Article 23

Teachers Bridge to Constructivism

Kathryn Alesandrini and Linda Larson

jTeople learn while doing," says the cortstructivist up-date of art old adage. Teachers, however, often learn with-out doing when it comes to learning about constructivism and related teaching methods. Many teachers have not participated in a constructivist-type classroom or even seen it modeled, so they tend to teach as they were taught Until teachers experience constructivism themselves, they may not be equipped to plan and facilitate cortstruc-tivist activities by their students, m this article, we discuss arid illustrate the value of using a cortstructivist bridge-building activity to help teachers make the transition to cortstructivist classrooms.

What Teachers Need to Know about Construct ivism

Constructivism has become a popular term that can re-fer to many things, including the way teachers teach and the way students learn. Some have dubbed the construc-tivist approach that we describe "radical constructivism" (Spiro et al. 1991), but we refer to it simply as "construc-tivism." Indeed, the constructivist approach posits a rad-ical departure from traditional teaching practices (Brooks and Brooks 1993; Jonassen, Peck, and Wilson 1999; Kafai and Resnick 1996; Lambert 1995) as the following basic te-nets of constructivism illustrate:

Learning results from exploration and discovert/. Construc-tivists see learning as a process of actively exploring new information and constructing meaning from the new in-formation by linking it to previous knowledge and expe-rience. Throughout the learning experience, meaning is constructed and reconstructed based on the previous ex-periences of the learner. In the constructivist paradigm, the teacher's role is not to lecture or provide structured activities that guide students, step by step, to mastery of some teacher-imposed goal. Instead, teachers in a con-

structivist classroom are called to function as facilitators who coach learners as they, blaze their own paths toward personally meaningful goals.

Learning is a community activity facilitated by shared in-quiry. Collaboration and cooperative inquiry have proved to be effective educational strategies, yet conventional methods often limit interactivity to cooperative discus-sion groups. Constructivism favors collaborative work groups that actually work together interactively to ac-complish shared goals. Collaboration goes beyond coop-eration, because it requires learners to reflect upon and share their insights with the group (cf. Henderson 1996; Driscoll 1994). Collaboration facilitates each member's . ability to see problems from multiple perspectives or dif-ferent points of view. Group members constantly "nego-tiate meaning" during the constructivist activity to adjust to the developing solution of the problem. The product evolves and changes as a result of the interaction between group members.

Learning occurs during the constructivist process. Rather than requiring an understanding before applying that un-derstanding to the construction of something, students in1

a constructivist classroom leam concepts while exploring \ their application. During this application process, stu- 3 dents explore various solutions and learn through discov- ; | ery. Learners play an ongoing, active, and critical role in | assessment Teachers evaluate end products in traditional |: assessment, but the constructivist approach to evaluation J emphasizes self-assessment In constructivist classrooms, | learners articulate what they have learned as it relates to.) their prior knowledge. In fact, it is through the self-assess- i ment activities of reflection and verbalization that learn-l ers actually realize the meaning of what they have| experienced.

Another major difference from the traditional at. proach is that assessment is done throughout the enf learning process, not just at the end. Formative evaluatio

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Article 23. Teachers Bridge to Constructivism

(assessment that occurs throughout the learning process) therefore plays a key role in helping learners as they ex-periment during the constructivist activity. To the con-structivist, the process of evaluation is as important, if not more important, than the outcomes of evaluation.

Learning results from participation in authentic activities. Constructivists believe that learning should be based on activities and problems that students might encounter in the "real world." In traeiitional classrooms, however, ac-tivities often are decontexualized to the point that they bear little resemblance to meaningful, authentic activities.

Outcomes of constructivist activities are unique and varied. A traditional hands-on activity that is teacher guided of-ten results in student products that essentially "all look alike." In contrast, constructivism posits that learners cre-ate knowledge from new information in light of their pre-vious experiences. Since each learner brings a distinct background of experience, results of constructivist projects will differ. Typically, no two products from a constructivist activity look anything alike.

Constructivism clearly represents a fundamental change in all aspects of the teaching and learning process. Teachers cannot be expected to embrace these changes without adequate preparation involving hands-on expe-rience and modeling in the adoption of these new meth-ods.

Why Bridge Building for Teachers?

ing, interpreting, and reflecting on the experience.. The last major component, celebration, is described below along with the preceding nine steps illustrated with com-ments from several teams of teachers.

1. Contextualizing. Working in small groups, teachers draw on their past experiences in deciding how the team will proceed. "Bridges are normally sturdy; they have support poles. We integrated multicultur-alism in our design by designing human figures as the support base" (Team A).

