The theory of constructivism looks at the way a learner learns. Constructivists believe that the learner learns best when he/she is actively engaged. The student is viewed as one who acts on objects and events within his or her environment and in the process gains understanding and derives meaning of those objects and events. (Constructivist Theory)

The constructivist assumes that cognitive skills are most fully potentiated through active engagement. It is believed that knowledge is presented explicitly as being constructed personally and in interaction with other people and with the physical world. The constructivist believes that the acquisition of knowledge is not sufficient to education, it is the sense the student makes that matters the most. Constructivists support the belief that coherent cognitive schemes are mentally constructed through the integration of new information or experiences into the fabric of the student's understanding of the world and then the student is able to use this knowledge in dealing with new phenomena and in new contexts. (Benaim, 1995)

Constructivists would debate the theory that students acquire knowledge by internalizing it from the environment. Rather, constructivists show that children acquire knowledge by constructing from the inside in interaction with the environment. Children construct theories or hypothesis about learning situations by putting things into relationships. By using this process of constantly putting formerly learned relationships into new relationships, they become aware of their circular reasoning and construct meaningful explanations of phenomena. (Kami et al., 1991 )

Constructivists would not think that children absorb ideas that are spoken to them by teachers or that they somehow internalize them through endless repeated practice, constructivists argue that children actually invent their ideas. They assimilate new information to simple, pre-existing notions and modify their understanding according to the new data. During this process, the ideas of children grow in complexity and power so that with support, children develop critical insight into how they think and what they know about the world grows in depth and detail. Constructivism looks carefully at how children create and develop their ideas. (Strommen and Lincoln, 1992)

Laura M. Martin states in the book,Learning in Children: Organization and Development of Cooperative Actions, ( 1991) "Children become aware of the substantive content of objects if they attend to the principles of construction of the features. That is, through interacting with and manipulating objects, subjects come to know the principles that organize the object's properties." She goes on to state, "The stages of activity leading to cognitive learning actions have these components: educational tasks which children come to accept as tasks and which then provide goals to motivate their activity; educational acts which are designed to help the children performing them move between general and concrete understandings; and, acts of control and evaluation, which help children grasp the task and reflect on whether their actions are on track."

Seymour Papert, in the book, Constructivism in the Computer Age (1988) explains that an example of a constructivist point of view would be how a child perceives number. Number is not something with an independent objective existence with which children have a particular concept. The study of number is the study of something in evolution or something in the process of construction. The constructivist asserts that children don't conceive number, rather they construct it. This concept will not come to a child all at once, but in a process of building intellectual structures that form a relationship of change, interaction and combining.

Constructivists feel that every one brings different ideas and concepts to a learning situation. Therefore, it can be concluded that everyone takes away different ideas and concepts from the same learning situation. (MU Online Course - Lesson 1: Constructivism)

A conflict occurs, for example, when new knowledge is introduced that is not consistent with already known knowledge. In order to bring about resolution, new learning must occur. Reflection is used to construct or transform the learner's representation to reality. This restructuring of information must occur through self-regulation. (Flake, et. al. , 1990 )

The first major contemporaries to develop an idea of constructivism in a classroom setting and with childhood development were Jean Piaget and John Dewey. (Building an Understanding of Constructivism) In the early 1930's and 40's, constructivism was a leading perspective among public school educators. There were two schools of thought that fell within this theory:(1) social constructivism and(2) cognitive constructivism. Although they differ as theories, they fall within the same basic assumption about children's learning and that is that the child's individual development is at the center of instruction. (Constructivist Theory)

John Dewey believed that education depended on action. He contended that knowledge and ideas only emerged from a situation in which the learners had to draw them out of experiences that had meaning and importance to them. These situations had to occur in a social setting, such as a classroom, where students were involved in manipulating materials and therefore, a community of learners was built and knowledge was formed together within the community. (Building an Understanding of Constructivism)

Piaget's concept of constructivism is based on his view of the psychological development of the child. Piaget is a Swiss psychologist who began to study human development in the 1920's. Piaget called for teachers to understand the steps in the development of the child's mind. He cited stages in the development of children and felt that children will develop through each of these stages until he or she can reason logically.

Piagetian principles in the classroom include:

• Possibly the most important role for the teacher is to provide an environment in which the child can experience spontaneous research. The classroom should be filled with authentic opportunities to challenge the students. The students should be given the freedom to understand and construct meaning at their own pace through personal experiences as they develop through individual developmental processes.
• Learning is an active process in which errors will be made and solutions will be found. These are important to assimilation and accommodation to achieve equilibrium.
• Learning is a social process that should take place among collaborative groups with peer interaction in as natural as possible settings. (Cognitive Constructivism)

Piaget contends that the development of the child's knowledge of the world and reality is not a copy of the real world. Each individual over the course of his or her development constructs knowledge and reality through assimilation and accommodation. Knowledge is not transmitted directly, but it is constructed. (Wadsworth, 1971)