This was initially used for EDUC 203 class (Facilitating Learning).
References include:
Aquino, Avelina. (2009) Facilitating Human Learning. Manila: Rex Bookstore Inc.
Corpuz, Brenda B. et al., (2014) Facilitating Learning: A Metacognitive Process. Metro Manila: Lorimar Publishing, Inc.
2. “Teaching is not about filling up the pail;
it is about lighting a fire.”
- Williams Butler Yeats treats
3. CONSTRUCTIVISM
- One of the most influential educational theories, it focuses on students’
knowledge construction.
- Based on observation and scientific study about how people learn ,
rooted in the psychology-based traditions of Dewey, Bruner, Piaget and
Vygotsky.
- Neuroscience: it is a result of complex sets of connections being formed
between neurons, these connections being called dendrites.
4. CONSTRUCTIVISM
- “teaching that emphasizes the active role of the learner in building
understanding and making sense of information ” (Woolfolk, 2006)
- “a theory of how learning occurs “ (Henson, 1996 as cited by Parsons et al.
2000)
- People construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world
through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences.
- The learner is much more actively involved in a joint enterprise with the
teacher in creating (constructing) new meaning; learning is an active
contextualized process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it
(lighting a fire, rather than filling up the pail)
5. PURPOSE OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
• to enable students to acquire information in ways that make that
information most readily understood and usable.
6. CHARACTERISTICS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
• Active learning is preferable to passive learning.
• Learning takes place best in communities of learners, that is a group or social situations.
• Learners should engage in “authentic and situated” activities, that is, the tasks they face
should be concrete rather than abstract: real problems versus hypothetical ones.
• Learners should relate new information to that which they already have through
bridging.
• Learners should reflect or think about what is being learned.
• Rather than present information to learners, teachers facilitate its acquisition.
• Teachers must provide learners with scaffolding assistance needed for them to progress.
• Students are expected to resolve what they thought they knew with new
understandings.
7. TWO VIEWS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
1.Individual (or Cognitive) Constructivism
2.Social Constructivism
8. INDIVIDUAL / COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVISM
• Emphasizes on an individual’s internal construction of knowledge, largely based on
Piaget’s theory
• More on child-centered and discovery learning
• Learners should be allowed to discover principles through their own exploration
rather than direct instruction by the teacher
• Each learner interprets experiences and information in the light of their extant
knowledge, their stage of cognitive development, their cultural background, their
personal history etc.
• Teacher’s role: to facilitate discovery by providing the necessary resources and by
guiding learners as they attempt to assimilate new knowledge to old and to modify
the old to accommodate the new.
9. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
• Emphasizes that knowledge exists in a social context and is initially
shared with others instead of being represented solely in the mind of
the individual, based on Vygotsky’s theory.
• Construction of knowledge is shared by two or more people; knowledge
construction becomes social, not individual
• Teacher’s role: to recognize the level of cognitive development of
his/her learner and to consider what a learner can do at a particular
time as well as the “zone” within which they can master new material
and to appropriate the scaffolding necessary for the child’s
development
10. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWO VIEWS OF CONSTRUCTION
According to Eggen and Kauchak:
1. Learners construct understanding.
2. New learning depends on current understanding.
3. Learning is facilitated by social interaction.
4. Meaningful learning occurs within authentic learning tasks.
11. ORGANIZING KNOWLEDGE : CONCEPTS
CONCEPT – a way of grouping or categorizing objects or events in our
mind. They may be simple or complicated, and may be revised as you
learn and experience more.
12. CONCEPT AS FEATURE LISTS
• Defining Feature – characteristic/s present in ALL instances.
• Correlational Feature – characteristic/s that may be present in
many positive instances but not essential for concept
membership.
13. CONCEPT AS PROTOTYPE
Prototype – an idea or a visual image of a typical example. It is
usually formed based on the positive instances that learners
encounter most often.
14. CONCEPT AS EXEMPLARS
Exemplars – represent a variety of examples. It allows learners
to know that an example under a concept may have variability.
15. MAKING CONCEPT-LEARNING EFFECTIVE
• Provide a clear definition of the concept
• Make a defining features very concrete and prominent
• Give a variety of positive instances
• Give negative instances
• Cite a “best example” or a prototype
• Provide opportunity for learners to identify positive and negative instances
• Ask learners to think of their own example of the concept
• Point out how concepts can be related to each other
16. SCHEMAS AND SCRIPTS
• Schema – an organized body of knowledge about something. It is like a
file of information you hold in your mind about something.
