Constructionism

It is critical for educators in understanding theories such as Constructivism and Constructionism, that 1^st both be taken into consideration for the advancement of learning and success in the classroom.  What seems to be assisting in our professional increase and downfall of success is the many outside influences of scholars who profess to have a different way or style to creative learning; and while I couldn’t agree more with helping hands to win this battle of creating success in our classrooms, I must mention that we as teachers are the front lines, in the classrooms everyday dealing with the up and downs of teaching.  That being said, I value the opinions of my collegues 1^st who presently take a stand each day of an academic school year.  To go further, teachers and administrators as well must make a stand as to know “when to say when”, while taking each theory seriously; but with “a grain of salt.”  

My understanding of constructivism and constructionism can be applied to an effective project based assignment in my science class.  Before I move forward however, I would like to explore and demonstrate why constructionism maybe viewed on a larger scale as oppose to constructivism, in my personal opinion.  Constructivism is basically a theory based on observation and scientific study about how people learn. It says that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. When we encounter something new, we have to reconcile it with our previous ideas and experience, maybe changing what we believe, or maybe discarding the new information as irrelevant. In any case, we are active creators of our own knowledge. To do this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know.   While both are important, educators focus more on the developmental aspect of learning in the most effective ways.  Dr. Orey explains using an constructionist approach allows the learner to gain 1st hand experience in building with three mechanisms for learning:

-Assimilation 

-Accommodation

-Equilibrations

-Schema

With constructionism, students are engaged in creating something deeply enough to create assimilation and accommodation (Dr. Orey, 2001).  All with the usage of technology this comes together as Technology enables teachers to implement the constructionist theory because it offers tools that allow students to complete time-consuming tasks in a timely manner. Technology also offers mediums in which students can publish and present their final products in meaningful, creative ways (Laureate Education Inc., 2008).  For my project-based lesson, I will use replicas from the San Andreas Fault.  The students actually found this lesson very interesting as the project was broken down into three classes or a full week.  Since we run a block schedule, those classes I had twice that week continued the end of the project the following Monday.

Steps One:  We discussed active volcanoes in the world and afterwards narrowed the research down to the U.S.  As class we researched this information discussed why/how volcanoes becomes active and the damages they may cause.  This was a great discussion of information and bit of experience sharing with me because I was in Japan during the earthquake and Tsunami.  The questions kept pouring in about the damages, while I had the advantage of explaining why they occurred in the beginning.  Using the San Andreas Fault was closer to home and as such gained their attention.

Step Two:  The students were given a plastic replica of the active volcano with a block of play-doe, toothpicks, ruler and an activity sheet to record their findings.  By placing the play doe on top of the replica, using the toothpicks to hold in place, the students were asked to slide the plastic replica back and forth once and record how much the fault would move on five different tables or stations.  With completing the math calculations as a group of 3 to 5 students, everyone had an input.

Step 3:  After recording the information from each station, they were then asked to write as a team their final reflection or hypothesis on this live volcano and when it may erupt again.  

Constructionism asserts that knowledge is not simply transmitted from teacher to student, but is actively constructed by the mind of the learner.  Moreover, constructionism suggests that learners are particularly likely to create new ideas when they are actively engaged in making external artifacts that they can reflect upon and share with others.

References

http://online.sfsu.edu/~foreman/itec800/finalprojects/annmariethurmond/
home.html


Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Constructivist and Constructionist Theories.

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. 

Constructionism, Learning by Design, and Project-Based Learning.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom 

Instruction that works.