Constructivism

• The absorption or assimilation of knowledge is somewhat personal and therefore no two learners can build up the
same meaning out of one situation.

• Knowledge therefore is the result of the learners own construction of reality.

Constructivism ≅ Knowledge
“A continuous creation of rules to explain an observation, and in the process, checks new information against prior
knowledge to come up with new understanding.” New Information Prior Knowledge New Understanding

Role of a Teacher
Constructivist Perspective
• Teaching is not considered as merely transmitting knowledge and information (facts, concepts, principles, etc…) to
students but rather as providing students with relevant experiences from which they can construct their own meaning.

• The teacher ceases to be the traditional “sole source of authority in the classroom.”

• With proper recall of existing knowledge which they gain through experience. A teacher guides through skillful
questioning and appropriate cognition process.

• Lessons must be activity-oriented.

• Participation with understanding enables the students to “live through” a learning episode, thus discovering
information by their own.

Pointers / Suggestions
1. In introducing a lesson, always find connection with the previous one through a review or a recount of observations
during a past learning activity.

2. Inquiry teaching suits the constructivists. The teacher poses a problem, asks questions and facilitates free probe into a
particular subject. Both teacher and students engage in open discussions and dialogue, honest exchange of ideas and
collaboratively draw conclusions.

3. Reflection is an important activity wherein the learner recaptures an experience, thinks about it and evaluates it.
Through an analysis of experiences, new understandings and insights are gained. After a learning activity, the teacher
must allow time for reflection. Only then will the experiences gained be useful in arriving at new interpretations and
conclusions.

4. Plan learning activities that will develop critical thinking skills, creativity and innovativeness such as performing own
experiments and in-depth investigations. Research activities likewise promote the search for new information based on
prior knowledge.

5. Since construction and reconstruction of meanings is an active and uniquely individual process, students must be
encouraged to work independently. They must be allowed to test their own ideas. Self-discovered information create
more meaningful concepts.

Discussion
• Refers to free communication of ideas between the teacher and students and among the students as well.

• Orderly verbal interchange.

• Employed to clarify some points during a learning activity or as a check at the end to find out if the objective of the
lesson has been achieved.

Discussion (Interchangeably termed Discourse)

• Externalization of the thinking process.

• Encourages students to express their ideas, thereby enhancing their thinking skills.

• “Thinking Out Loud.” – Provides the teacher a means of viewing what is going on in the students’ minds, thus providing
an opportunity to correct immediately any misconceptions or wrong direction of thinking.

Objectives as a Teaching Strategy

1. To improve students’ critical thinking reasoning.

2. To facilitate students’ construction of meaning from a learning activity, hence strengthen their existing cognitive
structures.

3. To help ensure comprehension and improve the ability to think creatively.Objectives as a Teaching Strateg

4. To promote students’ involvement in open discussions and sustain their interest as the lesson progresses.

5. To provide opportunity for them to analyze their own thinking process, at the same time motivating them to engage
in discourse even beyond the classroom setting.Objectives as a Teaching Strategy

6. To help them gain important communication skills such as stating ideas clearly, listening to others, responding to
others in appropriate ways, and learning how to ask good questions.

Pointers
1. The teacher’s questioning technique is put to a test. Ask a variety of questions that would require reasoning, analyzing
and evaluating. “Why” and “how” questions would encourage them to discuss rather than “what.”

2. A question-and-answer format makes both the teacher and students alert and focused on the particular topic, thus
minimizing irrelevant answers or ideas.

3. Free-wheeling discussions encourage students to volunteer their own ideas, resulting in maximum generation of
answers, solution or alternatives.

4. Participating in a discussion enhances one’s attitude of willingness to share as well as one’s ability to listen to others.

5. Use discussion together with other methodologies of teaching and in a variety of classroom situations.

6. Allow sufficient time from them to think and discuss. Too much teacher-talk discourage students to open up.

7. The teacher must be tactful enough to guide the discussion towards a particular objective she has set for the lesson.
She may prepare a set of guide questions for her own use.

