Laura Henriques on Constructivist Teaching and Learning
One of the greatest thing to take away from the contructivist theory is to begin with student misconceptions or out of the norm cognitive foundations. A learner is said to learn at their greatest depths through experiences within their external environment(s). Knowledge is created through the exploration of authentic questions and formulating evidence that fits, from their findings. A student's prior knowledge is the base for their understanding, otherwise known as "funds of knowledge," and is strengthened or changed according to the application of new found information.
Another important aspect to clarify is that constructivism is not a method of teaching, but of learning. I have learned this to its most inner depths in the Teaching Elementary School Science course with Brian Hand. The goal of this theory is that students are 100% in charge of their own learning. Therefore, depending on where a student's cognitive make up lies, they will construct meaning and knowledge according to what they can apply and make sense of. In the constructivist theory, teachers are not lecturers and students are to be self-motivated and self-exploratory of information in order to learn. Part of the inquiry approach, which is modeled from the constructivist learning theory, is that students negotiate information in order to challenge ideas and phenomena in order to solidify understanding and build knowledge.
As a learner and future educator, I fully believe in this theory. I think that students need the appropriate environment where they reflect on their prior knowledge, explore the questions they have that are authentic to themselves which fosters motivation and then negotiate findings with themselves or others in order to reach successful learning.
Through my various learnings of this topic, I have concluded that there is not one ultimately perfect approach/learning theory for every student, every lesson. There needs to be a balance between the areas such as when to put heavy focus on building off prior knowledge only or when to take on adventures to construct meaning from those experiences.
The teacher may be the planner of when the students will explore such concepts and having hard to get resources available for students' exploration, however it is not their job in constructivism to force feed information to the learners. Nevertheless, the constructivist theory is all about the student.
The only speculations I have about the theory, are based on my trials and errors of use in my practicum classroom. It is an ideal classroom setting, to foster the upmost constructed knowledge, however it has shown to be a hard transition for some students to go into when they have been learning directly from the teacher thus far. Some students today are not as accustomed to taking their questions and and running with them to find out the answers all on their own. In a typical science classroom today (unfortunately), those students' questions begin by the teacher asking and then the teacher giving them the answers to fill in the blanks. That then only sinks into 10% of their memory. If they were to go through all the steps of inquiry, equivalent to constructivism, they would then present their findings and fill 95% of their memory. Also, the "funds of knowledge" today are very widespread and off the basic spectrum that relates to sciences, especially biological. For example, students know a lot about video games, television, clothing and other material goods. It would be the teacher's role in this situation to take the students' funds of knowledge and find a way to incorporate educational activities for them to want to explore while learning the scientific phenomena behind them.
Ok, I must cease my rambling. I could go on for days about constructivism and the inquiry approach for science education. I have learned and applied much of my learning through the Science methods course and Brian Hand's up to now that there is so much to say with such little time and space. If my previous writing is unclear and you would like further proof that I am actually aware of the words I am typing, please inquire to see two documents I have compiled purely stating these facts in depth detail.
Ultimately, learning is in hands of the learner when given the appropriate environment by the teacher to grow and bloom.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Bio Apps Reflection 7
Model-based inquiry gives students the visual outlets towards constructing understanding. Most students learn best when they see or do rather than simply hear. Therefore, models such as weather maps, graphs or mobiles further explanation for the learner. They serve as representations of things in which motivate and engage the students in understanding. They are great for introducing a lesson as well as reinforcing a lesson in a variety of ways. Even more, models can serve as assessment tools in which the teacher has the students fill out charts or make diagrams to show their application of their knowledge.
I believe that models are the biggest form of visual motivation within a classroom. Once a student has created a model of some sort, it should be posted up to show their work done well. The more students work gets posted, the more they will strive to work hard in creating things that are presentable and awardable. This way they also serve as reference points for the students so they learn how to refer to things when questioning, rather than simply asking the teacher everything. Even if a child looks at a model and recreates it directly, they are still taking that knowledge and applying it into something authentic to themselves. This will deepen comprehension. Model-based inquiry goes hand in hand with nearly all science lessons and should be applied as much as possible.
