A topic in constructivism
[Read about 'Constructivism']
There are different 'flavours' of constructivism, with different emphases. There have been some vigorous debates around constructivism / constructivisms. One key issues is: personal versus social constructivism?
As the label suggests, social constructivism is a perspective that emphasises the role of social interaction, including dialogue on learning / knowledge construction. (There is also a related notion of constructionism which looks at how people work together to work towards goals, such as the construction of products of various kinds.)
Do we have to choose?
Certainly when it comes to learning science it is clear that the learner is (certainly, mostly) acquiring the products of culture, which requires mediation form others, either directly (teachers) or through various tools (books, videos, etc.) where others represent their ideas. Similarly, anyone doing science today is embedded within a community and could not meaningful contribute without this.
Some commentators therefore suggest that (1) a social constructivist position is more sensible/useful than a personal constructivist position, as meaningful learning of an academic subject is not possible in isolation. That is. to focus on the individual learner is to ignore much of the 'system'. It may also be suggested that (2) knowledge is to be found in the community, in the network, rather than in an individual mind.
My own position has much sympathy with (a), although I feel personal and social constructivism are not opposed, but complementary, as a researcher can shift to exploring a phenomena (such as learning) at different levels: so it is possible to focus on the individual (and see others as part of the environment – sources of 'input' perhaps), or to move out and look at the social context in which that learner is embedded. I feel both are needed for the 'full picture'.
Where is knowledge located?
I do however have more difficulty with (2). I do think that knowledge (as I understand what this means – and although we mostly take the term for granted, it is not obvious what different people actually mean by knowledge) requires a knower, and different knowers know different things: so from my perspective the idea of the knowledge of a group is problematic – a bit like 'the height' of a group or 'the size' of clouds (collectively).
Knowledge is located in the heads of of individual knowers! [Mock-up of cover image for the book The Nature of the Chemical Concept: Constructing chemical knowledge in teaching and learning]
