Constructivist Learning
Professionally, I am in one of those sponge stages - I want to read everything and take it in, think about it, and create some meaning out of it. Yesterday, I started reading a book by Jacqueline and Martin Brooks entitled In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms. It’s a pretty quick read, but full of ideas that endorse the sort of thinking that is best suited to technology, and very much in line with what we are trying to do with the ISTE Institute project.
“Deep understanding occurs when the presence of new information prompts the emergence or enhancement of cognitive structures that enable us to rethink our prior ideas.” Being a constructivist teacher is not an easy task, but a mode of teaching that really matches how we operate as human beings. Constructivist teaching first and formost has respect for students as people, whether child or adult. This kind of learning environment is really student-centered with great care being taken to understand where the student is cognitively and how his/her past experiences relate to their own new understandings of the curriculum at hand.
There is a table on page 17 that defines the very core of constructivist classrooms: (1) curriculum is presented whole to part with emphasis on big concepts; (2) pursuit of student questions is highly valued; (3) curricular activities rely heavily on primary sources of data and manipulative materials; (4) students are viewed as thinkers with emerging theories about the world; (5) teachers generally behave in an interactive manner, mediating the environment for students; (6) teachers seek the students’ point of view in order to understand students’ present conceptions for use in subsequent lessons; (7) assessment of student learning is interwoven with teaching and occurs through teacher observations of students at work and through student exhibitions and portfolios; (8) students primarily work in groups.
This is authentic, learner-driven instruction. And technology fits in perfectly in so many ways.
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