I believe that models are the biggest form of visual motivation within a classroom. Once a student has created a model of some sort, it should be posted up to show their work done well. The more students work gets posted, the more they will strive to work hard in creating things that are presentable and awardable. This way they also serve as reference points for the students so they learn how to refer to things when questioning, rather than simply asking the teacher everything. Even if a child looks at a model and recreates it directly, they are still taking that knowledge and applying it into something authentic to themselves. This will deepen comprehension. Model-based inquiry goes hand in hand with nearly all science lessons and should be applied as much as possible.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Bio Apps Reflection 6
*Energy flow is the flow of energy through a food chain. It includes various species and feeding relationships. For example, secondary consumers consume primary consumers and even primary producers within an ecosystem. Nurtient cycles differ because they are the recycling or organic and inorganic material back into the production of living matter. It is the movement or exchange of material within ecosystems, such as decomposition.
*While there are some very apparent differences among the ecosystems across the globe such as animal inhabitants, many others surface as well. For example, the climate of the rainforest being moist and warm is very different than the arctic where it is dry and cold. Also, the vegetation due to these conditions varies such as flourish tall trees in the rainforest and stocky rooty trees in mangroves. The main similarity across the different ecosystems is how the food chain/web or energy flow works. Specifically how organisms interact with eachother. A lot of interactions of things working together to complete the life cycle are present. There are always primary producers and consumers to utilize their "services." With that, there are specifically organisms that serve to be the keystone specie due to its large population and importance across the ecosystem, as well as apex predators who dominate the food chain and serve to be "top dogs." Another huge similarity is that the ecosystems are in great danger and mostly due to human impact. Their resources are being depleated, over consumed or wiped out to place new infrastructure on.
*The Big Idea of ecolgy is that organisms interact with eachother and their environment. All of the presentations circled around the Big Idea. Each presentation touched on the environment regarding climate, location on Earth and the vegetation present. They also included how the living things benefited off of one another and worked with eachother one way or another to maintain a balance. Most of the presentations just spoke of these topics individually but made a point to address the big idea either within each topic or at the end compile them all together. They serve as evaluation for understanding the Big Idea because they are evidence based claims that refer to the one Big Idea that occurs in all ecosystems across the land, no matter what their differences may be.
*I enojyed the fact that each group had to become an expert on a specific ecosystem and then present their expertise to the class. I have used this method in classes before, as a student and a teacher, and have seen the benefits of students taking ownership as well as being motivated from the other students to learn what they know. As a teacher, I would have liked to require an activity or more of an application of the facts for the class to really get their hands dirty with the information. Actually, as a student I would have liked that as well. Something such as the first group of passing out mangos to the class so that they can conceptualize what is actually around those parts. Another example could be creating a physical and moveable diagram to pass around that touches all of the main points under the Big Idea.
*The weaknesses with group projects is that if the group is 4 people, there usually is one distinct leader and one distinct slacker. I feel as a student that it would have been more work on each person but it would have also been more authentic if we were required to exactly break down the assignment into equal parts. I would have also liked to see examples or bounced around ideas with the other groups prior to getting started about good presentations and actually acting them out. As from a teacher's perspective, I would have liked to incorporate more time for questions and answers done by the students to deepen comprehension and then at the end of the presentations take all of the main points from each and compile it into a graphic organizer for all of the students to visually see.
*While there are some very apparent differences among the ecosystems across the globe such as animal inhabitants, many others surface as well. For example, the climate of the rainforest being moist and warm is very different than the arctic where it is dry and cold. Also, the vegetation due to these conditions varies such as flourish tall trees in the rainforest and stocky rooty trees in mangroves. The main similarity across the different ecosystems is how the food chain/web or energy flow works. Specifically how organisms interact with eachother. A lot of interactions of things working together to complete the life cycle are present. There are always primary producers and consumers to utilize their "services." With that, there are specifically organisms that serve to be the keystone specie due to its large population and importance across the ecosystem, as well as apex predators who dominate the food chain and serve to be "top dogs." Another huge similarity is that the ecosystems are in great danger and mostly due to human impact. Their resources are being depleated, over consumed or wiped out to place new infrastructure on.
*The Big Idea of ecolgy is that organisms interact with eachother and their environment. All of the presentations circled around the Big Idea. Each presentation touched on the environment regarding climate, location on Earth and the vegetation present. They also included how the living things benefited off of one another and worked with eachother one way or another to maintain a balance. Most of the presentations just spoke of these topics individually but made a point to address the big idea either within each topic or at the end compile them all together. They serve as evaluation for understanding the Big Idea because they are evidence based claims that refer to the one Big Idea that occurs in all ecosystems across the land, no matter what their differences may be.
