Why constructivist theory as a framework?
According to White (1999), “Technology can provide opportunities to make social studies education empowering and transformative, but meaningful, student centered, constructivist approaches are vital” (p. 4). Such approaches “encourage students to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills and to apply, analyse, synthesise, and evaluate knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (White, 1999, p. 2). To better prepare our future teachers to use these approaches, White advocates modelling a constructivist, student centered orientation in teacher education. Constructivism is a learning theory that is guided by a number of principles. Learning is viewed as an active and social process in which the learner constructs new knowledge rather than acquiring information, and instruction is viewed as a process of supporting that construction, rather than communicating knowledge (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). The new learning builds on previously stored knowledge, and as the learner elaborates upon and i
