Reading+-+Week+1.+Eggan,+Paul+&+Kauchak.

Constructing, Understanding In Educational Psychology

-Learners construct rather than record understanding' - pg. 4 (Basic principle of cognitive learning theory.

What is Constructivism? -A broaod term used in individual ways. -"A view of learning suggesting that learners construct their own undersatnding of teh topics they study rather than having that understanding transmitted to them by some other source". pg. 5 -"learners construct rather than record information". pg. 5

Cognitive Constructivism - (Piaget) Focus: individual, internal constructiions of knowledge. Individuals search for meaning as they interact with their environment, testing and modifying existing schemas.

Social Constructivism (Vygotsky) Focus: Knowledge is first constructed in a social context and is then appropriated by individuals. Sharing individual perspectives 'collaborative elaboration' - results in learners constructing understanding together that could not have happened alone. "Teachers need to guard themselves against imposing their thoughts and values on developing learners." pg. 6.

4 Characteristics of Constructivism
 * Learners construct understandiung that makes sense to them.
 * New learning depends on current understandings
 * Social interaction facilitates learning
 * The most meaningful learning occurs within real-world tasks.

Teachers and Constructivism!

-"to get students to be responsible for their own learning, to be autonomous thinkers, to develop integrated understaning of teh concepts, and to pose and seek to answer important questions." pg. 8 -Provide learners with a variety of examples and representations of teh content -Connect content to teh real world. -Be skeptical about teh effectiveness of explanation -Promotoe high levels of interaction -Have and give clear goals, effective instruction that is alligned judiciously -Intervene when students struggle
 * Teacher's Role - Guide students learning.

-Provide a variety of examples and representations of content (students have differeing prior knowledge which will impact upon how they construct their new learning content. Differing representations will assisit students and may supplement those who lack prior knoweldeg and existing schemas). -Explore ideas from different perspectives - 'Criss-cross the conceptual landscape'. -Use technology to represent content, as to 'Allow learners to observe events that can not be seen with the naked eye" pg. 9 and recreate scenes that can not be created in teh classroom. Eg. animal disection and reassembly. -Connect their content to the real world. eg. longitude and latitude of school. -Be skeptical about their explanations "talk less and listen more about the ideas students are forming". pg. 11 -'Combine explanatios with hands on experiences and examples and remember to be skeptical about whether explanations alone have led to learning." pg 11 -Promote high levels of interaction, "provides learning benefits forall students and instructional benefits for teh teacher". pg. 11
 * Constructivist teachers differ from tradtitional teachers as they:

-Sharing ideas -Appropriating understanding -Articulating thinking
 * Learning benefits for student. At least 3 ways -

-Promoting Learning -Focusing attention -Accommodating working memory -Assessing learning progress
 * Benefits to the teacher.

Share Ideas -'Outside in theory learners first think, collaboratively building on eachothers' understanding and negototiating meaning when ideas differ. After understanding is developed in a social environment indisvisuals can internalize the knowledge" pg. 12 Helps students to think about what they know and how they interact with others productively. 'Snowballing' - spreading reasoning strategies.

Assessment in Construcivism Classrooms. -Make assessment an integral part of teh teaching learning process". pg 16 -On going, therefore careful planning is essential to ensure effectivity.

Instructional Strategies - -Guided discovery. -Inquiry -classroom discussions' -co-operative learning
 * reciprocol questioning - students work in pairs to answer and ask questions
 * scripted co-operative learning - students work in pairs to elaborate on each others thinking

Constructivism in perspective -"Powerful because it helps us understand why background knowledge and interaction are so important for developing deep understanding." pg. 28

- Constructivism is a theory of learning! NOT a theory of instruction. NOT a pedagogy. pg. 28/29