Constructivism consists of each person developing an understanding of things based on their personal prior knowledge. Construtionism is the idea that people learn best when they have first hand experiences and are able to fit information into what they already know (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008).
Students can have first hand experiences in many different ways by generating and testing hypotheses. "When students generate and test hypotheses, they are engaging in complex mental process, applying content knowledge like facts and vocabulary, and enhancing their overall understanding of the content" (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p. 202). When students are creating and testing hypotheses they are considering a question and making a prediction based on what they already know. Therefore, students can make very diverse predictions that would be unique to each of them. Also, when testing the hypotheses, the students are finding out for themselves if their prediction is correct or not, creating a first hand experience.
Problem based learning tools can be effectively incorporated into the above types of learning experiences. Teachers can use project based learning tools to explore their experiments, to inform others of their experiments, and/or to get others involved. I found many helpful websites when exploring problem based learning tools.
The first website I found is a site for teachers to create a checklist when using a problem based learning tool.
The Learning Box website has interactive internet activities, children's stories and multimedia units, and problem solving software available.
Monsters 2009 is a project made by a variety of teachers and students from all over the world. This is a neat idea!!
Think Quest is a website that schools can join for free and then use to create classroom projects.
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program seven. Constructionist and Constructivist Learning Theories [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Allison,
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job at picking out the key elements of constuctionism. I liked in your first paragraph you said, "constructionism is the idea that people learn best when they have first hand experiences and are able to fit information into what they already know." I heard so much this week and it blended together for me a bit. But you summed constructionism up for me in one sentence--thank you.
Kenny
Oddly enough, I think I will be able to use hypothesis effectively in my world history classes. I am thinking of giving students a bell ringer that consists of a question, they will predict the outcome, then discover the answer by the end of class. My mind automatically goes to science when I see the word hypothesis, but there are many applications for hypothesis in social studies.
ReplyDeleteAllison,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the checklist website. I think that one of the harder parts of implementing project-based learning in the classroom is finding a way to grade the very different projects in the same way. Having these checklists, or rubrics are a great way to focus all the students on the things that they will be assessed on. Then they can make sure that they accomplish the goals of the assignment while still having the choice and creativity to meet those goals in their own way.
Drew