empirical study raised questions about the enterprise of reading in constructivist classrooms. These questions lead to a revealing discussion about the purposes of reading beyond exegesis in constructivist classrooms. |
