Constructivist

Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of culture and context in understanding what occurs in society and constructing knowledge based on this understanding. Social constructivism attempts to address the problem of how students naturally learn best. Today's technology can support these attempts.

Knowledge is constructed by experience by the learner. Teachers can use this approach in their class and still be "leading their students." I think that educators sometimes feel that must be directing and "in control" in their classroom in order for the student to learn. In fact, I feel that the opposite is true. A good teacher is able to control and manage their class without lecturing and directing. A successful teacher leads and models and then allows the students to experiment and obtain knowledge by their own discovery and experiences.

One of my favorite units in the classroom is my mystery unit. In this unit the students learn and research the qualities that are found in a mystery. The students then read a mystery chosen by the teacher as their reading lesson. The students then create a mystery vocabulary list as a class. This list also serves as their spelling list. We begin by creating a profile for each student. This includes individual photos, fingerprints, and descriptions of each student. The fingerprinting serves as our Science lesson. We research the different types of fingerprints and how to identify people based upon fingerprints. These student profiles are kept on files in our classroom, so they are accessible to students when needed.As the teacher, I then form cooperative learning groups of 5 children per group. Within the groups the children decide a job for each student (writer, spokesman, publisher). They brainstorm ideas for mysteries to research and report on. They vote as a group to decide which topic is best (Bermuda Triangle, Life on Other Planets). The students use the internet to research these mysteries. Once they have obtained their information, they decide how they will present their findings to the class (Power Point, webQuest, newsletter). After all of the groups have presented to the class, we have a "celebration" to end our unit. I have chosen popcorn for our snack to celebrate, but when I search for our snack, the bowl is empty and all that is left are kernels. I lead the children by asking questions. The children then realize that they have a mystery on their hands and they must use the knowledge they have obtained during research to solve the mystery. They begin to observe the crime scene and find a set of fingerprints. I let them know that I have framed someone in the class. They work at the computers in their groups to view profiles of their fellow classmates. They carefully examine each students profile and prints to try to solve the mystery. Once the "suspect" is discovered, we return to the celebration. As one type of assessment, the students write a blog entry about their research and findings from the mystery unit.

Cognitivist Theory Reflective Thoughts

In the cognitive learning theory, students organize old knowledge, scripts, and schema, find relationships, and link new information to old. This past week, I couldn’t see how my lesson plan on multiplication as repeated addition really applied to this theory by using a graphic organizer. I am a very visual person, and I couldn’t quite “see” how all of these techniques would come together. However, while typing my lesson plan, it all began to make since. Once I had to include every specific step in the process of repeated addition by using power point and a graphic organizer, I began to make sense of it all. It would be difficult for the students to form a relationship with repeated addition and multiplication without using Power Point and the graphic organizer. Once I actually began grouping numbers, I understood how important these tools were in relation to the learning theory itself.

Ironically, through the process of writing the lesson plan and using the tools presented in our class meetings, I myself was learning by using the cognitive approach. I began organizing previous knowledge about repeated addition and lesson plan development, and linking it to new information that I learned in my own graduate level class. I read a very interesting article this week, where a college professor became frustrated with his students because they wanted to “know exactly what the professor wanted for a specific assignment”. He felt that the students needed to think for themselves and use the cognitive approach in answering questions and completing an assignment for his class. The students felt as if they were being “tricked” by not being given right or wrong answers. The professor made a comment regarding making transitions between cognitive stages easy for the students. The teacher should find a balance between challenge and support. Ask questions that challenge thinking, and give support by giving clear assignments and a supportive classroom assignment.