From Constructivism to Active Learning in College Science

Abstract

In recent years college science instructors have been buffeted by four interrelated but essentially independent challenges with potentially strong implications for classroom teaching. The first of these challenges is the widespread and deeply felt dissatisfaction with the status quo registered by many science students and extensively documented by Seymour and Hewitt (Seymour E, Hewitt N, Talking about leaving: why undergraduates leave the sciences. Westview Press, Boulder, 1997). The second and third are the epistemological (Kuhn T, The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962) and cognitive (Atkinson R, Shiffrin R, Human memory: a proposed system and its control processes. In Spence K, Spence J (eds) The psychology of learning and motivation. Academic, New York, 1968) revolutions upending the cherished notion of the objective observer in science. And the fourth is the growing recognition of the importance of collaborative work in the natural sciences (Vygotsky L, Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1978) and in disciplines outside of science. This chapter offers a framework for thinking about and constructing active learning environments, providing a rational, evidence-based, and discipline-centered response to these challenges.