Dr. Orey described the Constructivist Learning Theory as knowledge stating that each individual actively constructs his/her own meaning for things. The example he gave was a chair, I may be thinking of a lounge chair on Miami beach and the next person could be thinking of a bean bag chair in their own room, it has to do with perception.
In Chapter 11 generating and testing hypothesis is applicable to all content areas even Physical Education. When students are generating and testing hypothesis they are engaging in complex mental processes, applying content knowledge like facts and vocabulary and enhancing their overall understanding of the content.
This week we learned that power point, word and excel along with virtual field trips and voice threads help students organize, brainstorm, create and have unique experiences with the current lesson. For example my students take the state fitness exam, and there are six components: muscular strength, flexibility, body composition, aerobic capacity, muscular endurance and back and spine mobility. I could assign an activity where we use excel to track their improvement in their skill level. Another technology could be if I had the students to create a power point to use during student lead conferences (when they bring their parents into the classroom and they give them a tour of our class and explain their assignments and what they are working on) which would help parents understand more about the state exam components.
All of these resources can be used in any classroom, at any grade level, to help each individual student actively constructs his/her own meaning for learning things and thats how the resources of this week and the principles of the Constructivist Learning Theory work together.
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Hi Rakeebah,
ReplyDeleteI've spent the week thinking and discussing with others the very concept you write of--students learn by doing. That, as I understand it, is what constructionism is all about. What worries me isn't that teachers will reject such pedagogical practices--I'm more concerned about schools rejecting them. This type of hands-on learning, if implemented to a large extent into all classrooms (which is a growing trend) then schools will have to spend much more money on not just computers/software, but also on more materials for such hands-on work. Can schools afford to make such a move? How will this effect other aspects in general in the public education system?
Rakeebah, That is a neat idea to have the students make a PowerPoint to share what they're doing in class with their parents at conferences. It's a good reflection activity and a good way to create an artifact in a subject area where one is hard pressed to do so.
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