According to Dr. Orey (Laureate, 2000) constructionism is all about getting the learner involved actively. By being part of the developing process, creating personal artifacts, schemes are created. Technology dove tails effectively and efficiently with constructionism as a multifaceted tool to be used by the learner in many create and personal ways. One suggestion by Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007) for constructing personal knowledge is to use a variety of tasks to help students come to a more complete understanding. Technology provides the variety needed for this to occur.
Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007) state, technology can easily be used “six tasks that teachers can use to help students generate and test hypotheses…systems analysis, problem solving, historical investigation, invention, experimental inquiry and decision making” (p. 203). The web site, http://pbl-online.org/ provides concrete, yet open ideas for students and teachers to investigate all six of these constructs. One example was to develop a plan to check, test and implement the safe and effective design of wheel chair access at school facilities. There is no pre-described answer for this, or even a model to follow. Students would take individual knowledge they already posses and use it to construct deeper understanding of a more complex issue. Finding the answer is only half the fun, a lot of the learning takes place on the journey of developing how one discovers the answers.
Another example was of a WWII game simulation. Through the use of this, hands on technology, students are able to personally construct abstract ideas into personal artifacts. History, far off countries, complex math problems have little deep meaning to people. People might be able to memorize a date or name, but true meaning comes through sweat and tears of constructing meaning personally. Be it historical investigation or system analysis, technology is a wonderful facilitator for constructing meaning in our students minds.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2000). Bridging Learning theory, Instruction and Technology. Baltimore: Author.
Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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Constructivism or constructionism on Century 21 by Juan Delgado
ReplyDeleteAs a compliment of your thoughts
What is constructivism? A theory of knowledge stating that each individual actively constructs his/her own meaning.
What is constructionism? A theory of learning that states people learn best when they build an external artifact or something that can share with others.
The process of constructionism has four specific mechanism of learning as follow:
Assimilation: Assimilation occurs when external reality is made to fit when one’s current beliefs and understanding. (Scheme)
Accommodation: Accommodation occurs when one’s current believes and understanding (scheme) is altered to fit the external reality.
Equilibration: Is the process of achieving a balance between differences in external reality and one’s current beliefs and understanding. (Scheme).
Scheme: A Scheme is a representation of an n outline of a system or object.
All this mechanism are connected and balance during the learning process.
When a teacher plans a constructionist activity, students are engaged in learning and with the process of “building” using tools and technology.
Assimilation, accommodation, equilibration and scheme are definitely, mechanisms that we all apply when are trying to acquire new knowledge.
Constructionist activities should be include on teachers weekly activities in order to develop students skills about using technology and braking with the daily routine of using pencil and paper.
My thoughts about Constructionism:
I believe in constructionism and proof of that is my students have a mandatory assignment, every marking period; when they need to use technology. Foe example, I have my students construct a project-based or a problem-based, original and creative on a determine topic; the common ones are the projects that consist of creating a power point presentation or simply writing an essay. The time allows for each project can vary from 90 minutes to a week; and student gets involve with the mechanism of learning as: Assimilation, accommodation, equilibrium and scheme. The most productive are the project where students have not a strong scheme. For example, last week, one activity consisted of do research about common alloys; students have idea about stainless steels and brass these students were more confident searching because they have an idea about this alloys, but the reaction was different when students were ask to do research about pewter and amalgam because they have no scheme about them. During this activity students are engage creating something. At times is a real challenge for students to work with Power Point.
My thoughts about Constructivism:
Students are not too familiar with doing invention or analyzing experimental inquiry. This week students are finishing with a project based on problem based, they did choose a topic and need to apply the steps of Scientific Method and write an essay about it. A group student were interested in finding out about peer opinion regarding the use of “uniform” instead of regular “outfit” and the effect on learning. During this activity students are engage constructing they own meaning or knowledge about the situation... At times is a real challenge for students to do data analysis to show experimental results.
Juan Delgado.
James,
ReplyDeleteI think you made the connection between the examples from our text and the constructivism portion of our DVD than I did. I also noted the six tasks from the text, but after exploring the website you suggested I found some great ideas to implement them into the classroom.
I also liked that you mentioned variety. A classroom with only direct instruction might be what's best for one or two students in your class, but some students might learn better from a constructivist approach. Like you said, technology can make varying your instruction a much easier task. I also find that technology is a great resource tool for generating ideas to vary my instruction.
Jason
I totally agree that constructionism is all about getting the learner involved actively. Technology is used to incorporate these technology by students. Dr. Orey gave several examples of how students can use technololgy to correlate the constructivist/constructionist therories. Powerpoint is the technological tool that is mostly used in my class by students. For one it's the easiet and for to it's the most readily available form of technology for the students. It's amazing the to see how well my studnets create their projects using power point. It really shows how creative they can be when creating an external artifact.
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