Examples Of Constructivism In Early Childhood Classroom

According to Anthony & Walshaw, (2009) within a constructivist view, it is a teacher’s role to facilitate the learning of a child by providing a resource rich environment from which they guide a students learning. A student within a constructivist-learning environment must become engaged in the learning process by becoming a researcher, identifying a problem, collecting and analysing data and formulating a conclusion. This process of engagement provides a student with endless opportunity to develop his or her own understanding and knowledge. An educators ability to understand this learning theory as a process of construction and development provides a conceptual framework from which to build a teaching practice.

Constructivist theory- this theory considers how children learn from experience in life, it believes that children will ‘construct’ their ideas about the world by what they experience in life. I have seen this put into practice by going on two trips, one with year twos to the remembrance memorials to see for themselves how people remember and appreciate the people who fought in the war and secondly one with year 1’s to a museum to look at toys children used to have in the Victorian days. This is an example of constructivist theory because the children are learning by experiencing it themselves by going on the trip.

Constructivism is reflecting on the experiences we have had in order to create our own understanding of the environment me live in. For instance, lets say I had and old sewing machine that I used all the time but now broke. I visit a sewing machine shop in order to buy a new one. The only machines available are newer models of the machine I owned, with different buttons and features. My previous experience with my machine will guide me into using the new machine. By simply learning a few extra steps, I would now be able to use the new model thanks to by previous experience, this is considered constructivism.

Constructivist teaching. Muijs and Reynolds (2005) interpreted that the principles of constructivist teaching consider all learners construct knowledge for themselves, rather than absorbing knowledge directly from the teacher. This means that every pupil will learn something slightly differently from a particular lesson given. The assumption that pupils are active knowledge constructers has several consequences. For examples, the learners need to be active in order to construct knowledge or to learn effectively, teaching is about helping children construct their own meaning rather than training them to get the right answer without the actual understanding of the concept, and pupils learn best when new lessons are clearly related to what they already know,

The constructivist pedagogy is when people learn through having different experiences and then using

According to Bryman (2012), a constructivism approach is an ontological position that asserts that social actors are continually accomplishing social phenomena and their meanings. This approach assists the researcher to present a particular version of social reality, rather than one that can be regarded as definitive.

I will be applying the theory of Constructivism/Cognitive Development with an example from my own experience. Our program is made up typically of children of various age groups from infants to preschool. Personally I have never had a problem with this type of environment as I see the advantages of having older peers that may be more knowledgeable in an area than my younger children. This type of environment allows the younger children to experience his environment by observing older peers incorporating it into his learning. For example an older child plays with a doll and takes a bottle and pretends to feed her baby covering her doll with a blanket. After watching this type of

Therefore, an example of a constructivist learning environment in a pre- primary classroom would firstly begin with the educator observing a common interest or conversation amongst the young children, for example dogs. As a group the educator would ask the children and document everything they currently knew about dogs. Through this class discussion the educator would document questions about dogs the children did not know. Next through guidance the educator will support the young children in finding the answers to their unknown questions. Through various activities created by the educator, the children will build up knowledge about dogs. The children are then given the opportunity to display their learning to others including friends and family through a model creation or through role play for example (Project Approach, 2014).

In order to design lessons with measurable results, teachers must shift their way of thinking from content- focused based design to a result-focused approach. Using backwards design is a very useful method for planning meaningful lessons. The idea behind backwards design is to teach and plan towards the ‘end goal’ or learning point. As educators, we cannot decide which materials or methods to utilize during instruction until we have identified specific concepts and skills we want our students to learn. By focusing on required end results, it allows the educator to address what the students need to learn and what data can be collected to show that the ‘end goal’ has been achieved while thinking about how to ensure students learn effectively. When teachers focus on the desired learning, appropriate methods will follow.

On Thursday September 28, 2016 I was given the opportunity to observe Ms. A preschool class at kiddie academy in Windham, New Hampshire for two hours from 9 to 11am. the age level is 2 years old and the oldest one had just turned 3. There was a total of 10 children in the class and 2 teachers in the classroom. This center serves all types of families. There were no children with documented special needs in the classroom. Moreover, the leader teacher of the classroom has an associate in early childhood education, 20 years of experience and 5 years working at this center, the other teacher has a certificate in early childhood education 16 years of experience and 11 years working at this center.

Coming to constructivism, it describes learning process as a process which involves learners’ constructing knowledge from their own experiences. According to this theory, new concepts and ideas are actively constructed by learner, based on their past and present experiences or knowledge.

Jerome Burner introduced constructivism in 1986. The philosopher sees the theory as a general framework for instruction and he describes it as a collection of views sharing a fundamental assumption about learning that contrasts sharply with assumptions underlying theories such as information processing. The learner actively imposes organization and meaning on the surrounding environment and constructs knowledge in the process. In other words, constructivism theory is one important skill in learning environments that has a set of views contributing basic assumptions about learning. However, in constructivist approaches, the learner acquires knowledge from the surrounding environment and construct or build a meaningful knowledge. What I mean by a

Constructivism is a theory that all learning is built on previous knowledge. In theory, when an individual discovers something new, they reference back to their previous experiences to compare and contrast. From there, we decide whether this information is relevant to us, or we choose to ignore the new knowledge.

There are five identified central tenets of constructivism as a teaching philosophy: Constructivist teachers seek and value students’ points of view. This concept is similar to the reflective action process we call withitness, in which teachers attempt to perceive students’ needs and respond to them appropriately; Constructivist teachers challenge students to see different points of view and thereby construct new knowledge. Learning occurs when teachers ask students what they think they know about a subject and why they think they know it; Constructivist teachers recognize that curricula must have meaning for students. When students see the relevance of curricula, their interest in learning grows; Constructivist teachers create lessons that tackle big ideas, not small bits of information. By seeing the whole first, students are able to determine how the parts fit together; Constructivist teachers assess student learning in daily classroom activities, not through the use of separate testing or evaluation events. Students

Constructivism is the theory that humans construct knowledge and meaning from their experiences. This idea that people learn from experience and not just from hearing lectures was revolutionary and gave birth to the experimental learning approach that is more powerful than lectures and worksheets. By directing their own learning processes, students understand concepts better. In essence constructivism is the theory of how we learn.