Constructivist Methods of Teaching and Learning

Constructivist Methods of
Teaching and Learning
Suresh Babu G
Assistant Professor
CTE CPAS Pazippad, Kottayam

Constructivist Methods of Teaching and
Learning
 Cooperative Learning
 Collaborative Learning
 Peer Tutoring
 Discovery Learning
 Brain Storming
 Brain Based Learning
 Concept Mapping
 Reciprocal Teaching
 Cognitive Apprenticeship
 Engaged Learning

Cooperative learning
 Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in
which small teams, each with students of different levels of
ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their
understanding of a subject.
 Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning
what is taught but also for helping team-mates learn, thus
creating an atmosphere of achievement.
 Students work through the assignment until all group
members successfully understand and complete it.
 According to Johnson, cooperative learning is the
instructional use of small groups through which students
work together to maximize their own and each other’s
learning

Benefits of Cooperative
learning
• Gain from each other’s efforts.
• Recognize that all group members share a
common fate.
• Know that one’s performance is mutually caused
by oneself and one’s team members.
• Feel proud and jointly celebrate when a group
member is recognized for achievement.

Class activities that use
cooperative learning
1. Think-Pair-Share : Involves three step
cooperative structure .
Think about the
answer to the
question in your
mind without
talking
Pair up with your
partner. Take turns
thoughts and to listen
to your partner Share thoughts with the
whole class

2.Three step Interview : Each members of
a team chooses other members as partner.
3.Round Robin Brainstorming :
Class is divided into small groups(4 to 6)
one person is appointed as
recorder. Thinking time starts like round robin
style. Person next to recorder starts to share
response till time ends. Recorder records it.
1. Interview their partner
– with clarifying questions
2. Partner reverse the roles
3. Members shares
their partners response
with the team
Recorder

4. Numbered Heads Together :
Team of four is established .
Questions are asked of the group.
Group work together and find answer.
Teacher call 2 from each group to give answer

Advantages of Cooperative Learning
 Promote student learning and academic
achievement
 Increase student retention
 Enhance student satisfaction
with their learning experience.
 Help to develop skills in oral communication
 Develop students social skills.
 Promote student self-esteem.
 Help to promote positive race relations.

Collaborative Learning
• Collaborative learning is an educational
approach to teaching and learning that involves
groups of students working together to solve a
problem, complete a task, or create a product.
• According to Gerlach, "Collaborative learning is
based on the idea that learning is a naturally
social act in which the participants talk among
themselves (Gerlach, 1994). It is through the
talk that learning occurs."

Significance of Collaborative Learning
• Learning is an active process whereby students assimilate
the information and relate this new knowledge to a
framework of prior knowledge.
• Learning requires a challenge that opens the door for the
learner to actively engage his/her peers, and to process
and synthesize information rather than simply memorize
and regurgitate it.
• Learners benefit when exposed to diverse viewpoints from
people with varied backgrounds.
• Learning flourishes in a social environment where
conversation between learners takes place.
• In the collaborative learning environment, the learners are
challenged both socially and emotionally as they listen to
different perspectives, and are required to articulate and
defend their ideas.

Elements of
Collaborative Learning
Class activities that use
Collaborative learning
1.Think, Pair, Share
2. Three Step Interview

3. Simple Jigsaw :
Four member group
with one side Expert
group and other side
jigsaw group. Experts
teachers other group
a topic.
4. Number Heads
Together

Advantages of Cooperative
Learning
 Develops higher level of thinking skills.
 Promotes student-faculty interaction and familiarity
 Increases student retention
 Builds self esteem in students
 Enhances students satisfaction with the learning
experience
 Promotes a positive attitude towards the subject matter.
 Develops oral communication skills
 Develops social interaction skills
 Creates an environment of active,
involved, exploratory learning.
 Develop problem solving skills

Discovery Learning
It is an inquiry-based, constructivist learning
theory that takes place in problem solving
situations where the leaner draws on his or her
own past experience and existing knowledge to
discover facts and relationships and new truths
to be learned.
Students interact with the world by exploring and
manipulating objects, wrestling with questions
and controversies, or performing experiments.

Models based on Discovery learning
• Guided discovery
• Problem-based learning
• Simulation-based learning
• Case-based learning
• Incidental learning

Advantages of Discovery learning
• Encourages active engagement
• Promotes motivation
• Promotes autonomy, responsibility,
independence
• The development of creativity and problem
solving skills.
• A tailored learning experience.
• Socialization of students

Disadvantages of Discovery learning
o Creation of cognitive overload
o Potential misconceptions
o Teachers may fail to detect problems and
misconceptions

Peer Tutoring
 It is a system of instruction in which learners
help each other and learn (themselves) by
teaching.
 It is an instructional system in which students
teach other students.
 According to Goodlad and Hearst, peer tutoring
is the system of instruction in which learners
help each other and learn by teaching.

Types of Peer Tutoring
 Instructional Peer Tutoring - Older, brighter
students are coaching the young ones.
 Structured Peer Tutoring – It takes place when
peer tutoring is implemented in specific cases and
for specific subject , it is structured one
 Undirected Peer Tutoring – Trained peer tutor
teaches the entire time, disabled are students.
 Reciprocal Peer Tutoring
– It take place when the
students in a peer team
exchange their role as
tutor and tutee.

