Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Constructivism in Practice
Constructivism is a way for the student to examine what more does he or she needs to know about the content in order to make their finding, According to (Pitler, et.al., 2007) doing a research study could be a way to construct new knowledge and add to previous knowledge. This activity presents students with no clinical placement to do clinical. So the student begins to think of underlying issue that relates to this problem. That issue could be no appropriate place to practice clinical procedures leading to the lack of practical and critical thinking skills. Then the student would determine what the problem and the significance of the problem. The student would have a chance to understand the process in finding a solution. The next step would lead to conduct a research project. The research would include gathering the data by reading relevant literature; identify the research questions, data analysis, and findings. The student is building on external artifact to build or construct on existing knowledge.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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In today’s classrooms it is important to allow/provide students with avenues to construct the knowledge we want them to know, hence the move towards a student-centered learning environment which helps to improve students’ critical thinking skills. I believe that the teaching strategy of generating and testing hypotheses provide students with concrete experiences that they can draw upon having gone through the process of creating a hypothesis and testing and re-testing to arrive at a conclusion.
ReplyDeleteIt is very important to change our style of teaching to what is best for the learner. Learning is very interactive. The overall goal is to enhance efficency in teaching methods, which would enable educators to empoower students with concepts for application in actual situations. I believe that when students generate and test hypotheses they can clearly see the process and easy explain the "why's".
DeleteI agree with you that learning is interactive and thus education must change their style of teaching to enhance students’ learning experiences. I find my students eager to explore technology with me when I am introducing it my classroom. I mess up at times, but I don’t lose face as I always let them know that together we are exploring the benefits of the technology in the content area. I find that they love to explore with me as they get to shine in guiding me with the technology.
DeleteAgain I say, so far my experience is that students do not want to do interactive learning. I see too many cries for passive ...just throw it to me to memorize learning. My students are moaning and complaining that I am not teaching when I want them to do the learning with me there as background support. They simply have not had to do this before. We need to start this process with younger children.
ReplyDeleteMindy
ReplyDeleteit is definitely a lot of work on our part to provuide interactive activities. I am working on this daily with my students. I am trying to think of creative strategies to use in the classroom so I will not bore my students (take a nap).