Under Construction

Teaching science for the past four years has been very enjoyable. I loved discussing the different topics in class and helping my students work together to build their own understanding of them. With interesting concepts for students to learn, science seems to lend itself naturally to building a constructive learning environment. Now that I am teaching math, my students do not seem to have the same drive to learn that my students in science class had. Therefore, I must offer lessons that help my students gain interest in math and work hard to construct their own understanding of it.

This week in my graduate course, we explored several learning strategies to help develop a constructivist classroom. Of course, one of these strategies was to incorporate constructionism, which is where students create an artifact to give them direction throughout the lesson and eventually reveal their learning. Other strategies were to develop project-based and problem-based learning environments where students are actively involved in identifying projects to tackle and problems to solve. A learning environment with a blend of these strategies is ideal so that students can complete tasks that allow them to use their strengths as well as tasks that challenge them to make accommodations in their mind in order to be successful. The common theme is that the students are always actively learning by asking questions, developing and testing hypotheses, and seeking the help of their classmates, teachers, and other valuable resources to complete their work. This exemplifies a constructive learning environment in that the students are in charge of learning and the teacher serves as a facilitator. The result is that students gain a much deeper understanding and are able to retrieve information from their long-term memory much more efficiently.

The efficiency of technology plays an important role in developing a constructive learning environment. From interactive games to spreadsheets and data collection tools, technology allows students to learn more about the content of a class and less on doing busy work to set up a project or experiment. As the scientific method suggests, students should be able to identify a problem and work through the necessary steps to solve it. The same method will apply to my math students as they work to solve a problem, create an artifact, or complete a project. As long as they follow the necessary steps, in the end, they will gain a deep understanding of anything they put their mind to.