*I enojyed the fact that each group had to become an expert on a specific ecosystem and then present their expertise to the class. I have used this method in classes before, as a student and a teacher, and have seen the benefits of students taking ownership as well as being motivated from the other students to learn what they know. As a teacher, I would have liked to require an activity or more of an application of the facts for the class to really get their hands dirty with the information. Actually, as a student I would have liked that as well. Something such as the first group of passing out mangos to the class so that they can conceptualize what is actually around those parts. Another example could be creating a physical and moveable diagram to pass around that touches all of the main points under the Big Idea.
*The weaknesses with group projects is that if the group is 4 people, there usually is one distinct leader and one distinct slacker. I feel as a student that it would have been more work on each person but it would have also been more authentic if we were required to exactly break down the assignment into equal parts. I would have also liked to see examples or bounced around ideas with the other groups prior to getting started about good presentations and actually acting them out. As from a teacher's perspective, I would have liked to incorporate more time for questions and answers done by the students to deepen comprehension and then at the end of the presentations take all of the main points from each and compile it into a graphic organizer for all of the students to visually see.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Bio Apps Reflection 5
How have views of writing questions changed?
In inquiry based classrooms, questioning is the driving factor that leads to the construction of meaning. Students have the freedom to explore whatever questions they may have on a topic as it is the teacher's role to direct their learning through series of questions rather than lectures. I have been working with the concept of questioning in science education for the past few semesters and still feel as if I have so much more to learn. I understand that questioning is essential but still need work on creating the most appropriate questions to foster the gaining of knowledge. It was helpful to dissect questions we originally created and decide what parts were good to keep and which ones needed tweaking. I think that if we are to promote getting hands on with concepts in science education, that we as teachers in training need to role play and actually go forth in doing these tasks.
I find that it is somewhat challenging to create questions that do not directly ask "what am I thinking in my head?" but give enough background for students to build off of. I still believe that questioning should be the very first thing done by the teacher in a lesson to probe for prior knowledge which could also be misconceptions. Something that I vere off from but was reminded in class last week, was to make every question asked match the big idea. Of course every question asked is going to have a purpose but it is easy to stray away from the big idea when trying to get specific.
A prominant change or reinforcement that I've acquired is that it is extremely important to create questions before hand but leave a lot of room for flexibility knowing that students have minds of their own and will change up the situation in a split of a second. This then relates to making questions something that I would want to/be able to answer. When questioing students, we want to propose questions that engage students in exploring the big idea, creating evidence for their responses and the option to evaluate their own findings as well as their peers. This will get the students to construct knowledge on a deeper level rather than simply recognition and recall.
As the wise Albert Einstein once said, "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
In inquiry based classrooms, questioning is the driving factor that leads to the construction of meaning. Students have the freedom to explore whatever questions they may have on a topic as it is the teacher's role to direct their learning through series of questions rather than lectures. I have been working with the concept of questioning in science education for the past few semesters and still feel as if I have so much more to learn. I understand that questioning is essential but still need work on creating the most appropriate questions to foster the gaining of knowledge. It was helpful to dissect questions we originally created and decide what parts were good to keep and which ones needed tweaking. I think that if we are to promote getting hands on with concepts in science education, that we as teachers in training need to role play and actually go forth in doing these tasks.
I find that it is somewhat challenging to create questions that do not directly ask "what am I thinking in my head?" but give enough background for students to build off of. I still believe that questioning should be the very first thing done by the teacher in a lesson to probe for prior knowledge which could also be misconceptions. Something that I vere off from but was reminded in class last week, was to make every question asked match the big idea. Of course every question asked is going to have a purpose but it is easy to stray away from the big idea when trying to get specific.
A prominant change or reinforcement that I've acquired is that it is extremely important to create questions before hand but leave a lot of room for flexibility knowing that students have minds of their own and will change up the situation in a split of a second. This then relates to making questions something that I would want to/be able to answer. When questioing students, we want to propose questions that engage students in exploring the big idea, creating evidence for their responses and the option to evaluate their own findings as well as their peers. This will get the students to construct knowledge on a deeper level rather than simply recognition and recall.
As the wise Albert Einstein once said, "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
Monday, February 20, 2012
Bio Apps Reflection 4
1. How does the Lion King ecology inform our big idea? (how organisms interact with eachother)
The Lion King's main theme is "the circle of life." Therefore, it directly informs our big idea of organisms interacting with one another. It references the importance of vegetation and water to keep the roaming animals alive as well as how the roaming animals utilize eachother to maintain life. It also touches on the fact that once one living thing dies, another one is created to fill the void. For example, when Scar is finally sacrificed, not only is the good spirit of Pride Rock rejuivinated but another baby cub is brought into the circle by Nala and Simba. This relation of ecology and the big idea to the Lion King is a great way to visualize and conceptualize the rather large big idea in terms that can be expressed to all ages.
