CHAPTER 3

Constructivist Teaching:Interactive, Collaborative, Integrative and Inquiry-Based

Summary

               

                Constructivist teaching believes that learning occurs as the learners are actively involved in knowledge construction rather than to passively receive information. Also, the learners are the ones responsible in building their own knowledge. The constructivist teaching has its 5 features. The first one is the Authentic Activities and real-world environments wherein the learner’s activities have connections with real world complexities and issues. The Multiple Perspective states that the activities should support the different perceptions of the learner towards reality and knowledge construction. The third feature, which is the Wholistic, Integrative, gives us the idea that the conceptual interrelatedness and the connected learning of the learner reflects on his or her knowledge complexity. The students’  self-exploration and pursuit for their own learning are being talked the Self-directed Learners feature and lastly the Meaningful Learning gives emphasis on the knowledge construction not on its reproduction. Also in the Meaningful Learning feature, the errors of the learners give them reflections and insight on to what they will going to change and improve.

                The Interactive Teaching is also connected with the Constructivist Teaching. It occurs in a two way process.  First, we have the teacher and second, the learners wherein they interact and collaborate with each other during the learning process. We promote interactive teaching because learning is a lively process, a material process and the learners have the chance to become the resource person. Vygotsky believes that no one has the monopoly of truth and that we learn from others through social learning. The teacher has a great task in the interactive teaching as he or she will think of activities that will engage the students to talk more. The teacher must ask questions not only literal ones but must be in Higher Order Thinking Skill. Those questions must serve as their guide that leads to the intended outcomes or targets. The teacher must avoid giving sarcastic remarks and always take time to listen to the learner’s response. He or she must encourage and trigger the student to talk more rather than feeding them and answering his or her own questions.

                Collaborative Learning is also a Constructivist Teaching. Collaborative learning is an approach that involves groups of students working together to solve a problem, complete a task and etc.

Gerlach believes that collaborative learning is based on a naturally social act in which the participants talk among themselves in which then learning occurs. Is interaction and collaboration interchangeable? No, interaction talks only about the casual socialization that can build relationship among a group of students while the collaboration are more that socialization because they work together to achieve a common goal.  In this approach the teacher begins with an encouragement that each of the learners can share something, create a task in such a way that collaboration is truly essential in completing it, make its goal clear to all, ensure that the guidelines and procedure are clear especially on how it is assessed and then they have to reflect together at the end of the performance.

                Integrative Teaching and Learning is another approach of Constructivist Teaching. It deals with connecting separate discipline to make a whole and lays down boundary less of disciplines that can be taught. It is also transdiciplinary in the sense that it connects the subject matter to life that makes that subject alive and interesting. If a matter gets connected to life itself, it becomes lively because everyone can relate to it. How can a teacher do this? First is to depart from teaching the content for test purposes only and second, apply the 4As (Activity, Analysis, Abstraction, Application) that will help the learners to come up with their own generalization that is based on their analysis. Integrating knowledge, skills and values are also done in integrative teaching and it is displayed in the three-level teaching. It gives us the idea of formation and transformation. Also integrative teaching puts together the multiple intelligences a learner has that is why it must consider varied learning styles. A teacher in this approach needs a broad knowledge for him or her to create activities that displays interdisciplinary integration. Also the teacher must be able to connect the subject to values and to life as a whole to achieve the 3-level teaching.

              The Constructivist teaching is also inquiry-based. It is focused on questions that results to investigation, exploration, research and study. Effective problem solvers know how to ask questions to fill the gaps on what they know and don’t know. There are lots of questions that can be asked that will lead them to a certain idea. Effective questioners can ask ‘What evidence do you have? How do you know that it’s true? and How reliable is your source?’.  When asking about points of view, we can ask this question, From whose viewpoint are we seeing, reading and hearing?.  For casual connections we can ask, ‘How are these related to each other? or What produced this connection? For hypothetical problems, we can use “if” questions just like ‘What do you think would happen if….?’ There are also inquirers that ask questions about phenomena in the environment just like ‘Why do cats purr?’ or ‘How high can birds fly?’. In the inquiry-based teaching and learning, the teacher must start the inquiry process. He or she promotes the dialogue, transitions of discussions from groups to class, making vague things clear and develops understanding towards students and models scientific procedures and attitudes.   The activities in this approach involves creating their own questions, finding supporting evidence to answer it, explains the evidence collected and connecting the explanation to the findings of the investigation. Those are commonly applied in Field-work, Case Studies, Investigations, Individual and group projects, and research projects.

Reflection

                I find the constructivist teaching very interesting and at the same time challenging to both students and teachers. Interesting to students as it connects the subject to real-life scenarios, supports their multiple intelligences and gives them chances to practice conceptual interrelatedness. Interesting in the part of the teachers as he or she has the chance to know each of his or her learner’s life and experiences also give him or her the idea of what multiple intelligences they acquire. The approach is challenging to students because they are responsible for controlling their own learning and each has the chance of being a resource person. It is challenging to teachers as he or she must think of activities that will surely engage students to work, think and trigger them to work with their own. Interactive Learning is also beneficial because it is a two way process that involves interaction among students and teachers. Interaction is important because each benefits. The teacher can realize something from the students as well as the students can improve their learning by the teacher’s knowledge. Collaboration in the Collaborative Learning also gives the students to value work together as a group, create teamwork as well as unity. Through this, the idea and knowledge can be transferred to one another as they go on and work together. Also the end goals that a teacher formulates must also be achieved. The Integrative Teaching and Learning paves a way on exploration and connection of different disciplines which I find it helpful in the learning process. The subject must not be limited but it must be connected to others as well for the students to understand more. I like its idea of connecting subject matter to life. Learners nowadays lack interest in the subject if they can’t relate to it. Well who won’t? But if it is connected to life, it will surely become more fun and interesting to talk about. Integrating knowledge, skills and values will surely make a learner a wholistic and a well rounded individual. The inquiry-based teaching unveils the students curiosity about things and wakens up his or her critical thinking. How? It is because they will formulate their own questions and then seek answers with the use of guide questions and also with the teacher’s supervision.

                As a teacher, I will connect my subject to real life scenario so that the students will be able to relate and maybe later on, they can apply it.  For example, in an English class where I teach short stories. I will connect it to real life scenarios by asking them if they know someone who displays the same attitude as a character does. In this sense, they can really relate or even transform a boring story to a lively one. Encouraging interactions will also be in my instruction as it will give everyone the chance to share ideas and experiences as well as gives me the idea on what are their strengths and weaknesses. Also asking thought-provoking questions will be helpful.   I will also create activities just like role plays and dramatizations for them to display their multiple intelligences and work as a group.

                What will a teacher do if the students will not be participating willingly?