Misplaced epistemologies and teaching methods

1. To prove that application of teaching-learning approaches should match the learning phase in which the learner is in, concerning that specific topic, and not the preferences dictated by either one of the learning theories.

2. To prove that the current emphasis on constructive approaches to learning and instruction in elementary schools may result in loss of learner's interests in the subject matter and / or misunderstandings detrimental to future learning.

New conceptions of teaching which are based on neo-pragmatist and constructivist viewpoints emphasise on implementing a problem, topic, or issue based approach to teaching in which the beginning learner is confronted with a problem in an "authentic" situation and tries to solve the problem or construct a real representation of the situation. This approach is contradictory to the above mentioned findings about the stages of meaningful learning. Does this contradiction cause any intermission or cessation in the process of learners' meaningful learning? Does posing "authentic" questions and problems to beginning learners cause a negative orientation or inclination toward the object of the problem or question?

The constructivist approaches to learning are mainly based on a relativist epistemology which in its most simple declaration denies realities apart from the learners' mind and give the inner conceptions of the learner a pivotal role in knowing. This conception about the object of knowledge if applied in the early stages of schooling sets a trembling and unsteady mental context which might inhibit future leanings based on more realistic epistemologies. Whereas application of more realistic approaches to the object of knowledge may eliminate this problem and match more closely with the specifications of early stages of learners' mental development.