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Thought Paper: Constructivism

ETEC 512 | ARTIFACT THREE

I chose to include the artifact below because it was at this time when I was introduced, briefly, to von Glasersfeld's radical contructivist theory. Whilst I can't say that I agree with him in entirety, von Glasersfeld's arguments on why constructivism is a better theory are salient when he argues that behaviourism doesn't teach thinking and cognition. He argues, and I agree wholeheartedly, that behaviourism worked in didactic classroom when students were asked to sit quietly and engage in texts. I, too, agree with von Glasersfeld in that there is still a time and place for wrote learning (e.g. knowing your doubles/halves in maths), however, it shouldn't be the centerpiece of your practice (Lombardi, 2010).

(Lombardi, 2010)

Elements of von Glasersfeld's radical constructivist theory take shape in my pedagogy today by incorporating Visible Thinking in my classroom (Ritchhart & Perkins, 2008). Including the multiple perspectives of my learners, bridging upon the connections that they can make to learning and their lives (e.g. smores by the campfire = melting states of matter), constructing knowledge through social interaction, understanding why their learning is important and giving plenty of opportunity to show what they know in a new context are just a few examples of what it could look like.

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In this example, I had students consolidate their understanding of physical vs. chemical changes in states of matter. After watching a brief video, they had to reconstruct their own visual definitions (using Pic-Collage) in order to teach others (viewers of our class blog were the audience as well as works on display outside of our classroom.

(Ouellette, J., 2013d)

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