In the teaching materials, statements from my colleagues and former students, and my own accounts of my teaching that comprise the bulk of my teaching portfolio, I trust readers will find concrete evidence of how my teaching practices embody the three principles stated here. The theories of learning upon which I draw in my teaching imply considerable freedom and responsibility for students and teachers. Human beings construct knowledge and abilities through their interactions with texts, other people, and their own critical reflections. This knowledge and these abilities necessarily vary according to learners' backgrounds, values, needs, and desires. Constructivist pedagogy therefore implies the validity of diverse kinds of knowledge, not only the knowledge that the teacher or the authors of course texts construct.
Learners are responsible to others in their learning communities.
The knowledge constructed by each individual or group must therefore be articulated in discussions and writings and thereby made available for respectful and critical engagement by others, including fellow students and the professor. For the professor this pedagogical principle complicates the acts of teaching and of assessing learning. The benefit that makes constructivist teaching worth the extra trouble is that students truly learn . Every teacher is responsible for preparing students for active and productive participation in the public sphere. Unavoidably, the teachers we educate will pass on whatever principles and practices they learn from us to their students.