Constructivism

“Understand students’ understanding”

Define Constructivism

• Constructivism is a philosophy of learning by reflecting on our experiences

• Purpose: make sense of our experiences.

• Construct our own understanding of the world we live in.

• Each of us generates our own “rules” and “mental models,”

Continued ….

• The student is the key to learning: student centered curriculum

• Learning is Active•Meaning-Making Process• Focuses on processes of

learning rather than learning behavior

•CONSTRUCT understanding of material learned (NOT RECEIVE)

•Cognitive Science: the study of the mental processes students use for thinking and remembering

How is this applied to Education?

There are 4 main ways this is applied:

• Learning must start by meanings of what students are actively are searching for.

• Look for whole and parts- PRIMARY CONCEPTS

• Understand meaning- NOT JUST MEMORIZATION

• Must understand how students perceive the world.

Philosopher: Jean Piaget “biological explanation of knowledge.”

• human beings possess mental structures that assimilate external events, and convert them to fit their mental structures•Children must construct their own knowledge through experience •Experience make children be able to create schemas (mental models in their heads)•COGNITVE COSTRUCTIVISM: actively constructing new knowledge

Jean Piaget Continued..Piaget’s theory involves two concepts for intellectual growth and biological development-Adaptation

*Assimilation and accommodation are both part of the adaptation process

*Mental structures accommodate themselves to new, unusual, and constantly changing aspects of the external environment

-Organization *the mind is organized in complex and

integrated ways* a mental representation of some physical or

mental action that can be performed on an object, event, or phenomenon

Stages continued…

• Sensorimotor: physical interactions and experiences ( Motor activity)

• Preoperational: language, memory and imagination

• Concrete operational: demonstrated through the use of logical and systematic manipulation of symbols, which are related to concrete objects.

• formal operational stage: think about multiple variables in systematic ways, can formulate hypotheses, and think about abstract relationships and concepts.

Jerome Bruner Believes in.. an active process in which

learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge

Learning that provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to "go beyond the information given".

Curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what they have already learned.

Philosopher: Jerome Bruner

Readiness for learning

Motives for learning

Intuitive and

analytical thinking

Jerome’s 3 ways to apply Constructivism to teaching

1) Readiness for learning: spiral curriculum - 'A curriculum as it develops should revisit this basic ideas repeatedly, building upon them until the student has grasped the full formal apparatus that goes with the’

2) Intuitive and analytical thinking: to come to a solution or decision

3) Motives for learning: interest in the material to be learned is the best stimulus to learning

General History during Constructivism

1900’s: Henry Ford's first Model-T

1910’s:"total war" -- World War I

1910’s: Titanic hit iceberg

1920’s: Roaring Twenties “Woman’s Suffrage

General History Continued… 1930’s: Great Depression1940’s: World War

II/Holocaust 1950’s: Segregation was

ruled as illegal in the U.S.1960’s: Vietnam War1980’s Cold War1990’s: Internet

Education History during Constructivism 20th Century • Junior High Schools 1909 - present began in California

Grades 7-9 to better prepare for high school•  Middle Schools 1950 - present Grades 6-8 / designed to

meet the needs of preadolescents • Education in the Southern States In 1912, the

Southern States made of 34% of the United States' population but received only 3% of the education funding.

Education History continued…

a) de jure school segregation - segregation by law b) de facto segregation - segregation defined by society NAACP Founded in 1909 Brown v Board of Education - separate is not equal. Supreme Court declares de jure school segregation violates the 14th Amendment Bussing - In 1971, the case of Swann V. Charlotte decided that changing the lines of a school district in order to bus students to integrated school is allowed under the Constitution.

Some Examples of How a teacher uses constructivism in his/her classroom..

• Provide concrete props and visual aids, such as models and/or time line

• Use familiar examples to facilitate learning more complex ideas, such as story problems in math.

• Allow opportunities to classify and group information with increasing complexity; use outlines and hierarchies to facilitate assimilating new information with previous knowledge.

• Present problems that require logical analytic thinking; the use of tools such as "brain teasers" is encouraged.

What a constructivist classroom looks..

Case Study

Background info: Mathematics Lesson- Measuring

In the case study, two styles of teaching are compared:

a) Traditional Approach

b) Constructive Approach

Case Study: Traditional Approach

SUMMARYI told the children exactly how we would go about measuring the whale's length. We would take the yardstick, which we hadn't explored, and we would put it down and keep track of where it ended and then place it there and keep counting till we reached where it ended and then place it there and keep counting till we reached 100 feet.

Case Study: Constructive ApproachSUMMARYIn the constructivist approach, the teacher had a measurement activity concerning Thanksgiving. She laid out a model of the Mayflower on the floor in the center of the room using masking tape. Then she prepared a scroll or edict for the students to read, telling them that the ship could not sail until they told the king how large the boat was. After the edict was read, she waited for the students to figure out how they could measure the ship and be on their way. Here's how she described what happened after the reading of the scroll: Examples of students attempts:-using one person in the classroom’s hands, body, feet ect-"Mrs. Hendry, I know it can't be three feet because the nurse just measured me last week and said that I was four feet, and this boat is much bigger than me!"

Chesapeake College: LRC/Library. (n.d.). Retrieved October 10, 2009, from http://www.chesapeake.edu/library/Constructivism. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.funderstanding.com/content/constructivism religious, h. f. (n.d.). Piaget. Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboerConstructivism. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2009, from

http://www.skagitwatershed.org/~Constructivism in the Classroom - A Case Study. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/Skaalid/ca

sestudy.html Piaget's Stages - Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Piaget%27s_StagesRosenberg, J. (n.d.). History Timeline of the Twentieth Century. Retrieved October 11, 2009, from http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/timeline.htm

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