Question

Is constructivism “all or nothing”? How can teachers employ some constructivist principles within other teaching practices?

Answer 1

Constructivism cannot be said all or nothing .This is because of the simple fact that students understand the new knowledge based on the knowledge they already have .There are number of principles which can be applied by the teacher to facilitate learning in the classroom .For example constructivism involves students brainstorming and challenging their thinking .teacher can provide students with some initial framework and leave the problem in between and ask student to find the solution . This will provide a base for the students to use their existing knowledge and then move to the unsolved part . One more thing teachers can do is make the classroom more interactive .As we know constructivism promotes learning through interaction and communication . Teacher can instruct students to communicate and interact with each other to come up with new ideas mainly out of the bos ideas to find the solution for the problems .In this approach the teacher acts as a facilitator and encourage participation of students to exchange their divergent views and ideas in order to come up with a solution .It also increases the cultural competence as students share their perspectives come from different cultural backgrounds .