METU EDS 544

it is an unforgettable lesson both st.s and teacher

An article which describes constructivist classroom

It is one to one lesson and there is an activity to divide 4,5 into 3/4. The teacher gives the control of learner's understanding to learners and only guides the student according to gain the objective by asking effective questions, following step by step. However, there should be more than one learner, at least two, because the learner looks like a little bit not into the situation. Maybe with a friend they could better understand.

This a new course that will be offered freely by UK's Open University. 

Why I put this video is because the environment looks like we had in the kindergartens, even maybe we may not have been given that freedom. They are 4th grades and the study environment is so learner friendly, which I adore.

An interesting thought piece on digitized classrooms.

Aa nice platform for sharing questions and answers in the classes. I plan to use this in my undergrad courses.

A report on new pedagogies. Check out the report to see what changes we might see in the near future's educational settings.

I have no positive attitude towards this application, children at school age always, especially in middle schools, have tendencies to criticize their friends according to their different appearance, different accents they use etc. Clothing is one of them. Now, equal opportunity for education is diminished. Children who even can not afford to pay school fee or price for textbooks may not want to come to school. What about Japanese culture.They still use uniform in schools, they are successfull. I think government tries to change the daily hot topics of Turkey.

I completely agree. I think dressing children like they are in military and having strict rules is wrong but with this new system so many new problems come up. I think -as always- this change have not been thought well.

I believe that this lesson plan is a very good example of a constructivist lesson plan for a science lesson. It has many steps that involve the student actively. And as I read I felt that the student is not only hands on, but minds on also. What I mean is that it is clearly a process-oriented plan. Even if the student can't do well in some steps, there are other activities that he can accomplish and enjoy. Also the stress on group work is evident, student can learn from each other and take responsibility. Evaluation part is also very clear, explained to the students with a rubric and it relies on presentations and all the wprk students gather till that day. Making the family involved is another strong part of this plan to me. The things that may not work can be that it takes one month totally, so to keep the attention of the students on the same topic for such a time may be hard, maybe the project could last like two or three weeks. Also the organization of the peer groups is critical.

Here is my constructivist environment example. In the past, I installed the second life software considering that it was a game. I roamed and roamed in worlds that already were created, chatted with people in another countries with my avatar. Then I thought that it was boring. It was just like sitting on Sunshine and talking with friends. Why I had to do this via my computer? This video shows us how Second Life Worlds can be used to create constructivist learning environments. In the video, a Second Life World that was prepared by a group of people called TELLS TEAM is presented. In this world, you can attend lectures, have group meetings for discussion, work on simulations and role plays whereever you are. All participants including the teacher has an avatar and walking, sitting, chatting as if they were in the same room. In this project, learners are active participants. They roam, talk, immediately can fly to role playing sessions and etc. Teacher is only responsible to present initial knowledge. I could not find how they evaluate the learners. However, it is up to you. This environment is just a tool. You can arrange your role plays, your simulations, and also your assesment. Also they have some guides to use the environment effectively on this web site: https://sites.google.com/site/secondlifeuwnshss/Home

This website is designed to be helpful to create learning environments with computer programming. It has software to buy and for free.Detailed information is available in the chapter of Driscoll. I couldn't find STAR LEGACY and ScienceVision anyway. If you find could you please share the URL link?

This is a website that contains simulations for the lessons physics, chemistry, biology and math. The simulations can either be downloaded or applied online, I think it requires Java. They are very fun and active to use with students I think.

Students work in pairs to research and present findings. This video shows interviews with students engaged in the learning process. Notice the high level of involvement and enthusiasm.

The video displays an activity that students are reinforced to produce in terms of constructivist approach. I know the teacher and his ways of integration of the methods. He is mostly effective in such cases, and does not lose the control in any circumstance. In the video, there seems a compexity among students in terms of noise and crowd. However, it was one of the disadvantages of taking the whole class to video. They should present what they have done so far. One of the best thing in the video is peer evaluation that we frequently use.

Each presentation challenges the audience to think differently about an issue of local, national or global significance. Big FAT Ideas encourage audiences to engage with issues and concepts they haven't explored before, or perhaps see familiar issues from a different point of view.

Constructivist teacher and her behaviors accordingly are presented in the article.