Group items tagged

Links, research and readings on constructivism

David, back up your argument. If you think this is junk science, then be a real scientist and substantiate your claim. I'm a very objective thinker and will listen and gladly debate this with you, but having studied this and used it, I'm skeptical of your dissent. It is the only thing that has gotten me through our failed education system, not the reason the system has failed (unless your argument is that our system is failing due to lack of use of constructivist approaches).

Constructivism is a prime example of the dangers of deductive reasoning. Instead of starting with evidence from observed reality which the scientific method dictates (inductive reasoning) constructivism starts with theories and then makes the evidence fit the theory or else dismisses it and rationalises it away. It's the same type of thinking that has gotten all ideologues into trouble throughout history, whether it's the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis, the hippies or the recent Wall Street bankers who drove our economy off a cliff. Any true system of thought must start with the real world as its beginning, or else it's just a bunch of people making stuff up and then defending it despite all evidence to the contrary until the weight of truth destroys them and usually the institutions they've taken over.

"constructivism, knowledge, low resource setting, mobile, mobile learning; review paper"

This website is a virtual convener. It facilitates a 'handshake' between teachers interested in cross collaboration project. The comforts in connectivity, constructivism, and collaboration make this 'handshake' more intelligent. This virtual convener is based on connecting teachers using more than simply the grade level or location of classrooms.

Within this site you will find lesson ideas, examples, and downloads for mathematics that embrace active learning, constructivism, and project-based learning while remaining true to the standards. The initial focus will be for grades 5 and up, but teachers of younger students may be able to find some uses or inspiration from the site. Higher level thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and creativity are encouraged as well as technology skills and social learning. The scope of this site is mathematics, but many lessons lend themselves to interdisciplinary activities also.

Here is another study for literacy people. This report from the UK talks about effective teacher training and good teaching methods but interestingly talks about early reading instruction and the debates surrounding whole language and constructivism.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee list out several myths about learning. The premise that everyone starts with the same base of knowledge about a particular subject, everyone learns at the same pace, everyone learns best by listening, everyone will bridge naturally from theory to application, everyone should learn on his or her own rather than in collaboration and learning is the transfer of knowledge from a teacher to a passive learner results in excessive telling or lecture. "We don't remember information totally; we reconstruct the way information connects to [other] information,"…"That means learners have to reconstruct the interconnectors or forget what they've learned in a short time. The stuff you remember is what you use to make the interconnections." FUN can play a great role in making the interconnections or associations.

The Framework for Teaching is a research-based set of components of instruction, aligned to the INTASC standards, and grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching. In this framework, the complex activity of teaching is divided into 22 components (and 76 smaller elements) clustered into four domains of teaching responsibility: planning and preparation (Domain 1), classroom environment (Domain 2), instruction (Domain 3), and professional responsibilities (Domain 4).

Grabbed from the Half an Hour blog ... it's an argument to consider. http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/11/kirschner-sweller-clark-2006-summary.html

Great post by Ben Grey on his participation in Constructing Modern knowledge - he hits several things including the fact that many at the conference said that computer programming should be mandatory for all students and a presenter who said that the problem with today is that too many people have a voice. My comments from Ben's blog are below. Great conversations happening here! Programming - OK, on the programming thing, here are my thoughts. In our curriculum our objective is not as much a specific LANGUAGE. One year I may use HTML with Javascript, this past year I used LSL - what I want kids to know that when they encounter programming and coding that there are certain conventions. Some are case sensitive, some are not. How do you find out how to add to what you know about programming? Do you know where to go to find prewritten code? Can you hack it to make it work to do what you want it to do? We spend about a week - two weeks but I require they know how to handcode hyperlinks and images - they are just too important. But to take 12 weeks or 6 weeks to learn a whole language - yes maybe some value - but to me the value is HOW is the language constructed or built. What are the conventions and how do I educate myself if I am interested in pursuing. What comes out of this time is kids who say either "I never want to do that" or "this is really cool, I love coding." They are doing very simplistic work (although the LSL object languages were pretty advanced) but since we don't have a full course nor time in our curriculum, I do see this as an essential part of what I teach. I'm not teaching it for the language sake but for the sake of understanding the whole body of how languages work - we talk about the different languages and what they are used for as part of Intro to Computer science and have an immersive experience. To me, this is somewhat a comprimise between leaving it out entirely or forcing everyone to take 12 weeks of it. I

The online edition of David Wiley's 2002 book. Pretty long. Looks good, but will need some free time before I can sort through it all.

A list of all those "Interesting Ways to Use …" lists. Now you can know what to do with Google Docs, or Twitter, or …