Lecture
• A kind of oral presentation delivered by an expert.

• It is simply a straight talk on a particular topic that needs an in-depth explanation.

• It is recommended for older students who can benefit from a “one-way” but focused discourse on content.

• Because of its very specific nature, the audience who usually belongs to the same discipline, is prepared to listen with
a high degree of expectation.
Lecturer
• Regarded as an authority in the special topic he is requested to speak on.

• Since the lecturer may not be the regular teacher, the new knowledge provider is easily welcomed.

• A lecturer capitalizes on influence, impressiveness and convincing personality.

Advantages
1. The lecturer is a recognized authority in his field. The students will look up to him as a source of accurate, reliable and
scholarly treatise.

2. The attention of older students is easily captured.

3. The lecturer is knowledgeable and most likely is a practitioner, hence they are assumed of fresh and updated
information.

4. The lecture can form part of the school’s document and researchers can refer to it.

Pointers
1. Prepare the students for the lecture session. State the purpose of the learning activity.

2. A short introduction about the speaker will help boost his credibility and the students acceptance.

3. A brief background of the lesson may be given to help them catch the salient points in the entire discourse.

4. Make sure that the choice of the lecturer is agreed upon by those concerned if it is to be held for a big audience.

5. The lecturer shall likewise be briefed on the age level and composition of his audience, the time allowed and if an
open forum is to follow.

Simulations
Primary Function of a Simulation:

a) To generate movement toward a target or defined path.

b) To compare effects of their action with true path and detect errors.

c) To utilize this error signal to redirect the system.

Simulator
A training device that represents reality very closely but in which the complexity of events can be controlled.

Students learn from a Simulator…

1. As a direct result of the experience in the simulations

2. As a result of the activities of discussions that follow.

Effectiveness
1. The learning tasks can be made much less complex than they are in the real world. The activities can therefore be
conducted without being exposed to harmful environments.

2. They permit students to learn from self-generated feedback.

3. They learn through their own senses the corrective behavior necessary rather than through verbal descriptions.

4. The simulators as a teaching device can be used repeatedly.

5. Research revealed that computer based simulations had positive effects on the student’s attitudes. It can likewise
arouse interest and heighten motivation especially in problem-solving tasks.

6. It increases students’ confidence in trying own solutions.

7. When students work in teams, they develop empathy and higher tolerance for others after the simulation experience.

Steps / Procedures
1. The teachers presents the topic to be explored and the concepts embedded in the actual simulation.

2. The teacher introduces the rules, procedures, scoring and decisions to be made.

3. He organizes the students into the various roles and conducts a short practice session. He sets the scenario.

4. The actual simulation follows. The students participate in the game or simulation and the teacher functions as referee
and coach. They may stop at some points to clarify misconceptions.

5. Participants debriefing. Depending on the outcomes of the game the teacher may help the students to focus on:

I. The events and their perceptions and reaction.

II. Analyzing the process.

III. Comparing the simulation to the real world.

IV. Relating the activity to course content.

V. Appraising and redesigning the simulation.

Role of the Teachers

1. To raise the consciousness about the concepts and principles under pinning the simulations and their own reactions.

2. He assumes the assistance functions such as:

a) Explaining b) Refereeing c) Coaching d) Discussing

3. He assumes important management functions. He oversees the preparations of the simulators, including the choice of
materials to be used and the scenes needed for the role playing.

Concept Teaching
Concept
• Mental abstractions / categories for things in the physical world.

• It refers to the way knowledge and experiences are sorted out to form a specific class. Once concept is distinguished
from the other concepts through its attributes.

• The purpose of this model is to teach students a concept and the skills necessary to attain an understanding of the
concept. Students construct meaningful understanding of the critical attributes of a concept.

