Lauren Swann
ELED 330
Session 1
1-17-08
What is constructivism? When I think of the word constructivism, my brain reflects back to the days of my earlier ELED classes, and the one thing that I am confident about is that constructivism is a learning theory. Also, I believe that it is an approach that is more student based and hands-on type learning. In addition, I feel that constructivism allows for students to make connections between themselves and real life experiences.
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Lauren Swann
ReplyDeleteELED 330
Session 9
2-17-08
Re-Preconceptions of Constructivism
After discussing the term constructivism in class and reading about it, I feel as though I have a clearer view on what it is. For instance, Dr. Reins gave us three activities in class: Surrounded, Classifying Geoboards, and Area of any Polygon. Each of these activities gave us a little more in depth understanding about what constructivism is. To illustrate, in the activity Surrounded, Dr. Reins was activating our prior knowledge, he wanted to find out what we knew about rectangles and triangles, and about base and height. Then in the Classifying Geoboards activity, we had to use what we learned from the Surrounded activity to do the Geoboard activity. Finally, when we got to the last activity (Area of any Polygon) we had enough information on how to do it because of the knowledge we gained doing the previous activities. From these three activities we were able to make connections and then build on them, for an end result of a new understanding.
I feel as though constructivism is a building process and you are making connections along the way. To me, it is like scaling a mountain. First, you start at the bottom (prior knowledge) and with each step (making connections) you can climb your way to the top (a new understanding). Even though you might have to adapt along the way and at times you will be faced with challenges, eventually you can make it to the top, and move onto the next mountain you would like to conquer (building on connections/a deeper understanding).
Also, I have found out that teaching constructivism doesn’t just rely on the teacher. Actually, most of the responsibility relies on us, the students. We have to be able to change our thinking so that we can adapt to new experiences that we are provided with.