Constructivism in the Classroom

In a Constructivist classroom, “active” is the keyword. The students are actively engaged in learning activities, communicating and coordinating with one another. and working to construct new knowledge. Learning activities include observation, group tasks, portfolios, and reflection. Thus, the room doesn’t holds numerous individual learners, but a community of learners.

As an introvert, I cannot consider myself as a constructivist learner. I prefer to study, learn, and accomplish tasks alone rather than participating in a group work. But when I’ve reached my fourth year in college, I’ve realized that being in a cooperative learning groups are essential to my optimal learning and achieving educational goals. On my last year in college, we have to team up and work together for several production videos, documentaries, and research study. Cooperative learning is based on the principle of Constructivism. With this approach, students are able to both be heard and to hear their peers, while in a traditional classroom setting students may spend more time listening to what the instructor says. (Brame and Biel, n.d.)

When I become a licensed teacher, I think I would opt to apply Social Learning Theories and complement it with the Social Constructivism. The principles of this theory is easy to apply and will motivate my future students to reach their optimum learning experience. Of course, I would still incorporate the Constructivism since it “constructs” the mind of the students to build their own modified knowledge and understanding. According to Eggen (1998), the most striking feature of the process was the difference in students’ level of motivation and involvement when the teacher used the personalized examples to deliver the content instead of presenting the concepts in a traditional way.

As a future educator, I will make the classroom learner-centered instead of directly teaching them like spoon-feeding. I will also initiate hands-on and group activities, and exchange meaningful questions and ideas, and develop their problem-solving skills. On a real-life basis, I think this would be beneficial for the learners to become fully-equipped in solving problems and improve their social skills.