Novak's Theory of Education: Human Constructivism and Meaningful Learning

At the heart of constructivism is the recognition that knowledge is not an entity transferred in toto from teacher to learner, but rather that learning requires active engagement of the student's mind. Ausubel's Assimilation Theory describes the three requirements for such meaningful learning to take place. Novak's Theory of Education, which he calls Human Constructivism, extends and applies Ausubel's ideas to the classroom by considering a framework of elements in education: the teacher, the learner, the content, the context, and evaluation. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of Novak's theory to both chemistry teaching and chemistry education research.