2. Clarifying. Teams determine what they needed to know to build the bridge. "We need to know how bridges are structured, how weight is held by a bridge" (Team A).

3. Inquiring. Teachers conduct research by posing rele-vant questions and searching credible sources for answers. "One member of our group found a Web site that outlined all components and typical de-signs of bridges. From our research we have con-cluded that our bridge will consist of vertical and horizontal beams" (Team B).

4. Planning. Teachers sketch their plans on paper and may even build a test-case model. "Since we de-cided to create the bridge using beams, we used pencils, pens, and tape to create our premodel. Our premodel proved that our bridge would be easy to construct, functional, and sturdy" (Team B).

Based on the premise that the best way to learn about constructivism is to experience it firsthand, we devised a simple constructivist activity—building a paper bridge— that teachers could experience to learn the basics about constructivism. A follow-up authentic activity allowed the teachers to take the next step and develop a construc-tivist activity for their own classrooms.

In the bridge-building activity, teachers work in small groups to plan, construct, and reflect on building a paper bridge (figures 1-3). The challenge is for each group to create, using only newspaper, tape, and rubber bancls, a unique structure strong enough to hold at least a 16-ounce bottle of water. Prior to actually building.the bridge, each group specifies several additional objectives and develops a scoring rubric.

The bridge-building activity consists of a 10-step "con-structivist activity" process closely related to the design technology process (Dunn and Larson 1998). The con-structivist activity process entails five major components: investigation, invention, implementation, evaluation, and celebration. Investigation includes the development of context, clarification of the task, and inquiry through questioning and research. Invention consists of planning and realizing or building a model. Implementation some-times overlaps with invention and occurs through the process of realizing or building a model and later modify-ing it as needed. Evaluation refers to the activities of test-

Realizing. Using only newspaper, tape, and rubber bands, teachers construct bridges to achieve their objectives. No two bridges look alike since groups are not following a cookbook-type recipe for the project. Each group produces a unique creation to achieve its own objectives. "Once we knew how to assemble the bridge from our premodel, we started the construction process" (Team B).

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ANNUAL EDITIONS

6. Testing. Teachers test the model bridge and record observations. "We tested our model by placing a 20-ounce water bottle on top, and it held up fine as long as the dolls' legs were in the right position But there was not enough diagonal support" (Team A). "Our bridge did not hold the bottle of water. We decided to create a frame for our bridge" (Team C).

7. Modifying. Teachers make necessary modifications to achieve stated objectives. "We repositioned the two center supports to face a different direction and better support the bridge" (Team A). "We added the frame which worked" (Team C).

8. Interpreting. Teachers interpret the results of their tests. "This is a great model for building a bridge out of newspaper. This bridge was easy to construct, sturdy, and structurally sound, fast to. construct, and looked very much like a bridge" (Team B).

9. Reflecting. Teachers evaluate their bridges by apply-ing the rubrics they created earlier. "I felt bur bridge represented our group, because we had a Latina, an Asian, a Caucasian, and an African American. We used newspapers in English, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese. I really felt passionate and proud of our bridge. I felt that its main purpose, which was to represent different cultures coming together, was clear" (Team A).

10. Celebration. Teachers in the small groups share their accomplishments by presenting results to the larger group. "We shared our rubric with the group, explaining our criteria for a [top] score of 4. The group agreed that we earned a 4" (Team A). An-other teacher wrote, "Celebration and sharing was the best! It gave us a sense of pride and accomplish-ment."

Most teachers who participate in this 10-step bridge-building activity report that it helps them learn about

constructivism. Of the four teams cited here, 82 percent found the activity "very or extremely useful." Over 90 percent of the participants say they enjoyed the social in-teraction of the activity.

Assessment within a Constructivist Framework

Teachers actively engage in the assessment process from the beginning, when they specify objectives and write rubrics to score the results of the constructivist ac-tivity. As stated, the only imposed requirement is that the bridges be strong enough to hold at least a 16-ounce bottle of water. In addition to the strength criterion, each group specifies three other objectives and related criteria for their rubrics. Often the criteria reflect the values, experi-ences, and backgrounds of group members. For example, Team A selected multiculturalism as one of their criteria to reflect the cultural diversity of the group. Their bridge looked like a parade float, with an arch supported by hu-man figures from different cultures. Other criteria have included design creativity, design simplicity, bridge span, conservation of resources, and a host of other fac-tors. Each group of teachers uses the rubric they initially create to score their final product. Not surprisingly, each group generally achieves a perfect or near-perfect score. After scoring their own team's bridge, teams participate in a "gallery walk" in which each team uses both their own and the other teams' rubrics to score the bridges pro-duced by others. Teachers realize that their "excellent" work would likely receive a poor or failing grade when held to a different standard. For example, Team B's more traditional bridge structure with beams did not adhere to the multicultural or creativity criteria of Team A and would therefore be graded down if Team A's rubric were used to score it. The experience helps-teachers appreciate the limitations of traditional grading practices in a con-structivist classroom.