• Based on the assumption that concept formation begins at an early stage when children at 9 and 12 months of age
start with object-sorting and object preference behavior. Such initial activity leads to classifying and generalizing which
serve as bases for concept learning.
Concept Learning Essentially sorting out and putting things into a specific class.

Concept Learning Helps the Learner:

• Understand specific concepts.

• Understand the nature of concepts.

• Utilize logical reasoning and higher level thinking.

• Improve Communication.

Jerome Bruner’s 3 Distinct Modes of Learning (1984):

1. Enactive Mode – Learning by doing.

2. Iconic Mode – Learning by forming mental images.

3. Symbolic Mode – Learning through a series of abstract symbols.

Presenting the Concept

A. Expository or Rule-to-Example Method – The teacher defines the concept for the students and then provides them
examples to reinforce their understanding. This is also referred to as deductive way of presenting a lesson – from
general to particular examples. Examples: – Vertebrates are animals with backbone. Fish, birds and dogs are vertebrates.
They have backbones.

B. Interrogatory or the Example-to-Rule Method – The examples are given first and the students discover the concept
themselves through the process of logical reasoning. This method is also termed Inductive Method of presenting a
lesson. Examples: – Fish, birds and dogs, upon examination, were found out to possess backbone or vertebrate column,
hence they belong to a group called vertebrates.

Approaches Used In Concept Teaching

1. Direct Presentation Approach – This approach uses the rule-to-example method or the deductive method. Example:
Oxygen is needed by all living things. Trees are living things, hence need oxygen.

2. Concept Attainment Approach – This approach assists the students to arrive at a concept using the example-to-rule
method or the inductive method. Example: Organisms can emit their own light. Fireflies produce light. Certain fishes are
light producers. Said organisms exhibit bioluminescence.

Steps / Pointers
1. Defining the objectives of the lesson to get students ready to learn.

2. Input of examples and non-examples. In deductive method, the concept is given first, then the examples. In the
inductive method, examples are given first.

3. Testing for attainment and understanding. Additional examples and non-examples are given to test students’
understanding of the concept.

4. Analysis of their thinking and integration of learning. Students are asked to examine their own decisions.

Synectics
• Anchored on its enormous potential in enhancing the students’ creativity. A generous use of analogies work best in
analyzing learning situations that call for new solutions, ideas and ways in doing things.
• Synectics as a teaching model requires students to formulate analogies.

Analogy
• A logical or assumed relation between two things.

3 Types of Analogies Worth Analyzing

1. Personal Analogy – This kind of comparison shows how the students emphasize with the ideas or objects. They
identify with an object, plant, animal or with other persons. The element that should be watched in the analysis is the
emphatic involvement.

2. Direct Analogy – This kind of comparison is made between two objects or concepts. The objects being compared need
not be identical.3 Types of Analogies Worth Analyzing

3. Symbolic Analogy or Compressed Conflict – The metaphoric comparison consists of a 2- word description of a
situation, object or feeling which appear to be opposites or contradictions.

Integrative Approach
• Aims to teach “organized bodies of knowledge.”

• This model presents a comprehensive collection of systematically arranged knowledge such as facts, concepts and
principles.

• The teacher assists the learners to analyze, synthesize and evaluate said information in order to gain deep
understandings, at the same time develop critical thinking and the ability to scientifically process information.

Guidelines / Pointers
1. The students should feel free to give their own conclusions, inferences or speculations after making their analysis and
presentation of evidences.

2. Make sure they are provided with all the needed information in order to insure success, since they will try to make
conjectures only on what they see during the presentation.

3. Open-ended questions will make the infer or hypothesize based on their experience. They develop critical thinking
and creative organizing of information.

4. Guide them in discovering relationships among facts and concepts that could lead to accurate conclusions. Present
them in tabulations and diagrams for ease in seeing patterns, trends or similarities in characteristics.

5. Practice them in categorizing or sorting out objects, organisms and experiences based on common attributes.