Constructivist%20Learning%20versus%20Explicit%20Teaching:%20A%20personal%20discovery%20of%20balance

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Constructivist Learning versus Explicit Teaching
A personal discovery of balance
Tara Tetzlaff Spring 2009
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What it Meant to be a Student

• Teacher gave me information
• Student gave information back on assignments and
  tests
• Assignments tests proved my accurate
  understanding of information

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What it Means to be a Student

• Navigate own path through a framework of
  information
• Take responsibility for identifying significance
  of material
• Take responsibility for identifying personal use
  of material

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What it Meant to be a Teacher

• Provide students with specific information
• Create assignments tests designed for students
  to demonstrate their accurate understanding of
  information
• Tell students when they are right or wrong

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What it Means to be a Teacher

• Provide students with the tools and opportunities
  to learn new information
• Mediate student learning and prod thinking
  through questions and feedback
• Model thinking/behavior/communication through own
  actions

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Constructivist Learning

• Student-driven responsibility is on learners,
  - develop their own understanding of
  information by actively using new information
• Teachers provide little direct information, -
  mediate students learning through questions and
  feedback

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Principles of Constructivist Learning

• Active Engagement learning by doing
• Constructive new knowledge built on previously
  learned information
• Intentional goal oriented
• Complex challenging

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Principles of Constructivist Learning

• Contextual authentic and realistic framework
• Collaborative learn from the perspectives
  processes of others
• Conversational share experiences and knowledge
  with others, develop relationships
• Reflective connect information to self, think
  about own thinking

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• Constructivist Only Workshop

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Advantages of an Only Constructivist Learning
Workshop

• Encourages focus on process of learning
• Students develop their own working understanding
  of information
• Students learn from mistakes

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Disadvantages of an OnlyConstructivist Learning
Workshop

• Students might not have enough information to
  work with
• Difficult to assess students understanding of
  new information
• Need to get through certain tasks in limited
  amount of time

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Explicit Teaching

• Teacher-driven responsibility is on teachers,
• - efficiently pass on specific information and
  insure minimal chance of student error
• Students learn information as it is provided by
  teacher
• - demonstrate accurate understanding

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Steps of Explicit Teaching

• 1. Orientation introduction and overview
• 2. Presentation instructor demonstrates
  completion of task, breaks task into sub goals
  and steps, models process and thinking strategies
• 3. Structured Practice instructor completes task
  again, this time with students working along

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Steps of Explicit Teaching

• 4. Guided Practice students complete task
  individually or in small groups as teacher
  answers and asks questions
• 5. Independent Practice students take work home
  to complete on their own, then return work for
  teacher corrections

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Advantages of an Explicit Teaching Only Workshop

• Defined steps and sub goals provide clear task
  objectives
• Instructor modeling provides example of expected
  student behavior and thinking
• Repeated practice reinforces student learning of
  process and steps

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Disadvantages of an Only Explicit Teaching
Workshop

• Not enough time to go through so many
  construction cycles
• Students can feel talk at and get bored, making
  them less attentive to instruction
• Students cannot take materials home for
  independent practice

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Combination Workshop
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Technic Beams
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Plates
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Axle
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Pegs
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Piston Rod Spur Gear
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Combination Workshop

• Explicit presentation of LEGO parts and use
• Instructor modeling of building strategies
• Structured and guided practice
• Actively Engaged, Complex, Contextual,
  Collaborative, Conversational, and Reflective

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With Grade-School Students

• more structured practice
• more guided practice
• more conversation
• more reflection

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Constructivist Learning
Explicit Teaching