As I walked around observing the groups, I realized this was real to them and they were making connections to their life. This was at a school in the Madison City district and many of the student’s parents were engineers or worked in a field related to science. The knowledge they developed was driven by a curiosity they had, driven by a connection created between their understanding of what their parent did and what they were doing. The fact that it was fun, interesting, and challenging helped too, but their knowledge, and mine, went from knowing nothing about the different chemicals and their effects to having a pretty complex understanding, at least by AMSTI chemical test standards. The basis for the theory and why it worked so well in the …show more content…
In looking deeper into this theory, I obviously now understand it and the other theories much better. Just like the constructivist theory itself though, understanding is a basic step in my learning process. The actual learning and understanding for me came in the reflection of how this was actually applied in my life in an educational setting. By forcing myself to think about the methods I used in teaching and what I expect from my teachers as they teach, allowed me to look at this theory and understand how it actually looked in action in a classroom. As I mentioned, the reflection also allowed me to think about the teachers in my building and the activities being done that allow for this type of learning to take place. Finally, the reflection of the use of this model allowed me to compare other classrooms and methods and educational theories in action within those …show more content…
I wish I had taught this way the whole time I was in the classroom! I believe teachers, for the most part, teach the best way that they know. Paraphrasing what Dr. Rucinski said in class during the first session, if there is a better way to teach, we are morally obligated to do it. After studying this particular theory, I feel like there is a definite moral obligation on my part to make sure that my teachers understand it like I do
I identify with being a white, Catholic, straight, teenager girl living in Owensboro, Kentucky. I considered those my cultural and societal groups. There is no objective way to pick my real group. With my taste, opinions, characteristics and age constantly changing so are my cultural and societal groups.
This essay will reflect on the author’s learning experience and challenges to her journey of completing the high dependency care module. On reflection, the journey will be explored in which professional development is challenged and facilitated. In reflecting on these areas, the Driscoll's (2007) model of reflection will be utilized as this is very simple, straightforward yet suitable to any practitioner. Driscoll (2007) considered three stages in his approach to reflection as seen in Appendix 2.
Sociology is something I didn’t know about until I took this class. This class introduced sociology to me. I learned about how society basically made boys supposed to like blue and girls supposed to like pink. Sociology is “the systematic or scientific study of human society and social behavior, from large-scale institutions and mass culture to small groups and individual interactions” (Ferris and stein 2014: p9). Sociology is not something you just learn when you are just born. You learn about sociology throughout your life. Sociology is displayed around things such as being around different environments, friends, and family. Education is a sociology idea that can examine a person’s class and schooling. The higher the education you have,
Teaching theories are as much part of the classroom as the student and the teacher. The effect individual theories have on an environment depends how they are incorporated within the classroom in addition to the influence they have had on the curriculum construction. This essay will briefly look at how motivation theory, cognitive and social cognitive theory along with constructivism have impacted on education and the classroom.
Empiricists and rationalists have proposed opposing theories of the acquisition of knowledge, which appear unable to coexist. Each theory holds its own strengths but does not demonstrate a strong argument in itself to the questions, “Is knowledge truly possible?” and “How is true knowledge obtained?”. Immanual Kant successfully merged the two philosophies and provided a convincing argument with his theory of empirical relativism, or what some may call constructivism. His theory bridges the gap between rationalism and empiricism and proves that empiricists and rationalists each present a piece of the full puzzle. In order to truly understand Kant’s epistemology, one must first review and understand both empiricism and rationalism on an impartial basis.
The concept describes that our knowledge is something to be constructed internally rather than reflected from external realities. After the initial proposition of constructivism there came about the idea that “a reasonable conclusion is that at least three levels of constructivist advocacy appear frequently in contemporary educational literature”, according to Null 2004. Those three levels include epistemological constructivism, which focuses on issues like race, gender, and class and how issues like these need to be fixed. Next is instructional constructivism, which focuses on individual learning in the classroom. The last is prescriptive constructivism, which focuses on the relationship between teacher and student and proposes that teachers instruct with their students rather than at their students. No matter what level it is being taught, the basis of constructivism is to move away from the traditional practice of teaching the classroom through lecture primarily, and to adopt teaching the classroom through
Brooks, J. G., Brooks, M. G. (1999). In Search of Understanding: The Case of Constructivist Classrooms, with a new introduction by the authors. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford/Doc?id=10078162&ppg=28
Constructivism represents a paradigm shift form education based on cognitive theories. This concept assumes that learners construct their own knowledge on the basis of interaction with their environment. (Gagnon & Collay, 200?) The role of the teacher as a constructor of the learning experience to ensure authentic curriculum and assessment which is responsive to the skills, needs and experiences of the learner, within established curriculum framework and with the reference to the achievement of literacy, numeracy, retention and attainment of outcomes. Krause, Bochner and Duchesne (p.157) comment that “as learners interact with their environment, they link information learned through experience to previous knowledge, and so construct new understandings and knowledge.” Constructivism then inturn encourages Teachers and Learning Managers to recognise the value of prior knowledge and experiences that each child brings with them into the classroom, and help them (the students) build on their understandings of the world by providing appropriate learning experience plans.
