Constructivist Lesson

For my lesson I will do second grade vocabulary. Let’s say the students have ten vocabulary words in their unit that they need to know. One activity I would have them do is play charades with the words. They would break up into small groups, have one player choose a card with a vocab word on it, have the player act it out while others guess, and then take turns doing this game of charades. Before I broke them up into groups, I would first go over the vocabulary words, such as how to pronounce them and what the definition is to make sure they didn't come across any words they had no clue what they were. I think it is good for the teacher to give a brief introduction first. After they acted in groups, they would, as a group, write the word, draw a picture, and write a sentence using the vocab word. This may not be as much of a constructivist approach, but I feel it would be help to see that they mastered the content. Another option would be to have students explain why they chose to act a word out a certain way or what made the guesser guess the word in order to check for understanding.

These activities are social activities where students would work in a group. The student does have to work individually to think of a way to act out a word. If they cannot act it out, it might mean they do not know the word. I think charades allows for guessing and conversation about what the actor is doing which is a good way to structure activities. Conversation about the content and verbalizing it is a good way to help learn it. If they practice, they will learn these skills and do them automatically over time.

Check out the following website for additional ways to incorporate constructivist lessons in the classroom. It might also clarify or reinforce the ideas you have about it. There are several additional links on the website to learn more. Click here to go to Classroom Applications of Constructivism.

Memory Process

Knowing how your students’ memories work and the memory process can help a teacher plan her lessons and teaching. She can understand why students may not understand or remember something they learned.  With the information process model, a teacher can understand that students have multiple stimuli going into their brain throughout the day and some of it may get weeded out. In order remember it students must encode it or rehearse it. Teachers can help give meaning to what students are learning, rather than just lecturing and presenting information. If a student does an activity that relates to what they are talking about, it will give the subject meaning.

Also, teachers can help students remember certain things through repeating it, mnemonics, organization, elaboration or through visual imagery. Students will learn different and some strategies may work better for certain students than others. Anytime you can create an analogy or help organize information, this could possibly help students remember it. It is important to make sure to encourage kids to be creative with their memory devices because it is whatever works for them…there is not right or wrong answer.

This is a great website called Let Kids Lead where students have shared their favorite mnemonics devices. They are pretty clever!

Cognitive Learning

One important concept in cognitive learning is how information is processed. While the diagram showed in class may be advanced for students, I believe it applies to them and still have valuable information they should know. Students, and teachers, need to know why they remember certain things and why they forget others. It is important for teachers to recognize what information students might remember better and what information needs more work. One main thing about this process is that encoding or rehearsal must take place in order for the information to be readily retrieved. This means that whatever the teacher is teaching or whatever the students are learning must have meaning.  As a teacher, I want to know how to help my students remember important material that will be built upon, such as in math, and other important concepts in all areas that will help them as they continue. 

This may be using a certain learning strategy to help them remember “I before e except after c” or using an acronym. This could look like the teacher having students create projects that will help ingrain the information in their memory rather than having them memorize for a test and forget. Students may practice and rehearse a passage they have to memorize over and over until they have said it so many times and practiced it that they will never forget. Teachers can help students by telling students how the information is used in the real world or how it will benefit them. Many times math may seem pointless an useless, and after that class students will forget. A teacher could connect the importance of math to how it could be used in the real world and how it is built upon in 

additional classes.

In a different class, we learned about a great website that has a bunch of learning strategies for all subject areas. I believe this tool would be helpful to a teacher in helping give acronyms to difficult concepts or showing them the importance of a subject. The website is called The Learning Toolbox and it is a great resource to check out.

Assessment

One lesson third grade students learn is multiplication facts. Many students struggle to learn math facts. This is one area where it is easier to assess where students are at and really calculate the growth.  After studying these facts for a little while, I would give a standard test to all students with a certain number of math facts, say around 25 and give them five minutes to do it. This would be a formal assessment to see how much they know, what we need to work on specifically, and can track progress. I would also give this same test at the end to see how much they improved. These are two formal assessments I would use. I could also use a different math test to mix things up, but then I would not see how much they improved on the same test.

 As we work on the facts, I would use two informal assessments. I heard an idea from a teacher called “Number Talks.” In Number Talks, the teacher puts a math fact on the board, and students calculate it in their head mentally. They try to work the problems different ways until the teacher calls time. For each way they solve the problem, the hold up a finger next to their chest. Then, students share all answers out loud and then explain how they came to the answer.  This method helps students see how students come up with answers and see why they may get wrong answers. Teachers can see who knows their facts and who struggles. Many times when students are explaining their answers, they realize where they messed up and got the wrong answer.

Another informal assessment strategy is to play a math facts game. The teacher could have math facts or numbers on index cards or on the board. Students have to use a fly swatter to slap the correct answer to the question. This will help the teacher see what they students know. I could also see the assessment being stressful on some students because it is a race. Another informal assessment would be to give students an “exit slip” or “ticket out the door” problem or space to write questions to see where they are at and how they feel about the facts.

This is a link to a great blog by a third grade teacher in Colorado. She has many posts about assessments she has done to help her and her students. One great idea she had was to have a bookmark with different levels so students can monitor where they are at, and if they need extra help to learn something.