Social Constructivism Constructionism Intellectualism Confucionism Confusionism. I'm sorry, but this just seemed to combine a lot of things we've already learned about. There are several things I really liked, but is it really a completely new/different teaching or learning method?
Some comments I really liked: Vygotsky p. 104 "The only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it; it must be aimed not so much at the ripe as at the ripening functions." and Tolstoys comments that teaching new concepts is impossible.
I like the scaffolding model and that it means to help someone achieve beyond what is possible without assistance. The example of teaching a child to walk by using the laws of equilibrium is probably the simplest example of what Social constructavism is trying not to do, otherwise I have a hard time trying to explain it. The study done about building the peg pyramid was absolutely, completely confusing to me. First, trying to read the directions made me wonder if I wasn't one of the 3-5 year olds being tested. Second, just letting them play around with the pieces for a while to see what they would do seemed like a great play time activity, but not very useful in a jr high classroom. I would love to let my German students just sit around with a bunch of German vocabulary flashcards and see what they would do with them. Would they build a German Castle? Learn to flip them like european coasters? Build complex sentences with conjunctions and prepositional phrases? Sort them by color? Start drawing their own vocab cards? Anyway. I realized the importance of knowing the goal for older students, even if they might not know how to achieve it yet. Think of building a house. Obviously knowing how to pound a nail is a first step, and using a tape measure is important. Little kids won't care, (pounding is fun!) but an older student would want to know why he is learning those skills and will it ever be useful. Show a finished doghouse, dresser, etc. and it will motivate the students to learn more complex tasks and finish.
So, in a nutshell. March ahead of the students showing what can be accomplished and help them where they are so they can get to where you want them to be. (Isn't that what we do in our classrooms all of the time?)