Constructivist Learning versus Explicit Teaching: A personal

discovery of balance

Tara TetzlaffSpring 2009

• Teacher gave me information

• Student gave information back on assignments and tests

• Assignments & tests proved my accurate understanding of information

What it Meant to be a Student

• Navigate own path through a framework of information

• Take responsibility for identifying significance of material

• Take responsibility for identifying personal use of material

What it Means to be a Student

What it Meant to be a Teacher

• Provide students with specific information

• Create assignments & tests designed for students to demonstrate their accurate understanding of information

• Tell students when they are right or wrong

What it Means to be a Teacher

• Provide students with the tools and opportunities to learn new information

• Mediate student learning and prod thinking through questions and feedback

• Model thinking/behavior/communication through own actions

Constructivist Learning

• Student-driven : responsibility is on learners, - develop their own understanding of

information by actively using new information

• Teachers: provide little direct information, - mediate students’ learning through questions and feedback

Principles of Constructivist Learning

Active Engagement: learning by doing

Constructive: new knowledge built on previously learned information

Intentional: goal oriented

Complex: challenging

Contextual: authentic and realistic framework

Collaborative: learn from the perspectives & processes of others

Conversational: share experiences and knowledge with others, develop relationships

Reflective: connect information to self, think about own thinking

Principles of Constructivist Learning

Constructivist Only Workshop

Advantages of an Only Constructivist Learning Workshop

• Encourages focus on process of learning

• Students develop their own working understanding of information

• Students learn from mistakes

• Students might not have enough information to work with

• Difficult to assess students’ understanding of new information

• Need to get through certain tasks in limited amount of time

Disadvantages of an OnlyConstructivist Learning Workshop

Explicit Teaching

• Teacher-driven: responsibility is on teachers,- efficiently pass on specific information and insure minimal chance of student error

• Students: learn information as it is provided by teacher

- demonstrate accurate understanding

Steps of Explicit Teaching

1. Orientation: introduction and overview

2. Presentation: instructor demonstrates completion of task, breaks task into sub goals and steps, models process and thinking strategies

3. Structured Practice: instructor completes task again, this time with students working along

Steps of Explicit Teaching

4. Guided Practice: students complete task individually or in small groups as teacher answers and asks questions

5. Independent Practice: students take work home to complete on their own, then return work for teacher corrections

Advantages of an Explicit Teaching Only Workshop

• Defined steps and sub goals provide clear task objectives

• Instructor modeling provides example of expected student behavior and thinking

• Repeated practice reinforces student learning of process and steps

Disadvantages of an Only Explicit Teaching Workshop

• Not enough time to go through so many construction cycles

• Students can feel “talk at” and get bored, making them less attentive to instruction

• Students cannot take materials home for independent practice

Combination Workshop

Technic Beams

Plates

Axle

Pegs

Piston Rod & Spur Gear

Combination Workshop

• Explicit presentation of LEGO parts and use

• Instructor modeling of building strategies

• Structured and guided practice

• Actively Engaged, Complex, Contextual, Collaborative, Conversational, and Reflective

With Grade-School Students:

* more structured practice

* more guided practice

* more conversation

* more reflection

Explicit Teaching

Constructivist Learning