Learning and Teaching Philosophy

Aviva Institute has created a unique model employing a combination of modern teaching methodologies, best practices of distance education, traditional apprenticeship, and women’s ways of learning. A core component of our model is Constructivism (Bruner, 1990), which is the belief that people actively construct new knowledge as they interact with their environments. Teaching, within that approach, looks for what students can analyze, investigate, collaborate, share, build, and generate, based on what they already know, rather than what facts, skills, and processes they can memorize and regurgitate.

• Students’ prior experience and learning is recognized and valued.
  
  
• New knowledge is constructed using each individual student’s prior knowledge.
  
  
• Students learn from each other, as well as from the teacher.
  
  
• Students learn better by doing.
  
  
• Allowing and creating opportunities for all to have a voice promotes the construction of new ideas.
  
  
• Learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience.
  
  

Constructivism Resources

Bencze, J. (N.D.) Constructivism
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Dougiamas, M. (1998). A journey into constructivism

Standards