Constructivist theory and independent learning. The constructivistic learning approach involves educators building school curriculum around the experience of their students. Constructivists believe learner-centric instructional classroom methods will strengthen the commitment and involvement of self-motivated learners because of their high level of interaction. Today, there is a trend for incorporating technology into the classrooms to support instructional learning methods. Yet, recent studies have revealed technology is not effectively integrated with the concepts of constructivism
The theory I find myself agreeing with the most is the constructivist approach because it is a balance between teacher and student. As a future teacher, I feel it important to have some say in the running of my classroom but I also want the students to feel it is also their classroom. The constructivist approach allows the teacher and students to work as a team but under the direction of the teacher. The teacher provides direction in how the classroom environment should be established, what content will be covered, and conflict resolution. The students are still given options to choose from in each of these category so they feel in control of the learning experience and environment.
There are methods that are considered very different than constructivism that are used in the classroom. One of the approaches is the traditional approach where the teacher teaches the information to the student, and the student does not contribute as much or convey the prior knowledge of the material during instruction (Airasian & Walsh, 1997). It has been said that traditional teaching can segregate students, especially ones with special needs, in the classroom (Bloom; Perlmutter& Burrell, 1999). In other words, traditional instruction is a more teacher-centered approach that uses rote, fact based learning. The teachers create the values, behaviors, and beliefs for the students. The teacher is in charge of the classroom, where they have rewards and consequences, and the students work mostly by themselves (this is very different that the constructivist classroom, which will be explained) (Windschitl, 1999).
Con: Constructivism classrooms do not have much room for structure (Rhinehart Neas). For new teachers, structure is important to maintain to have control of the classroom. Constructivism is meant for classrooms that can be more student centered than teacher controlled. For new teachers this method could not work very well. Another problem with constructivism is that students may not have the prior knowledge to begin a new lesson (Rhinehart Neas). The student that does not understand is also going to be the student who does not ask for help. Therefore, the teacher sometimes does need to teach and not just be a guide.
Among many teaching styles and learning theories, there is one that is becoming more popular, the constructivist theory. The constructivist theory focuses on the way a person learns, a constructivist believes that the person will learn better when he/she is actively engaged. The person acts or views objects and events in their environment, in the process, this person then understands and learns from the object or events(P. Johnson, 2004). When we encounter a certain experience in our life, we think back to other things that have occurred in our life and use that to tackle this experience. In a lot of cases, we are creators of our own knowledge. In a classroom, the constructivist theory encourages more hands-on assignments or real-world situations, such as, experiments in science and math real-world problem solving. A constructivist teacher constantly checks up on the student, asking them to reflect what they are learning from this activity. The teacher should be keeping track on how they approached similar situations and help them build on that. The students can actually learning how to learn in a well-planned classroom. Many people look at this learning style as a spiral, the student is constantly learning from each new experience and their ideas become more complex and develop stronger abilities to integrate this information(P. Johnson, 2004). An example of a constructivist classroom would be, the student is in science class and everyone is asking questions, although the teacher knows the answer, instead of just giving it to them, she attempts to get the students to think through their knowledge and try to come up with a logical answer. A problem with this method of learning is that people believe that it is excusing the role of...
We must first look at the need for a constructivist approach in a classroom, to do this we think back to our days in primary school and indeed secondary school where textbooks we like bibles. We were told to take out our books, look at the board, and now complete the exercise on page z. This approach in a class is repetitive, the teacher holds authoritarian power and learning is by no means interactive. “In a traditional classroom, an invisible and imposing, at times, impenetrable, barrier between student and teacher exists through power and practice. In a constructivist classroom, by contrast, the teacher and the student share responsibility and decision making and demonstrate mutual respect.” (Wineburg, 2001) This approach focuses on basic skills and strict adherence to the curriculum. Children are being forced to learn through repetit...
The one belief I had about teaching that has changed since I began this unit, is that all teachers, more or less, taught in the same way. Perhaps this is a belief that I had formed from my own time at school, where all my teachers taught in the same way; some were more or less effective, but I wasn’t aware of them using theories or methods as such, more that they were or weren’t kind people. This belief has changed and it has really opened my ideas to the many creative models, and instructional methods a teacher can use.