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Learning in U.S. classrooms has traditionally involved having students repeat newly presented information in reports or on tests. Constructivist teaching practices, in contrast, help learners internalize, or transform, new information (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). According to Miller, Sokol, and Overton (1998), in the constructivist model, humans construct mental structures that, in turn, organize experiences and make further understanding possible.
Good and his colleagues believe that the term construction is attractive to educators, but that the idea of "knowledge construction" may actually be misleading (Good, Wandersee, & St. Julien, 1993). They urge educators to exercise caution before going down this road. Because our view of how the mind works is continually being revised, the best strategy may be to reserve judgment about constructivism while monitoring how it compares with new theories of learning and the findings of cognitive science. Good and his colleagues state that "learning may be more than just 'carpentry' and teaching may be more than just 'negotiation' and 'building inspection"' (p. 85).
Brooks and Brooks (1993) advocate the constructivist approach. However, even they caution that although deep understanding, not imitative behavior, is the goal of constructivism, the downside is that capturing another person's understanding is problematic. They admit that one common criticism of constructivism, is that it subordinates the curriculum to the interests of the child. They also cite critics who contend that the constructivist approach stimulates learning only around concepts in which the students have a prior interest. Brooks and Brooks believe, however, that such criticisms are...