According to this theory, learners are active participants in knowledge acquisition, and engage in restructuring, manipulating, reinventing, and experimenting with knowledge to make it meaningful, organized and permanent. The importance of context related to knowledge and learning is emphasized. A constructivist learning setting differs greatly from one based on the traditional model. The average traditional American classroom, whether grade school or college level, tends to resemble a one-person show with a captive but often comatose audience. Instruction in these classrooms is based on the idea that there is a fixed world of knowledge that the student must come to know.
Information is divided into parts and built into a whole concept.
Teachers serve as pipelines and seek to transfer their thoughts and meanings to the passive student. There is little room for student-initiated questions, independent thought or interaction between students. Traditional Classroom Student primarily work alone. Constructivist Classroom Students primarily work in groups. Curriculum is presented part towhole, with emphasis on basic skills.