My understanding from this weeks resources...Teachers that understand not every child always needs to conduct an individual experiment, however, every child will benefit from manipulating the data to see how the outcome could change with varying data, are effectively using their instructional minutes. We are fortunate to be teaching in a time that has tools that will provide more opportunity for out students to ask "what if," create a hypothesis and get instant feedback to show the outcomes of "what if." Students are not weary to question because they are not turned away by the amount of work the results could take to find. I compare this same willingness to question, to the first time my math teacher handed me a graphing calculator. I was much more enthusiastic to problem solve and try different variables when I knew the tool would do the "work" for me. Testing out the varying variables and examining the results provides a more beneficial and increased level of understanding.
While not every student needs to have the same first hand experience with a concept, Dr. Orey stresses the importance of having every student building an artifact to build upon an understanding they already have. This is referred to as constructivism verses constructionism. Constructionism is used when lessons are interacting with the student to provide assimilations and accomodations to construct something. In order to understand new concepts, accommodations and new schema must be made available to students. Learning is individualized and focusing on what is going on in each students learning process. This correlates with the ideas presented in the text because students are able to quickly try out different variables and get instant feedback. They are able to take what they already know and build upon it or create knew schema as needed.
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Your sentance "Sudents are not weary to question because they are not turned away by the amount of work the results could take to find" is very profound. Students that have access and take advantage of technology can learn about any and everything. When a question is asked in my class that no one can answer, I always say "Someone do a web search" and the race is on. Not everyone in the class searches but always quite a few do and whoever finds the answer is always proud.....
ReplyDeleteYour idea of not every student being responsible for conducting the experiment is very important. When thinking of the constructivism approach to learning, it is important to remember students are working together in order to discover understanding based on their previous experiences. When students are working together, they are held responsible to work with their partner/team to create a final project.
ReplyDeleteI like keeping portfolios of the students' work, projects, writings, poems, and so forth. Not only does it give the students a sense of pride, but the portfolios come in handy during conferences! Portfolio artifacts come from hands-on work that is meaningful and reflects both individual and collaborative effort.
ReplyDeleteAnytime that you can incorporate different learning styles, you help students make more connections. Blending technology with the constructivism approach benefits the students, widens their experiences, and helps them acquire more knowledge.
One suggestion about group work is to break the project into roles that each person in the team is responsible for. When my students are completing group work, one student is the reporter, one the note taker, and one the researcher. They all have to contribute and collaborate with each other to meet the scoring rubric they are given before they being their project. Constructivism and constructionist theory is how the career education teachers have worked for years.
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