Constructivism

Constructivism is a theory which states that learning is an active process to construct knowledge .According to it people create their own subjective represantions of objective reality .

Constructivism transforms the student from a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process.By using this theory us as current students are able to encounter something new and reconcile it with our previous experiences in order to reflect ,explore and asess what we know .

Constructivism does not only serve for us as students but for us as future teachers as well .In the most general sense it might be used as a means to encourage students to use active teaching as experiment ,real world problem solving to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about how their understanding is changing .The teacher guides the activity to adress them and then build on them.

By questioning their strategies ,the students in a contractivist classroom become "expert learners" and they learn how to learn .While students' goal is to find their ideas and develop strong abilities to integrate new information ,teachers's role is to encourage their learning and reflection process.

For example :groups of students of an english as a foreign language class are discussing a problem .Though the teacher knows the answer to the problem ,she focuses on helping students restate their questions in useful ways. She stimulates the students to have their own suggestions .When one of the students comes up with the relevant concept ,the teacher seizes upon it and indicates to the group that this might be a fruitful avenue for them to explore .They design and perform relevant experiments .

The best way for us to understand what constructivism is and what it means in your classroom is by seeing examples of it at worl ,speaking with others about it as the picture implies and trying it yourself .As we progress through each segment of this work , is important to keep in mind questions and share with colleagues .