2. How have your ideas changed (if they have) as a result?
My ideas of ecology have not so much changed but been reinforced. I feel as if I know can use this reference as a basic idea to remind me of how organisms interact with eachother and the importance of promoting the "circle of life." It has also strengthened by belief of using big ideas rather than specific and distinctive information to teach, so a variety of lessons can be taught through a variety of mediums. Showing ecology through the Lion King is one way to get the overall big idea across but that is only one way of many that science educators can explain to students how ecology functions. I must admit after watching this movie with an analytical eye, I found more relations to science than ever before and most likely forsee myself utilizing this and other animated movies to get similar points across to young learners. Whether it is the characteristics of organisms, how they interact with their environment or how they interact with other organisms, ecology is always around and always to be explored.
The Lion King's main theme is "the circle of life." Therefore, it directly informs our big idea of organisms interacting with one another. It references the importance of vegetation and water to keep the roaming animals alive as well as how the roaming animals utilize eachother to maintain life. It also touches on the fact that once one living thing dies, another one is created to fill the void. For example, when Scar is finally sacrificed, not only is the good spirit of Pride Rock rejuivinated but another baby cub is brought into the circle by Nala and Simba. This relation of ecology and the big idea to the Lion King is a great way to visualize and conceptualize the rather large big idea in terms that can be expressed to all ages.
2. How have your ideas changed (if they have) as a result?
My ideas of ecology have not so much changed but been reinforced. I feel as if I know can use this reference as a basic idea to remind me of how organisms interact with eachother and the importance of promoting the "circle of life." It has also strengthened by belief of using big ideas rather than specific and distinctive information to teach, so a variety of lessons can be taught through a variety of mediums. Showing ecology through the Lion King is one way to get the overall big idea across but that is only one way of many that science educators can explain to students how ecology functions. I must admit after watching this movie with an analytical eye, I found more relations to science than ever before and most likely forsee myself utilizing this and other animated movies to get similar points across to young learners. Whether it is the characteristics of organisms, how they interact with their environment or how they interact with other organisms, ecology is always around and always to be explored.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Bio Apps Reflection 3
Learning is the process of building knowledge about concepts done through questioning, exploration and negotiation of relateable ideas. Every learner has 100% control over their learning and will construct meaning to the fullest with the motivation to make applications of situations. Learning is the exploration of why and how things are happening.
Teaching is the probing of student understanding through the creation of questions in which foster the negotiation of ideas that build a conceptual framework. Teaching includes presenting opportunities for students to explore their questions and providing the outlets for connecting prior knowledge to new.
Science education is driven by the foundation of big ideas. The big ideas are what unify the standards to lessons. They drive understanding and give relation of content to students real lives. If a science unit begins with an overall big idea, it doesn't matter where the students decide to go next with the lesson because every concept will match up to the big idea. In simple terms, the big idea is the foundation of a lesson (possibly unit), or the statement to continue building off of. Teachers must make sure to address the big idea first thing after probing for misconceptions and prior knowledge as well as at the end once students have constructed new understanding.
Teaching is the probing of student understanding through the creation of questions in which foster the negotiation of ideas that build a conceptual framework. Teaching includes presenting opportunities for students to explore their questions and providing the outlets for connecting prior knowledge to new.
Science education is driven by the foundation of big ideas. The big ideas are what unify the standards to lessons. They drive understanding and give relation of content to students real lives. If a science unit begins with an overall big idea, it doesn't matter where the students decide to go next with the lesson because every concept will match up to the big idea. In simple terms, the big idea is the foundation of a lesson (possibly unit), or the statement to continue building off of. Teachers must make sure to address the big idea first thing after probing for misconceptions and prior knowledge as well as at the end once students have constructed new understanding.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Bio Apps Reflection 2
Learning to read and reading to learn is a favorite educational quote of mine. This can easily be transformed into learning to write and writing to learn. Even though reading and writing are known to be subjects of their own, they are integrated within every subject and every act of communication we as humans complete. Most commonly reading and writing is through script or text of letter formations on paper however language can be read and communicated through symbols and sounds understood by others. This means that in no way can people communicate without any form of language. Even worse, how could anyone learn without languge? It's so necessary!
