• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.119-131
• /
• 2002

Constructivism is defined in a variety of ways (e.g., constructivist research paradigm, sociological constructivism, and philosophical constructivism) and applied in vastly different contexts. Among the various usages and interpretations of constructivism, one is educational constructivism that embodies an epistemological view of knowledge and learning that is an alternative to naive empiricism or classical behaviorism. To represent the full range of stances taken by educational constructivists, three versions of educational constructivism were considered in this study: individual constructivism originating in the work of Piaget, the radical version of constructivism associated with von Glasersfeld, and the social constructivism of Vygotsky. I investigated preservice teachers' meaning construction about constructivist epistemology as they went through their preservice teacher education program using in-depth interviews. This preservice teacher education program employs constructivist aspects of teacher education and generates applications of constructivism to the practice of teaching. Features of preservice teachers' internalized meanings of educational constructivism include: (1)traditional pedagogy as the default, (2) Literal interpretation of constructivism, (3) Individual constructivism as conceptual change learning, (4) Radical constructivism as a strong individualistic philosophy, (5) Social constructivism as being too ideal to be practical. A compilation of the teachers' own statements about how to implement conceptual change learning and their projected role as constructivist teacher is also provided.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.427-447
• /
• 2001

Science teachers need to understand what science is, how students learn, how to teach science effectively, and the rationale for their teaching methods. Along this line, this article discusses constructivist learning theory as an alternative to the traditional pedagogy and the origin of various versions of constructivism. Constructivism is defined and used in a variety of contexts including philosophical constructivism, constructivist research paradigm, sociological constructivism, and educational constructivism. Educational constructivism (or psychological constructivism) can be divided into three distinct versions (i.e., individual, radical, and social constructivism) depending on unique ontological and epistemological beliefs that underlie each version. Each version of educational constructivism supports different conceptions of science teaching and learning that are consistent with its specific ontological and epistemological beliefs. In this article, the main tenets of each version of educational constructivism are examined with regard to ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments, and pedagogical beliefs. In addition, two major criticisms on constructivist pedagogy as well as implications for research methods for each version are also discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.820-836
• /
• 2002

Constructivism has had a great influence on science education over the last two decades. The purpose of this article is twofold: First, to describe the characteristics of constructivism and, second, to suggest an ideal forms of science education in Korea as implied in constructivism. A review of the literatures in the first area shows that constructivism is philosophical/psychological view which believe in the social nature of the construction of scientific knowledge and its learning. And the analyses of a few schools of constructivism suggest decision-making as a goal of science education, learning as the active construction of meaning through interaction between learner and learning environments, and discussion and cooperation as appropriate teaching strategies. At the same time, the results necessitate teaching ethical aspects of science in the secondary schools, and also imply that performance assessment must be emphasized in evaluation of science education.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
• /
• v.2 no.2 s.4
• /
• pp.91-122
• /
• 2002

Constructivism has had a great influence on science education over the last two decades. The purpose of this article is twofold: First, to describe the characteristics of constructivism and, second, to suggest an ideal forms of science education in Korea as implied in constructivism. A review of the literature in the first area shows that constructivism is the philosophical/ psychological view which believes in the social nature of the construction of scientific knowledge and its learning. And the analyses of a few schools of constructivism suggests decision-making as a goal of science education, loaming as the active construction of meaning through interaction between learner and learning environments, and discussion and cooperation as appropriate teaching strategies. At the same time, the results necessitate teaching ethical aspects of science in the secondary schools, and also imply that performance assessment must be emphasized in evaluation of science education.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
• /
• v.129
• /
• pp.23-51
• /
• 2014

Christine M. Korsgaard believes that constructivism can respond to moral skepticism without depending upon moral realism. The purpose of this paper is to examine Korsgaard's kantian constructivism and her positions on moral realism. According to Korsgaard moral realism cannot answer normative questions in that it sees the function of moral concepts as describing the reality and so accepts the model of applied knowledge for action. In contrast Korsgaard insists that constructivism is better at justifying normativity since it regards moral concepts as representing the solutions to practical problems and so shows that moral principles are necessarily involved in the practical problems of agency. Korsgaard's constructivism has antirealistic elements such as pure proceduralism, the constitutive model to exclude ontological, metaphysical meanings, and the account of human beings as the sources of values. In spite of those antirealistic elements it is difficult to jump to a conclusion that Korsgaard's constructivism is antirealism. Korsgaard, in the early book, The Sources of Normativity, says that kantian constructivism has something to do with a form of realism, or procedural moral realism. And in the following books she argues that constructivism is compatible with realism although she pays attention to the practical implications of constructivism and then sets aside its ontological relevance. That is, Korsgaard does not want that her constructivism results in antirealism. Korsgaard's realism, however, is too weak to be called as realism. There is, also, a question why one would rather take a constructivist approach if one holds on to realism.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.39-55
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this research is to analyse Korean elementary mathematics curriculum taking a philosophical view of mathematics education. In this research, 1 will analyze not only the current elementary mathematics curriculum but also the past ones. There have been intermittently quantitative and external analysis so far to comprehend the elementary mathematics curriculum. But, I thought we also need qualitative and internal comprehension and examined the curriculums through a philosophical analysis. Generally, mathematics curriculums at every period have their own mathematical philosophy consciously or tacitly. And, the school mathematics is the practice of mathematics curriculum based on that mathematical philosophy. Mathematical curriculum reflects both the philosophical aspect in mathematical philosophy that forms the background of the mathematical curriculum and the sociological aspect in real-class that is the output of the curriculum. With this view, the logic of social constructivism can be an appropriate way that leads mathematical philosophical analysis and sociological analysis in mathematics education. So, I comprehend the tendency of the Korean elementary mathematics curriculum from the first to the seventh through the philosophical views. In view of the results so far achieved, after the second half of the 20th century, the Korean mathematical curriculums mainly have the tendency from the Ideology of progressive educator (the first) to of technological pragmatist (the second), from that of old humanist (the third and forth) to progressive educator (the fifth and sixth), and lastly that of social constructivism (the seventh).

