Piaget's model of a conceptual scaffolding of objects, space, time, and causality frames the construction of experiential reality¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

In Piaget's Construction of Reality in the Child, von Glasersfeld finds a model of how learners build a coherent experiential reality: "he presented a model of how a basic scaffoldingthe conceptual structure of objects, space, time, and causalitycan be built up." This scaffolding serves as the framework within which experiential reality is constructed, and the construction is not free but constrained by the concepts that constitute it. The book notes this overlaps with George Kelly's personal construct psychology.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• The conceptual scaffolding of objects, space, time, and causality must be in place for a coherent experiential reality to be constructed

Constraints¶

• The construction is inevitably constrained and limited by the concepts that constitute the scaffolding

Target Learners¶

• children constructing experiential reality

Target Learning Objectives¶

• construction of concepts of objects, space, time, and causality

Claims¶

Related Theories¶

• Piaget's genetic epistemology studies how the human mind moves from less sufficient to higher knowledge
• Trial constructivism as the root of constructivism (Piaget's personal constructivism)
• Radical constructivism: knowing as dynamic adaptation of interpretations of experience
• Constructivism learning theory: knowledge as assumption, learning as active construction, students as subjects, teachers as helpers

Examples¶

• Use conceptual-analysis methods to develop or modify the conceptual structures learners seem to have in their heads

Key Sources¶

• von Glasersfeld, E. (1995). Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning. Falmer Press. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED381352