I’ll tackle the notion that the socio-cultural context in which one develops – offering the “raw materials” and symbols one uses to make sense of the world – is an important element of social constructivism and the foundation of New Learning (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012, p207). It takes the best of behaviorism, adds the best of developmentalism, and leans more to the socio-cultural context in which one learns, relying to a greater extent on the “nurture” side of the nature/nurture equation. This is, perhaps, the sweet spot for a teacher who likely being more of a nurture person, can then take the previous learning theories in the various doses necessary to make their work meaningful.

When I consider all the theories thus far explored within the context of my work as a high school teacher in China, I find that the old behaviorist approach dominates and that the new constructivist is considered too much play and often not enough teaching. They typically employ a very didactic approach and simply getting feedback and discussion moving in such an environment is somewhat odd. Anyone who has taught in China will understand what I mean. This video below is typical of early morning drills in a Chinese language class learning English: 

I’d recently done three years at an International Baccalaureate (IB) school where the pedagogy was very much social constructivist. They paid great attention to the Piagetian notion of development and that the child must be prepared or made ready – and that deep learning wouldn’t result without such preparation. By the time that child had moved to high school, they would be ready for the next phase of their development and learning, often requiring complex and abstract thinking while relying very much on a socially constructed learning system or infrastructure. Most students who came up in the system were very well prepared for their high school experience. Those who come onboard at the high school level were like fish out of water. As a teacher forced to switch between the two extremes – the IB and the Chinese system – I found them to have such radically different effects on students that the final “output”, if you will, was that one was more a listening and test-preparation machine and the other very much a free spirit. 

Below are two videos illustrating what I think are good representations of each. The first is by a Chinese middle school student describing her typical day. It's a very high-end high school and most are not nearly as plush. But the day looks somewhat typical to me, in my experience: 

The above media illustrates a typical IB classroom for nearly every subject. It's very interactive. I'm not making a judgement call here, as both styles work within the greater social construct. Indeed, in affluent areas of China, this inquiry-based style is making inroads, as can be seen in the video below: 

Finally, nearly every Chinese student I taught was an only child. As such, attention is poured on them from day one. They are often given every attention, toy, allowed to behave in ways that would be unacceptable in larger families (e.g., sharing, waiting their turn, being ignored when a sibling takes center stage, etc.). On the other hand, I found the IB students who were from other cultures and typically had siblings often leveraged particular traits or skills to get attention. They were typically more outwardly focused and bolder. The socio-cultural environment in which the students grew up seemed a critical element of their learning. No matter how much one tried to understand the differences, the best way to teach always seemed to elude. I could factor the political-economic elements into the equation – which made it all the more difficult to know what was being learned – but suffice to say that even after 10 years in China, I don’t know the best way to teach, nor do I feel comfortable with a social constructivist approach to teaching and learning in the Chinese environment. Indeed, even each province in China has very different socio-cultural elements that I’m still a novice upon entering a new job.

Below is website that I think clearly describes Chinese schooling from a student's perspective and one of the best sites I've read: 

http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat13/sub82/item1094.html#chapter-18

Source:

Kalantzis, Mary and Bill Cope (2008) New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education Cambridge University Press (2nd edition, 2012).