Top of the 4th - Constructionism in the Classroom

In this week's video, Dr. Orey discusses contructivism and constructionism. Both theories deal with how the brain builds its own understanding of the world around it, how it takes in new information, compares the new with the old, and thus constructs understanding or schema. Constructionism takes the building process one step further. Not only do learners take in information and formulate an understanding of their own, but learners can take the construction of understanding even further by actually applying what they know in creating an artifact that exemplifies this understanding of a concept. When students are fully engaged in the learning process, they are able to construct a very strong understanding of what it is that needs to be learned and fully demonstrating the cognitive process (Laureate, 2009).

I feel that anytime students can take concepts and apply them to real life situations, and in the process, create an artifact that symbolizes the learning that has taken place, the concepts become cemented in the long term memory. The concepts become truly meaningful to the learners. Most elementary students that I know love to create things in class. To be able to create artifacts that test out their own thoughts and hypotheses is a wonderful learning activity, fully engaging their minds in hands-on activities. You can witness first-hand learning taking place as you move around the classroom, listening to the educational on-task discussion of what it is that they are working on. Working in teams and collaborating on tasks, seeing light bulbs turning on and shining bright is what teaching is all about. In this week's text, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski describe a number of activities involving technology and the constructing of understanding through engaging hands-on and minds-on activities. Through using problem based learning activities, spread sheet software can be used to simulate real-world situations and apply concepts about savings and investment that are being taught in class to test out hypotheses. In other activities, data collection tools were used to collect and analyze data gathered in science classes. Finally, gaming software and web resources allow students to be leaders of their own countries and make extremely important and influential decisions regarding their countries' place in the virtual world. The authors state, "Web resources and gaming software...allowing students to use background knowledge, make decisions, and see the outcome of their hypotheses, often in virtual situations...provides incredibly engaging learning environments, resulting in increased motivation and retention in learning" (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, p.212, 2007).

I believe that these and other activities where students are actively applying what they have learned into making decisions, collaborating with other classmates, and creating situations where they can see their ideas come to life is fully engaging and reflects what Dr. Orey describes as constructivism and constructionism.





Resources:

Laureate Education. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning, theory, instruction, and technology. [DVD]. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., and Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.