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10 Monaliza Hernandez Mamac

Constructivism, Active Learning, and Student-centred Approach
One of the earliest and known use of the term active learning is from Dewey’s (1933) work

on progressivist education (Pardjono, 2016). Dewey criticised education in his time as “traditional”
and “passive” where knowledge is treated as absolute and should be “received” by the learners.
Dewey asserts that in classroom interactions, learning should be “active” as students learn from
own interpretations of their experiences. He argues that active learning activities should be both
physical and mental: physical to connect with the material world, and mental to transform
interpretations into knowledge. The theoretical foundation of active learning is known as the
theory of constructivism. Constructivism has different versions; thus, it is germane to demystify

the versions of constructivism to understand their relation to active learning.
Two widely known denominations of constructivist theory are cognitive constructivism by
Jean Piaget and social constructivism of Lev Vygotsky. The term “active learning” is adopted
in Piaget’s works on psychology and human learning. Similar to Dewey, Piaget believes that
humans learn through their interpretations of their experiences with the environment. This
premise builds the foundation of cognitive constructivism. Piaget proposed that humans develop
their cognitive processes in ‘stages’ which means that a certain cognitive skill is attained at
a certain level of biological maturation (Piaget & Cook, 1952; Piaget, 1957). He believed that
humans have cognitive abilities that are capable to adapt to their environment. Humans build

a “schema” – knowledge categories to understanding the world – through their experiences
of the material environment. In terms of classroom teaching, Piaget believes that in order to
perform problem solving, one needs to be an ‘active learner’ who can learn on their own and
intrinsically motivated (Piaget & Cook, 1952; Piaget, 1957). Thus, teachers do implicit instruction
acting as facilitators. They give student-led activities that broadens learners’ experiences. These
experiences are interpreted and added in their schema. Learners are, therefore, considered as
leaders of their own knowledge construction.

Lev Vygotsky, on the other hand, did not use the term active learning, but interprets
constructivism in a different way in his work on socio-cultural theory of learning. Instead, he
believes that humans learn through collaborative dialogues with the ‘models’ or knowledgeable
members of the society (Vygotsky, 1934). In socio-cultural theory, learning is mediated and
negotiated within social contexts. Learning, therefore, varies in different cultures and societies
accordingly. In terms of classroom practice, teachers’ role is the knowledgeable individuals who
co-construct learning with their students. Teachers, therefore, need to provide “scaffolding” –
support that learners need to learn new concepts or perform new skills. Learners can perform
problem solving if they are taught by knowledgeable individuals on how to solve a problem,

not letting them solve problems that are beyond their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
ZPD is the distance between the skills the learners can do independently and the skills they
need support in order to learn or perform. Vygotsky believes that learners, if given appropriate
learning support, develop to become independent.