Framework of Peer Tutoring
Setting goals
Defining evaluation criteria
Select and structuring the content
Scheduling of tutoring
Tutor training
Classroom arrangement
Student practice
 Remediation
Role exchange
Logistic support

Merits of Peer Tutoring
Active learning and pupil enjoyment.
Inculcate sense of responsibility in students
Improve self-confidence and self-esteem.
Promote leadership and social responsibility
Demerits of Peer Tutoring
Needed more organization time
Lack of time reduces the systematic peer training
Less content coverage compared to teacher
instruction
Large preparation needed

Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a method for creative problem
solving developed by Alex Osborn in 1939.
It is a generating technique.
As a constructivist method of learning
brainstorming involves generating ideas and
sharing knowledge, in which learners are
encouraged to think individually and collectively
without interruption.
According to Osborn, brainstorming is a method
by which a group tries to find a solution for a
specific problem by amassing a list of ideas
spontaneously contributed its members.

Characteristics of Brainstorming
 It is a group activity where each participant shares
their ideas as soon as they come to mind.
 It is a group technique of generating idea.
 It is a informal approach to problem solving.
 Active participation by all team members.
 It relies on group dynamics.
 Uses four divergent thinking guidelines : deferring
judgment, striving for quantity, freewheeling and
seeking combinations.
 Encourage outside-the-box thinking.
 There is no discussion, criticism, compliments,
censoring or other comments during brainstorming.

Brainstorming Steps
 Set the problem
 Focus the problem
 Elicit the ideas
 List out the ideas
 Organize ideas
 Review ideas
 Evaluate ideas

Types of Brainstorming
• Step Ladder Brainstorming - Start by sharing the
brainstorming challenge with everyone in the room.
• Round Robin Brainstorming.
• Rapid Ideation- uses the power of groups to create a volume
of new ideas/solutions to evaluate shortly thereafter.
• Trigger Storming - One idea triggers another and another
and so on
Four rules of Brainstorming
• No judgements -This is the first rule of creativity in general,
really.
• Think freely -As I said before, no matter how crazy it is; while
brainstorming, ideas are neither silly nor impossible.
• Big numbers -The more ideas, the better.
Many heads are better than one.

Merits
 Encourages creativity.
 Group interaction and idea generation.
 Greater student satisfaction.
 Problem solving in positive way.
Demerits
 Limited to certain area.
 Aggressive and creative children may dominate
the section.
 Teacher will often lose control.
 Students evaluation is difficult.

Brain Based Learning
Brain Based learning is a approach to learning
that says that the brain is able to learn naturally.
It is based on the understanding that , as the
brain is not prohibited from fulfilling its normal
processes, learning will occur.
According to Leslie Hart, brain based learning is
a dynamic, interdisciplinary, system-wide
approach based on the way current research in
neuroscience suggests our brain naturally learns
best.

Instructional Strategies
• Orchestrated immersion – creative learning
environment.
• Relaxed alertness – eliminate fear in leaner's
and giving higher challenging environment.
• Active processing – giving new information
and active processing it.

Concept Mapping
It is developed by Novak in 1972.
A concept map is a diagram showing the
relationships in between concepts.
Constructivist – Concept Mapping is the
individualized technique of summarizing the
relationship among different ideas in graphs
while engaged in learning activity.
According to Novak, a concept map is a visual
re[presentation of the hierarchy and relations
among concepts within an individual’s mind.

Characteristics of Concept Mapping
 It is a tool for organizing and representing
knowledge in graph.
 It is a graphical method of taking notes.
 It visualizes relationships between different
concepts.
 It is a special form of a web diagram for exploring
knowledge.
 Concept maps connect multiple words or ideas
 It presents the relationships among a set of
connected concepts and ideas.

Steps of Concept Mapping
Select – focus on theme
Rank – from most abstract and inclusive
Cluster – similar level abstraction
Arrange – into diagrammatic representation
Link – using link lines and label each lines

Reciprocal Teaching
• Developed by Palincsar in 1982
• It is a constructivist model of learning.
• It is characterized as a dialogue taking place
between the teacher and students that result in
learning how to construct meaning when they are
placed in a reading situation.
• According to Palincsar reciprocal teaching to an
instructional activity that takes place in the form of
a dialogue between teachers and students in
which participants taken assuming the role of
teacher.

Characteristics of Concept
Mapping
Dialogue based
Good comprehension skill needed
Include scaffolding, thinking, using cooperative
learning and facilitating metacognition with each
step.
Based on Vygotsky’s theory

Stages of Concept Mapping
 Teacher demonstration
 Students learning and practice
 Teacher-student groups
 Student group
 Student self regulation

Cognitive Apprenticeship
Cognitive apprenticeship process that utilizes
cognitive and metacognitive skills and
processes to guide learning.
It is the pedagogic strategy at the core of
situated learning.
According to Collins, Cognitive
apprenticeship is a process by
which leaner's learn from a more
experienced person by way of cognitive and
metacognitive skills and processes.

Characteristic of Cognitive
Apprenticeship
• It is a way of learning through experience guided
by an experts.
• Learning is naturally tied to activity, context and
culture.
• Involves social interaction.
• Focus on developing cognitive skills.
• Learning through guided experiences

Cognitive Apprenticeship Model

Engaged Learning
In it students learn by activity participating in the
real life activities through teamwork, exploration
and discovery with peers.
According to Wintz, engaged learning is a
process of learning in which leaner's construct
meaning, communicate and collaborate
effectively, solve problems, self-regulate their
learning and
learn intentionally in a
facilitated learning
environment.

Characteristics of Engaged Learning
 Learners are responsible for their own learning.
 Students define the learning goals and problems
that are meaningful to them.
 High level of active learning.
 Allows students to participate in real life activities.
 Tasks set are authentic, challenging and multi-
disciplinary.
 Based on students performance of real tasks.

Thanks
Cooperative
Brain storming
Mind map

Constructivist Methods of Teaching and Learning

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