Lewis, with 'The Lexical Approach' pushed for an Observation-Hypothesis-Experiment approach in the late 90s.  It sounds similar, and makes sense to me.

Anyone know of any experts, research, or good literature on the topic?

Here are some excerpts from different sources about Constructivism

1)  "As a philosophy of learning, constructivism can be traced at least to the eighteenth century and the work of the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico, who held that humans can only clearly understand what they have themselves constructed. Many others worked with these ideas, but the first major contemporaries to develop a clear idea of constructivism as applied to classrooms and childhood development were Jean Piaget and John Dewey..."        For further detailed information follow this link                           

            http://www.ingilish.com/Constructivism.htm

2)  " Constructivism is a theory of knowledge (epistemology) [1] that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas (During infancy, it is an interaction between their experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns (Piaget called these schemas). .... Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy, although it is often confused withconstructionism, an educational theory developed by Seymour Papert, inspired by constructivist and experiential learning ideas of Jean Piaget. Piaget's theory of constructivist learning has had wide ranging impact on learning theories and teaching methods in educationand is an underlying theme of many education reform movements. Research support for constructivist teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting these techniques and other research contradicting those results. Social constructivism has been criticized for being a kind of behaviorism, which reduces the individual to his or her social environment."   From:

                               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory)

3) Another simple and easy explanation of  Constructivist Learning Theory (for students...) was presented at the CECA (International Committee of Museum Educators) Conference by  Prof. George E. Hein ,Lesley College. Massachusetts USA,

                http://www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/constructivistlearning.html

4) " Constructivist assumptions about learning could be summarized as “knowledge is actively constructed by learners as they are trying to make sense of their experiences, learners form, elaborate and test candidate mental structures until a satisfactory one emerges (Perkins, 1991), particularly conflicting experiences will cause perturbation in the new structures, so that they can be restructured and constructed anew to make sense of the new information (Piaget 1973; Bruner 1966; Vygotsky 1978). That is, knowledge is not representing and corresponding to the external reality, but is viable (von Glasersfeld 1996). According to Vygotsky learning is a social negotiation of meaning.”   For more clarification follow this link:

            http://www.ingilish.com/online-learning-constructivism.htm

5) Here is a constructivist model (instructional framework) that a teacher used in classes:

                          http://www.ingilish.com/constructivist-model.htm

6) "Constructivism is very much in vogue at the present time. Indeed, constructivism has taken on the force of a slogan in many educational circles – a slogan that, like “student-centered curriculum,” “reflective practice,” and “learning by doing,” has become so commonplace as to inhibit rather than promote clear thinking about teaching and learning. Its popularity has also resulted in something of an intellectual backlash, demonstrated perhaps most clearly in Michael Devitt's assertion that it is “the most dangerous contemporary intellectual tendency” as well as in efforts to link constructivism with other postmodern challenges to science and rationality. "  From:

  http://ajol.info/index.php/jlt/article/view/5984  

You are more than welcome Mr. Heath. I truly appreciate your contributions and the way you present them.

We've been doing this for years now and have a complete set of courses that work in traditional classrooms and get learners into social leanring experiences using target language...both face to face and online using social media.

We have done some audio (before and after) case studies: http://englishoutthere.com/listen

Let me know what you think?