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Article 23. Teachers Bridge to Constructivism

Taking the Next Step: Constructivism in the Classroom ,

In the follow-up activity to bridge building, teachers prepare an authentic constructivist activity for their own students on any topic of their choosing. The only require-ments are that the activity be authentic and that it address one or more skills in the subject matter frameworks. Teachers work individually to structure an activity ac-cording to the same 10-step process they used to build the paper bridge. They begin by setting objectives and creat-ing a scoring rubric that both they and their students may use to assess the final products. They then plan the activ-ity, create a model, and reflect upon their respective projects. Finally, they try out the activity with their own students.

Prior to the bridge-building activity, a common mis-conception among teachers is that a hands-on activity is synonymous with a constructivist activity. Many hands-on activities, of course, don't allow for multiple solutions and outcomes—students are expected to follow the teacher's directions and create a copy-cat product rather than generating their own unique productions. While less than one-third of teachers surveyed felt confident that they could create constructivist activities for their stu-dents prior to the bridge-building activity, over 90 per-cent successfully created a true constructivist activity on the first try after it. We believe that this success results from the modeling they experienced during the bridge-building activity.

The benefits of constructivism are reinforced as teach-ers observe the impact of their authentic constructivist projects on their students. A high school math teacher, for example, devised a geometry activity that requires stu-dents to construct 3-D scenes or objects from three-di-mensional polygons. The teacher's model consisted of a small paper-flower garden. Students used paper pyra-mids, cubes, decahedrons, and more to construct a wide array of unique characters: a dinosaur, clown, rat, puppy, flower, turtle, and so forth. In another project, a sixth grade teacher created a phonogram chart to help students understand hieroglyphics used by the ancient Egyptians. Her students worked in teams to create unique charts, which they used to code their own names and common words. These teachers reported that their students en-joyed the constructivist project, just as they had, and gained a sense of accomplishment in what they created.

Most teachers find it difficult to create a truly construc-tivist activity for their students. As one participant ex-plained, "The activity that we created was very difficult. It really makes you examine your subject thoroughly and understand how difficult these concepts are for students to master. The inclusion of constructivist activities greatly increases a student's involvement in the topic."

The bridge-building activity helps teachers literally see the unique productions that result when team members bring their own background and experience to bear on the creative process. They witness that constructivism goes beyond the typical hands-on activity. They also learn that assessment is relative—grades result from ap-plying a rubric that relates to specified criteria or objec-tives. Perhaps most important, teachers appreciate the pure enjoyment joined with a sense of pride and accom-plishment that result from constructivist activities. Key words: constructivism, classroom activities, assessment, teaching process, facilitation

REFERENCES

Brooks, J. G., and M. C. Brooks. 1993. The case for constructivist classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Currieadum Development.

Driscoll, M. P. 1994. Psychology of learning for instruction. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Dunn, S., and R. Larson. 1998. Design technology: Children's engi-neering. Philadelphia: The Palmer Press.

Henderson, J. G. 1996. Reflective teaching. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill.

Jonassen, D. H., K. L. Peck, and B. G. Wilson. 1999. Learning with technology: A constructivist approach. Columbus, OH: Pren-ticeHall.

Kafai, Y. B., and M. Resnick. 1996. Constructionism in practice: De-signing, thinking and learning in a digital world. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lambert, L. 1995. The constructivist leader. New York: Teachers College Press.

Spiro, R., P. Feltovich, M. Jacobson, and R Coulson. 1991. Knowledge representation, content specification, and the development of skill in situation-specific knowledge as-sembly: Some constructivist issues as they relate to cogni-tive flexibility and hypertext. Educational Technology 31 (9): 22-25.

Kathryn Alesattdrini is a professor of instructional design and technology at California State University, Los Angeles. Linda Larson is a full-time lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology at California State University; in Long Beach.

From The Clearing House, January/February 2002, pp. 118-121. Reprinted with.permission of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation. Published by Heldref Publications, 1319 Eighteenth St, NW, Washington, DC20036-1802. ©2002.

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