Please observe the following classes, reflect on your own teaching situation and

share your informed decisions about your future teaching from a constructive view of
education?
(Here are some collected constructivist teaching practices and my prompts for you to share
any of your thoughts, reflection and informed decisions. Hope that they are useful
to you.
a. What is the role of the teacher in this class?
b. What is the role of the students in this class?
c. Do the students have chances to (co)construct their knowledge/personal understanding of
the lesson?
d. Have you ever taught in the same way as in this class?
e. If yes, are you going to make any changes that are informed of the Constructivism?)

TABLE 13.7 Constructivist Teaching Practices

Many constructivist practices can be incorporated into any class.
1 . Constructivist teachers encourage and accept student autonomy and initiative.
2. Constructivist teachers use raw data and primary sources, along with manipulative,
interactive, and physical materials.
3 . When framing tasks, constructivist teachers use cognitive terminology such as "classify,"
"analyze," "predict," and "create?'
4.Constructivist teachers alow student responses to drive lessons, shift instructional
strategies, and alter content.
5. Constructivist teachers inquire about students' understandings of concepts before sharing
their own understandings of those concepts.
6. Constructivist teachers encourage students to engage in dialogue, both with the teacher
and with one another.
7. Constructivist teachers encourage student inquiry by asking thoughtful, open-ended
questions and encouraging students to ask questions of each other.
8. Constructivist teachers seck claboration of students' initial responses.
9. Constructivist teachers engage students in experiences that might engender
contradictions to their initial hypotheses and then encourage discussion.
10. Constructivist teachers allow wait-time after posing questions.
11. Constructivist teachers provide time for students to discover relationships and create
metaphors.
Class A
There are twenty-five students in Ms. Blake's ninth grade science class, comprised of a
heterogeneous (không đồng nhất) mix of students who vary widely in their knowledge,
intellectual abilitics, competence for independent learning and basic skills of writing,
reading, arithmetic spelling. The students are seated in neat rows in front of the blackboard
and the teacher conducts the lesson while standing at the front of the classroom. After most
whole class lessons, students either have short quizzes or individual worksheet assignments
to firm up and assess what they were expected to learn from the lesson(s).

The classroom environment seems pleasant, for the room is clean and orderly with science
posters prominently displayed, leaving no doubt that science is taught here. During class the
students are not badly behaved, even though disruptions are certainly not uncommon. The
less competent students often fail to pay attention during lessons; day dreaming and talking
can be observed and occasionally distracting or even pestering other students during
lessons. Ms. Blake uses various strategies to alter these unproductive and often-disruptive
student behaviors, and she regularly asks for them to be quiet and to "listen up."

In her interactions with her students, she is more likely to notice, to call on, and to praise the
students who most frequently give "good answers." She gives easier and shorter
assignments to students who are less likely to get it" and pays even less attention to the
details of their efforts. Results of standardized achievement test scores reveal that the less
successful students are not making good progress in the mastery of basic content of the
science curriculum, and there is corroborating evidence to indicate that they are falling
further behind their classmates in other areas as well. The following lesson illustrates how
instruction typically occurs in Ms. Blake's class. The objective for this lesson is not
understand the difference between aparallelanda series circuit, a common 9* grade physical
science objective that is useful ot master before high school physics.

Ms. Blake drew a complete circuit on the overhead projector and told the students to listen
carefully as she described the features of acomplete circuit. Her example compared a series
with a parallel circuit. Ms. Blake traced the path of the electrons in both drawings and
pointed out what would happen in the series circuit if one of the bulbs were to burn out.
She identified the major differences between the two wiring schemes. Then she asked a few
students to come to the overhead and mark the point on the circuit where resistance and
key connections were necessary. To convey the predictive utility of parallel and series
circuits, she demonstrated how one could determine which wiring system was used in their
classroom by removing one of the florescent light bulbs. At this point in the lesson, students
were told to draw and label a parallel and a series circuit in their notebooks.

Following the demonstration, students were placed into groups where they were given
wires, batteries and bulbs and instructed to build a series and a parallel circuit just like the
one shown on the overhead. They were instructed to work together and record their results
on their worksheet. Ms. Blake surveyed the room as the students began to work. In each of
the groups, one or two students actually connected the wires while the other three
members of the group either occasionally looked on or chatted amongst themselves.
Students worked on the task for 15 minutes and then as the period came to a close they
were given a home work assignment that required them to identify series and parallel
circuits from several examples,

Class B
Ms. Blake's ninth grade classroom can be distinguished from other classrooms both in looks
and sounds. Upon walking down the corridors we hear from the classroom at the end of the
halway an array of voices and sounds like buzzing, chattering, an occasional "I got it" and
sometimes expressions of frustration. Upon entering the classroom, we see clusters of
students working with various objects. In fact, if it were not for the age of Ms. Blake, it
would be hard to identify who the teacher is in this classroom. Ms. Blake is talking with one
of the groups near the doorway and says, "Why did you select that arrangement and place
the bulb there? Will it work if attached ni another way? Talk about it in your group and I wil
get back ot you shortly." She then moves ot the next group, sits down with them and
watches as students continue working with batteries and bulbs in the center of their cluster.
They don't seem to notice Ms. Blake and keep on talking with each other. She is smiling as
she observes them.

If we enter this classroom with our traditional preconceived notions that classrooms of
learning should be ordered, systematic and quiet, we will miss the dynamic leaming that is
occurring in this and other classrooms that are structured for cooperative learning and from
a constructivist philosophy. In fact, we may even make the egregious error of thinking that
Ms. Blake has lost control of her class and her students. We may notice several students
frustrated after their initial attempts resulted in bulbs that did not light. Furthermore, we
can't seem to find her desk; it appears ot be ni the back of the room, although it si hard ot
tell which is the back and which si hte front of this classroom. Everything seems to be
centered around the students.

Using the principles of cooperative learning and constructivist learning theory, Ms. Blake has
carefully built a learning community in which inquiry and problem solving, along with careful
attention to the ways of teacher-student and student-student interaction, are subtly
arranged to promote deep and enduring learning. Ms. Blake approaches teaching and
learning from a constructivist perspective and believes that we (both children and adults)
construct our own
understandings of the world. Therefore, the learning process must challenge us to reflect
upon our interactions with objects and ideas and make sense of our world by synthesizing
new experiences into what we already know or understand (Brooks & Brooks, 1993).
Furthermore, Ms. Blake knows how important it is to challenge and empower students to
"ask their own questions and seck their own answers ... to understand the worlds'
complexities" (Brooks &Brooks, 193, .p 5.) Additionaly, Ms. Blake realizes that to empower
students to inquire and explore their worlds they must interact with one another as a
community of learners and they must be able to do so frequently and easily. Ms. Blake also
understands that for learning to occur students must struggle to understand their
environment and that for true growth to occur students must learn to endure a period of
mental discomfort or cognitive dissonance. Thus, she must design the physical and social
structure of her classroom to enable students to work together cooperatively, embrace
uncertainty and learn to enjoy the struggle to make sense of their environment.