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Social Constructivism in Education

According to the theory of social constructivism, social worlds develop out of individuals’ interactions with their culture and society. Knowledge evolves through the process of social negotiation and evaluation of the viability of individual understanding. Basically, every conversation or encounter between two or more people presents an opportunity for new knowledge to be obtained, or present knowledge expanded. The exchange of ideas that goes along with human contact is at play here. In order to apply social constructivism theories in the education arena, teachers and school leaders need to shift and reshape their perspectives. Both must move from being “people …

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Social Constructivism and Leadership

While most current literature is directed toward the use of social constructivism in educational organizations, it can be used by leaders of organizations both inside and outside of the educational sphere to bring about growth and communication. One example of this is in the use of metaphors to further the understanding of followers, which allows them to build their own knowledge base as individual learners, and adapt to new and expanding concepts. Metaphors are a force through which people create meaning. This is done by using one element of experience to understand another. Metaphors in this sense include anything symbolic …

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