Constructionism relies on students to learn by following a process and creating an artifact. When I think of generating and testing a hypothesis, I automatically think Science. However, in our reading for this week, I have explored hypotheses outside of a Science classroom. Many skills are used when testing hypotheses, with research being one of the biggest skills. Gathering data may be “tedious and error prone” as our text suggests, but as a building block to higher-level skills, I believe teaching students to do the research is productive. It may fit into the behaviorist learning strategy more than the constructionist learning strategy, but it is still a valuable skill, especially for students interested in Science, Math or History based careers.
With that opinion out of the way, let’s focus on constructionism and how it ties into generating and testing hypotheses. Testing hypotheses opens up a technology rich environment for our students to engage in. Through the use of a wide variety of technologies, we are furthering our students’ knowledge and preparing them for the 21st Century. In addition, we are teaching them a process. The more our students are exposed to process learning, the easier it will be for them to assimilate or accommodate new information. Use of the software allows students to focus on generating more solutions in a shorter period of time. It makes the end product more attainable. Hypothesizing allows students to formulate more choices. Any time choice is an option for students, more learning occurs because of the disequilibration that Dr. Orey describes. Once that disequilibration disappears, we as facilitators, have to recreate situations to throw our students out of equilibration and back into disequilibration so that they are making choices to accommodate or assimilate new learning. A good hypothesis where students are required to test what they have learned will do just that.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program five. Classroom management to promote student learning. Baltimore: Dr. Michael Orey.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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4 comments:
I really liked the point you made when you said, "I believe teaching students to do the research is productive." Students need this ability, because it gives them the chance to determine what is real information, and what is an opinion of someone else. My only problem is that no matter how much I teach this skill, or have the library staff help me teach it, my students still struggle with it. When my students write their science fair research papers (which takes all semester), I require them to use the Internet or a reference book for some information about their topic. Usually when I read their background information about their topic, I get something along the lines of "I found information on google.com and my textbook." I despise when they do this, and every time, I tell them, these are not real sources, but they struggle to understand how to actually find information.
Documenting is a constant battle. But, I almost won it this year! We were sharing the computer lab with another small class and one of the students from that class said, "I found it on Google." Three or four of mine chimed in at the same time, "Google is a search engine, not a resource. Find the real address." I had to laugh. Even the other teacher looked confused!
When I first read about using hypothesis for teaching students, I also thought that I would be unable to use this as a teaching method since I am a Spanish teacher. Then I started thinking about different avenues the students could use to research different cultural facts and how they comnpare to other cultures. I think this would be a great way to bring constructionism into the classroom by having them create something based on their hypotheses and their research. With the internet there is a great number of places they can find information. This would also give us a chance as a class to discuss how to determine if th information is valid. Teaching students in middle school to do research will be a great resource for them in their future where they will be called upon many times to do research.
I hope that this course will result in all of us integrating more project-based learning into our curriculums next year. As we experience success with such projects, our fellow teachers will want to know the secret. Before long, students everywhere could be engaged in using research, analysis, and real-life applications to solve problems in every subject.
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