Constructivism Reflection Paper

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Recommended: Discuss constructivist teaching

Constructivism postulates that the key player in a learning activity is each individual student, not the educators who give information or set up the learning environment (Inoue, 2012). The recorded class is a typical student-centered constructivism class. Although the teacher in the video not only conduct constructivism teaching style into her class, she also steered the dark side of constructivism skillfully.
Foundation of Knowledge
At the beginning of the class, the teacher generally reviewed last class’s knowledge, for the purpose of grounding new knowledge in an already existing knowledge base. The teacher built the new knowledge upon the old knowledge, for the benefit of learning to be meaningful. This is also one of the important aspects …show more content…

She put emphasis on value students’ opinion, and let students discuss their ideas with their peers. The traditional constructivism classroom value students’ opinion too, although it emphasizes giving the students chances to practice the skills as the teacher models the correct strategy. This style of teaching did not encourage students to construct a deep understanding of the knowledge. By letting students discuss or even argue their ideas with their peers, and also with the teacher facilitating their discussions, students’ consensus building, also give students the opportunity to think deeply about different ways to approach the problem and then construct an integrated idea, rather than just listening to their teacher evaluate which strategy is right or …show more content…

She controls the direction of student’s discussion towards a right path, and at the same time, let students exchange their ideas for a better understanding. Even though she got the right answer, she still asking if it has another way to do it. Her strategy is to be a facilitator; she did not put herself into an authority role. She had a deep understanding of her role as a teacher which is not to give feedback on whether their answers are right or wrong but to facilitate the students’ consensus building discussions in a constructive direction (Inoue,

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