Constructivist Learning versus Explicit Teaching: A personal
discovery of balance
Tara TetzlaffSpring 2009
• Teacher gave me information
• Student gave information back on assignments and tests
• Assignments & tests proved my accurate understanding of information
What it Meant to be a Student
• Navigate own path through a framework of information
• Take responsibility for identifying significance of material
• Take responsibility for identifying personal use of material
What it Means to be a Student
What it Meant to be a Teacher
• Provide students with specific information
• Create assignments & tests designed for students to demonstrate their accurate understanding of information
• Tell students when they are right or wrong
What it Means to be a Teacher
• Provide students with the tools and opportunities to learn new information
• Mediate student learning and prod thinking through questions and feedback
• Model thinking/behavior/communication through own actions
Constructivist Learning
• Student-driven : responsibility is on learners, - develop their own understanding of
information by actively using new information
• Teachers: provide little direct information, - mediate students’ learning through questions and feedback
Principles of Constructivist Learning
Active Engagement: learning by doing
Constructive: new knowledge built on previously learned information
Intentional: goal oriented
Complex: challenging
Contextual: authentic and realistic framework
Collaborative: learn from the perspectives & processes of others
Conversational: share experiences and knowledge with others, develop relationships
Reflective: connect information to self, think about own thinking
Principles of Constructivist Learning
Constructivist Only Workshop
Advantages of an Only Constructivist Learning Workshop
• Encourages focus on process of learning
• Students develop their own working understanding of information
• Students learn from mistakes
• Students might not have enough information to work with
• Difficult to assess students’ understanding of new information
• Need to get through certain tasks in limited amount of time
Disadvantages of an OnlyConstructivist Learning Workshop
Explicit Teaching
• Teacher-driven: responsibility is on teachers,- efficiently pass on specific information and insure minimal chance of student error
• Students: learn information as it is provided by teacher
- demonstrate accurate understanding
Steps of Explicit Teaching
1. Orientation: introduction and overview
2. Presentation: instructor demonstrates completion of task, breaks task into sub goals and steps, models process and thinking strategies
3. Structured Practice: instructor completes task again, this time with students working along
Steps of Explicit Teaching
4. Guided Practice: students complete task individually or in small groups as teacher answers and asks questions
5. Independent Practice: students take work home to complete on their own, then return work for teacher corrections
Advantages of an Explicit Teaching Only Workshop
• Defined steps and sub goals provide clear task objectives
• Instructor modeling provides example of expected student behavior and thinking
• Repeated practice reinforces student learning of process and steps
Disadvantages of an Only Explicit Teaching Workshop
• Not enough time to go through so many construction cycles
• Students can feel “talk at” and get bored, making them less attentive to instruction
• Students cannot take materials home for independent practice
Combination Workshop
Technic Beams
Plates
Axle
Pegs
Piston Rod & Spur Gear
Combination Workshop
• Explicit presentation of LEGO parts and use
• Instructor modeling of building strategies
• Structured and guided practice
• Actively Engaged, Complex, Contextual, Collaborative, Conversational, and Reflective
With Grade-School Students:
* more structured practice
* more guided practice
* more conversation
* more reflection
Explicit Teaching
Constructivist Learning