Social+Constructivist+Statement

= = **Social Constructivist Statement ** Social constructivism was created by Lev Vygotsky who was a cognivist. He did not agree with some notions of cognivist such as Piaget because he believed that learning occurs in both, learning settings as well as social contexts. Vygotsky’s theory is that people continue learning through social experiences, and this is what a web quest tries to achieve. Web quests allow students to interact with real-life experiences such as planning a family holiday and imagine a scenario and solve the problems that are faced during the planning. The constructivist views are that the students will pose a problem and then solve it. Students work on tasks in pairs or groups to create a final piece that represents their knowledge of a topic. Web quests are usually in a social context with students learning their information on their own with little teacher assistance. Web quests have personal meaning to the students, such as our web quest the students are learning about their own country and capital city. Many of the students have been to the places in their capital city and they are sharing their own personal experiences with their e-pal schools, which makes their assignment more meaningful for them to complete. The social constructivist classroom also has a communicational atmosphere, therefore the students creating different styles of communication using different resources such as a television commercial, they can express what they like about their capital city. Instead of having a class discussion they are using different resources to express themselves. The web quest learning experience gives guidance to their studies but through their own learning journey. The teacher still controls the important parts of the assignment such as the time limit, the length of the task and guideline of what is required, but the students can use their imagination and initiative to create a wonderful assignment. 

= = Reference:   http://wiki.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Social_Constructivists’_Approach_to_Classroom_Discipline [|www.mc.edu/campus/users/swayze/index_files/Paper.doc]  