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.21 no.5
• /
• pp.795-821
• /
• 2001

This Qualitative study investigated a preservice teacher's developing views of learning with the influence of constructivist epistemology taught in the Math, Science, and Technology Education (MSAT) Master of Education (M. Ed.) preservice teacher education program. The MSAT teacher education program employs constructivist aspects of teacher education and generates applications of constructivism to the practice of teaching, as revealed by faculty interview data. It is important at this point to emphasize that there are significant epistemological and ontological differences between different versions of educational constructivism (i.e., individual, radical, and social constructivism) and that these differences imply different pedagogical practices. For the 16 preservice teachers included in a larger study, the epistemological and ontological characteristics for each teacher's developing views of learning were identified through four in-depth interviews. Data from interviews were used to construct a constructivist profile for each preservice teacher's views of learning (i.e., a profile containing ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments, and pedagogical beliefs). Of the sixteen participants in the larger study, five significantly changed ontological and epistemological beliefs and eleven did not. Profile changes for the five who did change also resulted in changes in their conceptions of science teaching and learning (CSTL). In this article, one of the five teachers case was presented with rich quotes. This case study documents how a preservice teacher transferred his ontological and epistemological beliefs to his pedagogical beliefs and maintained the consistency between his philosophical beliefs and CSTL. It also demonstrated implications that changes in components for an educational constructivist profile have for a preservice teacher's view of himself as teacher. Data indicated the possibility that a constructivist-oriented preservice teacher education program can influence students' conceptions of science teaching and learning by explicitly introducing constructivism as an epistemology rather than as a specific method of instruction. Implications for both instructional practices of teacher education programmes and research are discussed.

• School Mathematics
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.151-165
• /
• 2003

So far there have been intermittently quantitative and syntactic analyses of the past elementary mathematics curriculums to comprehend elementary mathematics education in Korea. However, we think we also need qualitative and semantic analyses to comprehend and examine the past elementary mathematics curriculums exactly and so to look out on our future elementary mathematics education. Generally, school mathematics curriculum reflects both the philosophical aspects of mathematics itself that form the background of the philosophy of mathematics education and the sociological aspects in real mathematics class that could be the output of the curriculum. With this view, the logic of the social constructivism can be an appropriate way that leads mathematical philosophical analysis and sociological analysis in mathematics education. With this kind of method of analysis we got the results that: the past Korean elementary mathematics curriculums mainly have the tendency from the ideology of the progressive educator(the 1st) to of the technological pragmatist(the 2nd), from that of the old humanist(the 3rd and 4th) to the progressive educator(the 5th and 6th) again, and lastly that of social constructivism(the 7th).

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.221-233
• /
• 2002

This study investigated preservice science teachers' understandings of philosophical foundations(i.e., ontological and epistemological beliefs) underlying constructivist notions of learning. The teacher education program these subjects participated in explicitly addressed philosophical notions consistent with different views of constructivism. For these preservice science teachers, the program provided them with the opportunity to reflect upon the implications that their ontological and epistemological commitments had for their role as a science teacher. Data from four in-depth interviews were used to explore changes in each preservice science teacher's ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments, and pedagogical preferences. Results indicated that ontological beliefs and epistemological commitments were not necessarily consistent with conceptions of science teaching and learning for these preservice teachers. While some students internalized idealist and relativist perspectives, they did not integrate these relativist epistemological views into their preferred instructional practices. Also, regarding the fallible and tentative nature of knowledge, data in this study indicated that participants' epistemological beliefs about scientific Knowledge did influence how they were thinking about their roles as science teachers. Implications for teacher education programs and research on preservice science teacher's philosophical beliefs are discussed.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
• /
• v.10 no.5
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2007

Although the need for overall amendment of curriculums recognized, tentative plan for amendment is being established without improving the sense of satisfaction of the users of curriculums from the nation-wide dimension and without review on philosophical and educational psychological viewpoints on curriculum with focus on curriculums that reflects the national and social demands until the tentative plans for amendment of computer subject is made at the time of amendment. Therefore, new/old curriculums has been compared and analyzed from philosophical and psychological viewpoint of curriculums in order to definitively establish status and identity of curriculum, and to cope with changes in educational system. It can be seen from the outcome of such comparative analysis that goals of the philosophical viewpoint of amended curriculum had been defined as discipline-centered curriculum while that for the knowledge-based viewpoint on constructivism and cognitivism.