Bryan's Blog: Constructionism/Constructivism in Practice

Constructivism with a "v" has to do with the idea that students construct their own understanding of concepts, while constructionism with an "n" has to do with the idea that students learn best when they build or construct an artifact that can be shared with other students (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). The instructional practice of generating and testing hypotheses follows the learning theories of constructivism and constructionism because students are actively constructing their own understanding by generating their own hypotheses, and they are building artifacts by testing their hypotheses.

I believe generating hypotheses is a very worthwhile task for students because of the high cognitive demand it involves. They are constructing their own understanding because they are using their own ideas to come up with new hypotheses. According to Pittler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007), using these types of complex mental processes enhances students' understanding of content. I can think of no other way to put constructivist theory into practice than to have students complete these tasks, because students have to truly create their own ideas and understanding.

Testing hypotheses is a great example of constructionism because of the many ways we can implement this strategy. Of course, the most obvious examples occur in science where we conduct physical experiments to get results. However, this can go beyond the science classroom to incorporate other content areas. The advancement of technology has helped this instructional strategy become more effiicient because students can spend less time on gathering data, and more time interpretting it (Pittler, et al., 2007). This is important because one key idea of constructionism is that students build an artifact in order to share it with others so that they may learn and benefit from it. Allowing the builders of the artifact to spend more time interpretting data will allow for more thinking on analyzing the results and reporting them to others.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program seven. Constructionist and constructivist learning theories. [Webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

3 comments:

#rd grade Mrs.DJanuary 28, 2011 at 12:21 PM
I love that you brought up the point that technology has allowed students to focus on understanding and interpreting their information, rather than merely gathering data. I worked with second grade teachers and their students to set up an Excel template for recording weather conditions, temperature, and the like. Students not only gathered their own data, but in creating graphical representations of the information using Excel, they could see the relationships within the data. Students also extrapolated from the information and compared information with one another. In this way, technology allowed students to construct tangible results from a real-life situation. Great post!
BryanJanuary 30, 2011 at 8:59 PM
Athraa,

That sounds like you are really using technology to help students learn more efficiently. As I continue in this program, and as my school gathers more technology, I hope to use it to make my students learning more efficient and enjoyable.

Thanks,
Bryan
SaraJanuary 31, 2011 at 12:30 AM
Bryan,
I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that this week's instructional strategy definitely correlates to constructionism and constructivism learning theories. Students are creating their own learning by creating their own questions to test. It is definitely easier with science. Are there ways in which you have done this successfully in literacy? Do you ever have your students blog while they are collecting and analyzing their data? I think this would deepen their understanding by discussing what they are finding.