Constructivism

1. Describe two similarities between the traditional lesson and the constructivist one as described above. What are two differences?

In both lessons, the teacher guides the students to use some sort of common way to measure an object. It seems that in both approaches, the teacher does not feel that the students completely understood the specific lesson points she was trying to teach.

The lessons differ as the teacher tells the students exactly how to measure the object in the first case, but in then the second case the teacher does not give any clues whatsoever of how to measure. Due to the information given, the students were easily able to solve problem in the first case, however, in the second case they took days together trying to figure out how to make an accurate measurement and still never came up with a efficient result.

2. What are two benefits and two drawbacks of the constructivist approach as described above? Why? In your opinion, are the benefits worth the costs? Explain your response.


The two benefits are the following: the students are able to experience a bit of concrete and formal operations as they are required to use analogical reason; the students are able to learn a more profound lesson then just how to measure, they learn that its important to measure using the same metric system in order to get an efficient result.

The two drawbacks are the following: Instructional time took 3 times longer in the constructivist approach; this approach did not result in a quick easy efficient result.

In my opinion, for this lesson the benefits are not worth the costs. In order to learn measuring, it should not take 3 days. This should be a quick lesson that students should be able to get a good understanding from just telling them to use a ruler. It is inefficient to obligate students in the pre-operational level , to function at the concrete and formal operational levels. As a result of the teacher trying to get them to operate at a higher level than what they are at, much time was used and the teacher did not see the students solve the problem as she had desired.

3. How does the constructivist lesson described above promote critical thinking? Give specific examples of critical thinking from the case study and include a definition of critical thinking to support your response.

The constructivist approach promotes critical thinking as it causes the students to reason, logic and test and hypothesis through the scientific method. Critical thinking is a skilled, active, interpretation and evaluation of observations, communications, information, and argumentation. In the case the students demonstrated critical thinking as they evaluated many different ways of measurement. Upon evaluating these different ways, they would communicate and debate whether or not a certain way is efficient. After observing many different methods, by means of critical thinking the students were able to come up with an analysis. They learned that it is vital to use the same type of measurement when trying to measure something.

4. Would the constructivist activity be considered an authentic activity? Why or why not?

Yes it would be considered an authentic activity. An authentic activity is when a learner solves a problem that is realistic. The learner does this by forming his/her own solution by actually thinking through the problems themselves and using their own work knowledge to solve the problem, not through lectures. This constructivist activity uses authentic activity as the teacher gives the students a real life problem and then lets the students figure out how to solve the problem themselves, and does not give any help. This method allowed for more profound learning, analyzing and thinking.