Constructivism
Constructivism has numerous beneficial aspects for the students. So many times teachers get so caught up on instilling as much information into the students in the fastest amount of time possible that all the students begin to do is either zone out or memorize. Through lectures, textbooks, drill and practices, and testing, teachers get stuck as a strict authoritive figure that pounds information into their students. Getting stuck in this rut can ruin students valuable learning experience through rote memorization they are tested then the information is easily forgotten.
The concept of constructivism is great in many ways:
1. Students are working with their classmates, this is a skill all in itself that is so essential to practice and work on. Aside from learning the information, this is a skill that the students will be able to carry with them into their family lives, work place— beyond the classroom. Working with others will build a relationship between the students- teacher- and his/her classmates. The classroom will grow in their communication and problem solving skills by helping each other learn the information.
2. With the encouragement of the student asking questions it will force them to become engaged with the information that is being leaned. Question asking keeps the students constantly thinking of deeper and better ways of looking at the situation. For the student to feel like their interest and questions are valued will reinforce them to feel accepted and encourage them to keep thinking and asking.
3. With the student and teacher communicate on a level where the student is trying to get to the depth of what is truly being taught puts the two of them on a level that is so interactive and helpful for the student. They are construing their knowledge on a level that is best understood for them. As the teacher’s job being like a guide in many ways including driving away from the idea that constructivism is a “group think” concept in which only the assertive voices are heard.
It would take a lot of thinking, planning and patience to run a classroom that is based on the concept of constructivism but I truly believe at the end of the day or year the students will be better off in so many ways from the communication skills they would have built to the information that they now know that will stay will them for a longer length of time because they construed it in such a way that they understand it. I don’t think that this concept is always the more correct way to run a classroom. I don’t think it is appropriate for all the types of material that a teacher is going to teach. Sometimes it is necessary for the teacher to teach and test the students in a way that the knowledge is concrete and unchanging. For instance in the subject of history, a teacher could use some aspects of constructivism like group work but the knowledge is primarily constant and fixed.
I don’t think this is an issue that should be controversial because the way a teacher teaches his/her students should be a mixture of all the different types of teaching and learning, by a teacher teaching a classroom inclusively in a constructivism way he/she could be harming other students. Every child is shaped in such an individualistic way that no teaching skill is going to be right for every one. The teacher needs to be constantly observing the students and work with them in a way that fits them best.
