The constructivist theory believes that learning is a process in which the learner constructs meaning based on his or her own experiences and what he or she already knows. John Dewey believed that teaching should be built based on what learners already knew and engage learners in learning activities.
Teachers need to design environment and interact with learners to foster inventive, creative, critical learners. Therefore, teachers must balance an understanding of the habits, characteristics as well as personalities of individual learners with an understanding of the means of arousing learners’ interests and curiosity for learning. Constructivism has important implications for teaching.
First, teaching cannot be viewed as the transmission of knowledge from enlightened to unenlightened; constructivist teachers do not take the role of the “sage on the stage. ” Rather, teachers act as “guides on the side” who provide students with opportunities to test the adequacy of their current understandings.
Second, if learning is based on prior knowledge, then teachers must note that knowledge and provide learning environments that exploit inconsistencies between learners’ current understandings and the new experiences before them. This challenges teachers, for they cannot assume that all children understand something in the same way. Further, children may need different experiences to advance to different levels of understanding.
Third, if students must apply their current understandings in new situations in order to build new knowledge, then teachers must engage students in learning, bringing students’ current understandings to the forefront. Teachers can ensure that learning experiences incorporate problems that are important to students, not those that are primarily important to teachers and the educational system. Teachers can also encourage group interaction, where the interplay among participants helps individual students become explicit about their own understanding by comparing it to that of their peers.

Fourth, if new knowledge is actively built, then time is needed to build it. Ample time facilitates student reflection about new experiences, how those experiences line up against current understandings, and how a different understanding might provide students with an improved ( not “correct” ) view of the world.