Individual Constructivism and Social Constructivism

在20世纪90年代，建构主义学习理论与认知心理学的批评和发展出现了。建构主义的基本假设是，学习者通过主观建构来获得知识，而不是接受现有的知识。重要的是要在知识形成的过程中，把外部对象，但没有找到他们。虽然不同的建构主义者也有类似看法，建构主义可以分为两种模式，个人建构主义、社会建构主义，根据知识建构的方式。

In the 1990s, constructivism learning theory came to appear with the criticism and development of cognitive psychology. The basic assumption of constructivism is that learners attain knowledge by subjective construction rather than receiving existing knowledge. What matters is to make external objects but not find them during the process of knowledge formation. Although various constructivists have similar views, constructivism can be divided into two kinds of patterns, individual constructivism and social constructivism, according to the way of knowledge construction.

In the eyes of individual constructivists, each individual has different knowledge background and experience thus nobody has exactly the same knowledge as another person. Even a person can have diverse opinions towards the same object because of different situations.The fundamental percept is that we can only experience the world of our own experience.However, social constructivists think that our cognition completely is a kind of social interaction between individuals. Knowledge owned by everyone is various because it’s the consequence of social sharing. So acquiring knowledge exists only in social construction but not individual construction. What is social construction? It’s a kind of sharing cognition, a kind of corporation among individuals. Cognitive subject is a community not a single. Besides, language is the bridge of individual constructivism. And the cultural tradition created by language is always restricting individual constructivism. It means when a person is in the social environment, he or she is restrained by social culture unconsciously. The fundamental percept of social constructivism is we share the world of our experience. 

So how students learn a new concept and/or skill in small collaborative groups? Individual constructivists and social constructivists have different answers. As for individual constructivists, knowledge is constructed by oneself and only reflects realities of personal experience and of course exists in the brain of each individual thus is meaningful to the only one who owns it. Let’s hypothesize there are four students in a group. Teacher tell them two is greater than one, three is greater than two. The four students listen to the teacher, remember the principle and master the principle. However, what the four students got in the end may differ. Student A may realize that according to the relationship number three is greater than number one because of his own experience. But student B can’t get it without relevant experience. The students construct their own knowledge using their own life experience and cognition subjectively. And they don’t communicate with each other either. That’s why “One thousand readers, there are one thousand Hamlet”. Knowledge can not get from books or teachers which are only meaningless symbols. What students own experience and knowledge constitute their later knowledge. So the four students just sit there, listen to teachers, and in the end digest and rebuild knowledge system of their own. The process is silent and slow even the students themselves can’t be aware of it.

Nevertheless, social constructivists emphasize the function of social historical and cultural background and also combine subjective and objective knowledge in order to mutual promotion. They think personal knowledge is constructed under the environment of social culture. Although it is subjective, it is adjusted and amended during the process of negotiations with other people. In this circumstances, let’s hypothesize a group of four students again. When teacher talks about butterfly for example. All the students have the image of a butterfly not a dragonfly in their brain. However, the images in different students definitely are various. Student A may think of a white butterfly in the sky. Student B may recall a blue butterfly staying on a flower in his yard. If they learn by individual constructivism method, then every student has his own cognition of a butterfly. But if they learn by social constructivism method, they talk with each other, communicate with each other, cooperate with each other. At the end of the class, all the students including the teacher’s knowledge about butterfly can increase a lot. They suddenly realize that there are so many kinds of butterflies in the world. From this , we can see personal subjective knowledge is interrelated with society and other people.  

There are several different aspects between individual constructivism and social constructivism. As for how to treat knowledge, individual constructivists think every individual’s is unique on account of personal experience and it’s meaningful to every single one. Social constructivists hold the view that knowledge is constructed during the interaction between individuals. The subjective part of course vary from one person to another person, while the objective part is same or compatible in certain scope and degree. 

In regard to the comprehension of the process of learning, individual constructivism is a “two-way construction” by mutual effects of subject and object. But social constructivism is a process of negotiation with other people under the influence of culture and society. 

What learners should do base on both methods? Accoding to individual constructivism, one should be active and positive to learning objects. The more you learn, the more you’ll get. The more you experience, the broader your mind is. Your knowledge will be like a snowball, bigger and bigger. While under the guidance of social constructivism, learners should communicate with each other actively. By learning from others , you can acquire knowledge quicker and better. Just like the example aforementioned, all the students add much more knowledge about butterfly ultimately.

With respect to elements in the process of construction, individual constructivism focus on individual and environment. Different environments can result in different consequences. If separate a pair of twins after their born and then cultivate them. At last the twins may have totally opposite characteristics. This real happened and can verify how important environment is. However, even the environment is exactly the same, the twins also are different. This is related to another factor, individual. When seeing the same picture or listening the same music, each individual has various feelings and ideas, thus generating different results. Besides environment and individual, social constructivism also emphasize the function of intermediary agent, the language. Only there is bridge, people can interact with each other and construct a huge knowledge system.

Are social culture and history important? Well, social culture and history aren’t on the list of individual constructivists’ concern. But from the perspective of social constructivism, the impacts of social culture and history must be paid attention. As an intermediary agent, people’s knowledge become greater as time going by. The reason why the world is more and more advanced is that we are standing on the shoulder of giants. And with the development, the taller the giant will be.

Is language is useful? If it is useful, what kind of function does language has? Also the two constructivisms have different opinions. Individual constructivists reckon that language is just a kind of symbol. The meaning of language is just conducive to the development of symbol thinking. It can’t improve a person’s level of intelligence. In the view of social constructivism, language is a basic mechanism which transfer and adjust thought and culture. It can improve people’s mental level in essence. By communicating with other people, one can benefit a lot thus improving one’s mental level. 

By contrasting individual constructivism and social constructivism, we can see that students learn knowledge quite differently in a collaborative group. One type is learning and thinking by self quietly and another type is talking and communicating at full blast. And both have its own advantages. 

51Due网站原创范文除特殊说明外一切图文著作权归51Due所有；未经51Due官方授权谢绝任何用途转载或刊发于媒体。如发生侵犯著作权现象，51Due保留一切法律追诉权。