Take 10 minutes to review the contents of Chapter 9.Specifically describe how you will use the concept of constructivism to teach one element of the discipline/subject/grade you intend to serve as a teacher.
I think that cooperative learning is an incredibly important part of developing socially, and after learning more about it in education classes, it's clearly an important part of developing mentally. I think that I would have at least one cooperative learning task for each unit that I planned, and use different kinds throughout the year (Jigsaw, expert groups, graffiti, etc). English is a very subjective subject (hah, that was not intentional!) and I think students could reach a much greater understand of some tougher works, like Shakespeare or Animal Farm, by working with their fellow students and being exposed to their thoughts and perceptions of the works we'd study.
I understood constructivism to be students learning new information by building on information they already know. So in order to teach a class on Business Management I would start by building on their foundation of math to help them learn accounting and so on. For an accounting lesson it would be important to show how what they know makes it easier to learn something new. They know addition and subtraction and accounting is just a more detailed lineup for adding and subtracting.
As a high school social studies teacher, I could do so much with constructivism. If I were to teach world history, I could look at the current financial crisis that we are in and relate it back to the lesson in which we are discussing political revolutions perhaps. We could watch videos from the present time and then look at historical video clips that the students could find similarities within. After viewing them and comparing similarities and differences via a class discussion. The students could then think and come up with examples that are also similar to the topic and in doing so they are constructing knowledge and really gaining an ability to view things more critically and to think critically.
In preschool we would have students actively involved in lessons --Like when reading the book --Lama Lama Red Pajama-- I would plan ahead and ask the children wear pajamas to school that day and in the book when the Lama jumps up and down-- as a class we get up from our circle and jump up and down. We also take on the students perspective-- if a child starts asking questions about what is a llama-- maybe instead of going out to play we would go outside and read a book about real lamas and then go pretend play like we are llamas on the playground.
I think that cooperative learning is an incredibly important part of developing socially, and after learning more about it in education classes, it's clearly an important part of developing mentally. I think that I would have at least one cooperative learning task for each unit that I planned, and use different kinds throughout the year (Jigsaw, expert groups, graffiti, etc). English is a very subjective subject (hah, that was not intentional!) and I think students could reach a much greater understand of some tougher works, like Shakespeare or Animal Farm, by working with their fellow students and being exposed to their thoughts and perceptions of the works we'd study.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Cooperative learning is quite rich, but most teachers dodge it because it is "messy" and hard to pull off.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... So, is math an objective object?
I understood constructivism to be students learning new information by building on information they already know. So in order to teach a class on Business Management I would start by building on their foundation of math to help them learn accounting and so on. For an accounting lesson it would be important to show how what they know makes it easier to learn something new. They know addition and subtraction and accounting is just a more detailed lineup for adding and subtracting.
ReplyDeleteAs a high school social studies teacher, I could do so much with constructivism. If I were to teach world history, I could look at the current financial crisis that we are in and relate it back to the lesson in which we are discussing political revolutions perhaps. We could watch videos from the present time and then look at historical video clips that the students could find similarities within. After viewing them and comparing similarities and differences via a class discussion. The students could then think and come up with examples that are also similar to the topic and in doing so they are constructing knowledge and really gaining an ability to view things more critically and to think critically.
ReplyDeleteIn preschool we would have students actively involved in lessons --Like when reading the book --Lama Lama Red Pajama-- I would plan ahead and ask the children wear pajamas to school that day and in the book when the Lama jumps up and down-- as a class we get up from our circle and jump up and down. We also take on the students perspective-- if a child starts asking questions about what is a llama-- maybe instead of going out to play we would go outside and read a book about real lamas and then go pretend play like we are llamas on the playground.
ReplyDelete