Radical Constructivism Teaching Thought

Constructivism started in Europe and America in the late 80s of the 20tn century.Since then it has become a strong tidal current of thought in theory, and its influencehas quickly reached many fields. It has especially given strong and deep influence inthe field ofpedagogy, so it is called "a revolution in the pedagogical psychology". It isa revolution to the traditional theory of instruction and learning. It is even named as "abasic theory to renovate the traditionaI instruction".Why does constructivism work? Where is it from? What is its basic assertion andrational core? Where is its tension of thought and where is its defect? As it's exotic,can it be constructed with Chinese culture? There are so many questions to beconsulted and answered.As an epistemology, Constructivism is something that cornes out of the mixtureof the multiple disciplines. It originates from many fie1ds. There are many kinds ofconstructivism and sometimes they are antilogy, for where there are constructivists,there is constructivism. In the family of constrtJctivism the radical constructivism isquite unique. Not only has it set essential principles for the constTUCtivist theory, but itis the first one to enter the field of pedagogy. It gives the strong influence on thetheory and practice of modem pedagogy. This study puts more emphasis on theradical constructivist teaching thought, from where to describe, comprehend, masterand construct the constructivist teaching thought.There are four parts in this dissertation.In part one there are two chapters. The study is about the history of theradical constructivism. I think the idea of the radica1 constructivism stemmed in thel 8th century from the famous ltalian scholar Vico's Scienza Nuova, who had an idea,namely, "truth is creation", and was nurtured by Kant's Kopernikus inversion whichmeant subject built object and Piaget's theory of Genetic Epistemology made it growuP, which was "subject and object built each other". The idea of the radicalconstructivism was finally produced by v. Glasersfeld's tWo essential principIes. Oneis that knowledge is not passively obtained but actively constructed by the individual,and the other is that the function of knowledge is to accommodate and serve theorganization of the empirical world, but not to discover the objective reaIity ofontology. In essence, the radical constructivism is a theory about knowledge or atheory about cognition.In part two therc arc fOur chaptcrs. The foundation of the theory or theintelligence source on the construction of the radical constructivist thought is deeplyexplored and expounded. I think the thought of the radical constructivism isinfluenced by the philosophy ideas of Vico, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Piaget, as welI asthe outcomes of v. GIasersfeld, v. Foerster, Maturana's scientific research nurtured it.The traditional epistemology is the pioneer to object to the theory of being andreflectionism, and modern systematology, cybernetics, cranial nerve bionomy andcognitive biology, etc. has set up a solid theoretical scientific foundation fOr itsepistemological assumption. As a life system, human being is a self productionsystem including self generation, self organization, self feedback, self regeneration,self preservation. As a system of introspection and self explanation, the brain is notisolated from the environment, but self blocked, the principle of which is to work byitself in the bIocked system. People describe and explain the world with language andsymbol. Therefore- the conclusion drawn by the radical constructivism is that theobjective world can't be grasped and we can only get to know our empirical worldcreated by ourselves. Recognition is circulating and it is impossible to have its exactbeginning and end. In essence all the knowledge is constructed and always hastemporality, and it is the same with the scientific knowledge. The function ofknow1edge is to adapt. It isn't t...