A cross-curricular way to integrate writing and science I found to like is and idea from Prain and Hand's "Writing for Learning in Secondary Science: Rethinking Practices." It supports the constructivist learning theory of student-centered instruction to have students "write 'translations' of their emerging understandings of science concepts in a variety of genres using their own words," (Prain and Hand). It serves as physical proof for conceptual understanding and is attractive to a wide-range of students by the diversity and freedom chosen by the student(s). As physical writing denotes communication of conceptual understanding, verbal confirmation through evaluating and negotiating claims involve language and are imperative. Communication is the transfer of knowledge that all humans must encounter.
*Important: Focuses on word-choice and selection are fundamental to a fully understanding student. Example: data versus evidence; Students must focus on the differences between to two in order not to confuse them or use them interchangably without caution. Data is gathered information from an experiment and evidence is the relative information gathered to back up an original inference or question. Evidence is always data, but data is not always evidence.
A cross-curricular way to integrate writing and science I found to like is and idea from Prain and Hand's "Writing for Learning in Secondary Science: Rethinking Practices." It supports the constructivist learning theory of student-centered instruction to have students "write 'translations' of their emerging understandings of science concepts in a variety of genres using their own words," (Prain and Hand). It serves as physical proof for conceptual understanding and is attractive to a wide-range of students by the diversity and freedom chosen by the student(s). As physical writing denotes communication of conceptual understanding, verbal confirmation through evaluating and negotiating claims involve language and are imperative. Communication is the transfer of knowledge that all humans must encounter.
*Important: Focuses on word-choice and selection are fundamental to a fully understanding student. Example: data versus evidence; Students must focus on the differences between to two in order not to confuse them or use them interchangably without caution. Data is gathered information from an experiment and evidence is the relative information gathered to back up an original inference or question. Evidence is always data, but data is not always evidence.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Bio Apps Reflection 1
Science is the study of the inner-workings of the world. Somehow or the other, every little thing in our universe has an inner-working to be explored. It is our responsibilities as learners and educators to use our resources to dig deep into how and why these phenomenon work. As science is usually refered to through broad categories such as chemistry, biology, or social, there are plenty of domains that relate to science that many do not instantly think of such as; the science of art, the science of teaching, the science of communication and so on. Exploring science begins with a single or series of questions that then is to be explored either through research or testable experiments. The findings from these explorations, known as evidence, help to create claims in which are then presented and/or negotiated with by others. Furthermore, science is an all encompassing process involving the interaction of humans and the world.
Creating hypothesis and negotiation were the fundamentals of sucessfully carrying out the "Mystery Tubes" activity's objective of science. While we wondered how it was constructed on the inside, we conceived educated guesses, hypotheses, then worked through how the inner-working of the tubes could find these hyptheses to prove true or false. Also, it showed how there are many different forms of experimentation by giving us a physical object to observe and then construct similar diagrams to create evidence based claims. As this activity served to be educational, it was also a fun hands-on way to explore science.
The role of language in science is extremely imperative. There are very specific differences between terms and vocabulary that can serve to be dangerous if not understood and/or followed correctly. This is where the difference between "science language" and "casual languge" occurs. In daily talk, people may use a certain term lightly to describe a moment or thing that gets forgotten about minutes later. However in the science world, every chosen word must match up precisely in order for things to be measureable and legitimate. Scientific language should be implemented along with casual language in the early years of childhood so that they can differentiate their difference as well as the importance of such meanings. The importance of language is immeasureable itself because without some form of communication, science would only be found by sinlged beings but not widely explorable by the remainder of inquirers out there.
Creating hypothesis and negotiation were the fundamentals of sucessfully carrying out the "Mystery Tubes" activity's objective of science. While we wondered how it was constructed on the inside, we conceived educated guesses, hypotheses, then worked through how the inner-working of the tubes could find these hyptheses to prove true or false. Also, it showed how there are many different forms of experimentation by giving us a physical object to observe and then construct similar diagrams to create evidence based claims. As this activity served to be educational, it was also a fun hands-on way to explore science.
The role of language in science is extremely imperative. There are very specific differences between terms and vocabulary that can serve to be dangerous if not understood and/or followed correctly. This is where the difference between "science language" and "casual languge" occurs. In daily talk, people may use a certain term lightly to describe a moment or thing that gets forgotten about minutes later. However in the science world, every chosen word must match up precisely in order for things to be measureable and legitimate. Scientific language should be implemented along with casual language in the early years of childhood so that they can differentiate their difference as well as the importance of such meanings. The importance of language is immeasureable itself because without some form of communication, science would only be found by sinlged beings but not widely explorable by the remainder of inquirers out there.
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