Courtenay Alexander Allison Broadwater Devin Brown Parks Millard Darnita Nash

Constructivism is creating a personal interpretation of external ideas and experiences.

 Cognitive Constructivism- Emphasizes role of cognitive processes in meaningful learning.  Social Constructivism- Emphasizes role of culture and social interaction in meaningful learning.

 Cognitive Constructivism assumes an individual’s conception of truth over some matter is based on the ability to gather data efficiently into existing schemes and create new schemes in response to novel or discrepant ideas.  The processes of assimilation and accommodation are assumed to be innate. Interaction with peers and physical environment provide opportunities that support the assumption

 Social Constructivism suggests the social world of a person includes the people that directly affect that person. These people include teachers, friends, students, and participants in all forms of activity. All of this takes into account the social nature of both the local processes involved in collaborative learning as well as in the discussion of wider social collaboration of a certain subject.  Most of the authors that recognize social constructivism trace their roots back to Vygotsky.

 Bruner discovered how ideas relate to each other and to existing knowledge and that this was the essence of education.  He argued too much learning takes the form of the step by step study of verbal or numerical statements that students can reproduce on cue but not outside the classroom.  Bruner argued that during drill-and-practice exercises, students became too dependent on other people.

 Meaningful learning is the active creation of knowledge structures from personal experience (Learner builds a personal view of the world by using existing knowledge, and attitudes.)  Social interaction and the negotiation of understanding with others can help learners construct knowledge (By interacting with others, learners have the opportunity to gain a perspective from their own.)

 Self-regulation by learners is a key to successful learning (This occurs when a person generates and controls thoughts, feelings, and actions in an effort to achieve a learning goal.)  Authentic problems provide realistic contexts that contribute to the construction and transfer of knowledge (When students encounter problems that are realistic, they are able to use what they already know about the problem situation.)

 This includes a cognitive apprenticeship between student and teacher, which is a use of realistic problems and conditions, and an emphasis on multiple perspectives.  Situated Learning in which learning tasks are set in realistic contexts and situated learning is for the most part meaningful.  Multiple Perspectives- Students’ view of ideas and problems from multiple perspectives.

 Students have frequent opportunities to debate and discuss ideas.  Teaching and learning starts from a student’s current understanding of a subject.  Students frequently engage in complex, meaningful problem-based activities.

 Our group observed a 7 th grade class at Eagles Landing Middle School. The way the students actively engaged with each other is what really jumped out at me. The day we observed they were finishing up a group project in Science. I specifically observed a group studying laundry detergent. One person studied the origination of laundry detergent, another person studied what its made out of, and another person studied the types of detergent. All three group members worked together to accomplish a certain task.

 Instruction: Lesson about Thanksgiving holiday with a story, question and answer session, and worksheet  Students: Answered questions about narrative elements from the book, Why We Have Thanksgiving, wrote three sentences about what they are thankful for this year  Teacher- student interaction: Direct- instruction with praise for all the comments about what they were thankful for and asked the simple questions about the book to check for comprehension.  Student- student interaction: They share their sentences with each other once done and talked about things they wanted to do on Thanksgiving day.  Class management: Majority were well behaved and those that got in trouble for disruption had to move their card to a different color, which meant different consequences.  Assessment: Thankful Turkey worksheet Subject: Reading/Language ArtsGrade Level: Kindergarten Number of Students: 17Demographic: 3 African American and 14 Caucasian; 7 Boys and 10 Girls Length of Observation: 40 minutesInstructor: Amber Wilburn

 Teaching from a constructivist perspective is more time-consuming and places higher demands on learners.  Much of what the teachers do depends on how the students respond.  Teachers need to know which learning style fits the students so they can convey the message more completely.

 Is constructivism effective in a classroom?  kMw&feature=related kMw&feature=related

Mr. Jenkins wants to teach his 1 st grade class more about the four seasons in a year. He knows that the students his students briefly learned the names and things about the seasons in Kindergarten but now he wants to elaborate on what causes the seasons to change. He makes sure to start off his lesson by asking the students if they remember learning about what the names of the seasons were and if they could tell him one thing about each season. He then goes on from there to discuss the seasonal changes throughout the year and what causes the weather to change. He includes pictures, diagrams and even books. Is Mr. Jenkins following the constructivist teaching method? Why or why not? Mrs. Harrington is starting a new unit on fractions. She goes directly to the whiteboard and starts writing fractions to teach her students to solve. Her main focus on teaching is getting the students to recognize the different types of teaching. She never relates fractions to real life examples like pizza slices or cutting apples into halves. She only teaches from the whiteboard and doesn’t understand why her class is struggling to grasp the concept. Is Mrs. Harrington being a constructivist teacher? Why or why not? Mrs. Smith is excited to teach her students about Columbus Day. Not only is it a National Holiday but Mrs. Smith has many activities to choose from. First things first she must introduce her class to Christopher Columbus and go from there. She explains to her class who he is and what he is famous for. When she mentioned the date he set foot on land, she made sure to relate that back to the year it is today. She did the same as she mentioned when we first started celebrating the holiday. This way her class will know that the tradition has been around for a while. She knows that her class works best when they are in groups and assigns them a group project of acting out a scene from a book she just read. She breaks the students up into groups of 5 and reads them the scene while she has them act out. Mrs. Smith knows that this kind of interaction will make the information the students learned stick around with them for a while. Is Mrs. Smith following the constructivist teaching method? Why or why not?

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References Snowman, Jack, R. R. McCown, and Robert F. Biehler. Psychology Applied to Teaching. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Print.