CONSTRUCTIVISM

PICTURE THIS...

An eighth grade math class where students are learning about percents. Each student chooses a partner as well as one catalog from the many, which are located on the teacher's desk. Each partnership is told that they have $100 to spend on items within their chosen catalog. However, all clothing items are 15% off, all shoes/boots are 20% off, all food is 25% off, and all other items are 30% off of the original price. In addition, the tax rate is 6%. Students start shopping and recording all of the items that they want to purchase while applying the necessary discounts to each item. At the end of the entire shopping extravaganza, each group of students must be sure to include their calculation of tax in their final cost. Finally, the partners who come closest to spending $100 without going over will be announced as the class winners or possibly even win a prize from the teacher.

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The above mentioned is how I would typically envision constructive learning. The reason being is that students are creating their own experiences as a means to gain knowledge and insight into the idea, meaning, and application of percents. It also demonstrates the idea of working with one another and taking responsibility for accomplishing a task. Students gain confidence when they are successful on their own. This feeling of success is carried with them and in the end allows for students to make personal connections between the material being taught and the activity that they have just participated in.

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HOW DO I SEE MYSELF AS A CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNER...?

Personally, I am the type of learning who gains knowledge best by modeling the instructor, working collaboratively with my fellow classmates, and then ultimately attacking the task hands on. I cannot be thrown into something immediately because I do not have the confidence. However, if I am able to model the teacher, learn from my peers, and gain some confidence, then I have less hesitation to tackle something by creating my own learning experiences. The information that I retain for a lifetime or I should say for a long time is the type of material in which I am able to make connections with, apply to my personal life, or experience first hand. I feel that the same is true for students. If you take a topic in any subject area, expose students to its foundation, allow for some guided instruction, provide students the opportunity to discuss the topic collectively with one another, and then permit each student the time to explore, independently, what is being taught, they will be creating their own learning experience(s), which eventually will promote a better and more permanent recall of the information later on.

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WHEN RESEARCHING CONSTRUCTIVISM...

GOOGLE:

• Provides the general information and foundations for constructivism
• Easy to navigate
• Few specific articles and documents regarding constructivism

GOOGLE SCHOLAR:

• Many specific articles and documents about constructivism
• Few articles that allow the full text to be read
• Great site for research when writing a paper or thesis
• Bibliography information available

LIU DATABASE:

• Specific books, authors, documents, and articles that discuss constructivism
• Provides information about whether medias are available via email in a HTML or PDF format
• States whether books are checked in or out of the library
• Must have a LIU library code in order to access documents, articles, and/or books
• Great site for research when writing a paper or thesis
• Bibliography information available