This concept will not come to a child all at once, but in a process of building intellectual structures that form a relationship of change, interaction and combining. Constructivists feel that every one brings different ideas and concepts to a learning situation. Therefore, it can be concluded that everyone takes away different ideas and concepts from the same learning situation. A conflict occurs, for example, when new knowledge is introduced that is not consistent with already known knowledge. In order to bring about resolution, new learning must occur.
Reflection is used to construct or transform the learner's representation to reality.
This restructuring of information must occur through self-regulation. The first major contemporaries to develop an idea of constructivism in a classroom setting and with childhood development were Jean Piaget and John Dewey. In the early 1930's and 40's, constructivism was a leading perspective among public school educators. Although they differ as theories, they fall within the same basic assumption about children's learning and that is that the child's individual development is at the center of instruction. John Dewey believed that education depended on action.