• Script - is a schema that includes a series of predictable events about a
specific activity.
17. APPLYING CONSTRUCTIVISM IN FACILITATING LEARNING
• Aim to make learners understand a few key ideas in an in-depth manner,
rather than taking up so many topics superficially.
• Give varied examples.
• Provide opportunities for experimentation.
• Provide lots of opportunities for quality interaction.
• Have lots of hands-on activities.
• Relate your topic to real life situations.
• Do not depend on the explanation method all the time.
Hinweis der Redaktion
“Filling up the pail” means rote learning and behaviorism. It means that learning is dominated by the teacher and the learners are mere passive receivers of knowledge.
“Lighting the fire” is means allowing the child to construct his own knowledge which is the central idea of constructivism. It signifies that teaching involves giving opportunities for learners to explore and discover. Learners construct their own meaning. Learners generate their own insight.
Woolfolk: Bruner’s Theory of Constructivism (spiral curriculum: the student continually builds upon what they have learned / teachers must revisit the curriculum by teaching the same content in different ways depending on students’ developmental levels)
Henson: if learning is viewed as important to the lives of learners, they will be intrigued by learning enough to seek their own understandings and insights. Learners will seek meaning through the questioning of their own knowledge and new discoveries.
According to Cruickshank et al (2009) the purpose of constructivism is to enable students to acquire information in ways that make that information most readily understood and usable.
- To learn a new topic or info, the student should find a way to digest the information in manageable chunks, something that he an relate with and based on his own understanding.
To make learning activities most understood and usable, constructivists have selected a number of ideas and brought them together. These ideas of what constructivism is are the following..
Active learning happens when students are directly involved in finding something out for themselves; Passive learning occurs when students are recipients of information presented by a teacher.
In the classroom, the constructivist view of learning will mean encouraging students to use active techniques (experiential method, real world problem solving, experiments) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing.
think: Piaget’s Theory, recall schema.
They believe that learners should be allowed to discover principles through their own exploration rather than direct instruction by the teacher.
Each learner interprets experiences and information in the light of their extant knowledge, their stage of cognitive development, their cultural background, their personal history etc.
Learners use these factors to organize their experience and to select and transform new information. Knowledge is therefore actively constructed by the learner rather than passively absorbed; knowledge is developed from the standpoint from which the learner approaches it.
think: Vygotsky’s theory. Recall scaffolding, zone of proximal development and MKO (more knowledgeable others)
The opportunity to interact and share among learners help to shape and refine their ideas.
According to Eggen and Kauchak, there are 4 characteristics that these 2 views have in common.
1. Learners are active thinkers who interpret new information based on what they already know. They construct knowledge in a way that makes sense to them.
2. Background information is very important. It is through the present views or scheme that the learner has that new information will be interpreted.
3. Constructivists believe in creating a “community of learners” within the classroom. Learning communities help learners take responsibility for their own learning. Learners have a lot of opportunities to cooperate and collaborate to solve problems and discover things. Teachers play the role of a facilitator rather than an expert who has all the knowledge.
4. An authentic task is one that involves a learning activity that involves constructing knowledge and understanding that is so akin to the knowledge and understanding needed when applied in the real world.
A concept may also mean an abstract idea; a general notion. It is synonymous with theory, hypothesis.
Think mapping: to explain a general idea, you collect smaller ideas/thoughts like a puzzle to form a general picture.
Like if you don’t understand a word, you look for its meaning, synonyms, antonyms, etymology so you can form a concept of what that word means.
Learning a concept involves learning specific features that characterize positive instances of the concept.
Defining feature is a fact.
Correlation Feature may be an opinion.
May be stereotypical idea/image of something
Teacher – Ma’am Tapia
Play a game.
What’s the first thing/visual idea that comes to mind when you think of this:
Policeman – daku tiyan, may pusil
Corrupt Politician - Binay
Model – slim, tall
Schema- like an ideal teacher. Ga antipara, pirmi nka pungos buhok. strict,.
Scripts, pareha sang ga luto ka, my gna sunod ka nga procedure.