Monday, November 5, 2007

Constructivism

It is important to give students real-world experience and problem solving skills. In the classroom, real-world problems are often avoided because they can have various outcomes which at times can surface the difficulties of the creative learning process. As a firm believer in hands on learning a field trip would be a great way to attack learning from a constructivist stance. It would be possible to provide students with a free environment that would foster creative learning. They could be placed into groups to optimize differences in experience and culture within the group. Each group would then be given a set of minimum requirements and areas of focus but the problems would be open ended problems based on the features they are to observe. Let’s suppose that students are constructing a photo essay they could use it. An example of this would be to have students take photos of geologic features such as glacial evidence related to Long Island. It would be helpful to provide students with clear objectives for students to focus on. Scaffolding could be used by giving them step by step instructions leading up to their presentation of the ideas and build a bridge to new ideas among other student groups.
Another method to approach the same problem would be to give students real-world locations to photograph and describe without telling them exactly what they are looking for. In conjunction with Vygotsky, this would allow the students to interact with the world and construct the meaning of what they are looking at. They could then relate this to the history of the area and how it has been changed. To help the learners interact with the world around them to construct their own meaning of the world. Different students could compose questions based on photos or virtual field trips, which could be posed to other students. This would insert new questioning into the class and dictate new direction.