My Understanding on Constructivism
Constructivism is a teaching philosophy that gives the students a chance to comprehend the meaning of that class and which is basically an answer of "Why I am learning this?" and "What are the benefits of this information?". Knowing these answers will create awareness on the students.
Students come to the class ready (studied for the topic) and discuss the certain issues with the teacher's guidance. By doing this, they internalize the information. They learn from each other and the teacher builds the new knowledge on their existing knowledge. If the students do not study or the population of the classroom is too high, it will become impossible to study.
By constructivism students share their information and opinions so classes are more fun and learning is more permanent. However we should take the population into consideration before we try it.
I totally agree with your ideas on constructivist approaches.The more students do questioning on what they are doing and learning , the more they will internalize the subject.sure. by sharing their own ideas ,they can help other students to build a new point of view.
ReplyDeleteWe are sharing nearly "the same" thoughts but I would like to ask some questions. What is your own experience with constructivism? Have you exposed or saw somebody who was exposed to this method? Have you got any plans for applying this to your own classroom? These are the thing that I'm curious about. Also, yes this method certainly helps students to create their own database by themselves in a way.
ReplyDeleteActually, I didn't have a whole class run by constructivism, but in small sorts of activities I really loved it (from a student's point of view). If you are really interested in hearing that it was a prep. school speaking activity and main purpose was to make us speak in English on something that we interested in. My group (and particularly I) used it as a chance to broaden our horizons. I always believed in the benefits of making the students aware of the class and bring something in the class. So for sure, I will use this method at least once in my class and if my students are really involved in, I can get it as my teaching habits. You know; our decisions mostly depend on our students and their learning styles.
DeleteHi Seray, I agree with your ideas about constructivism. It improves their questioning skills. Also, it helps students communication skills and gives them confidence when they are sharing their ideas in the class.
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