My experience with Constructivism

I am a 90’s kid. I started grade school 3 years before the third millennium. At this time period conventional teaching dominated most of the schools. There were development in the teaching profession in the nearby countries like Singapore, but not the Philippines. Development was sluggish.

Anyway, my purpose of this writing is not about to discuss the past statute of education in the Philippines. In this short article I will be shortly discussing my experience about constructivism. Like what I have said at the beginning of this essay, I was a 90’s kid and was taught in a traditional mantra – memorization, actively listened to discussion and acquired factual information from the teacher. I heavily encountered this from grade school until I graduated in secondary school.

A sudden change had occur when I enrolled in college. I had this specific teacher which the way of teaching was really new to me. It was quite bizarre, but I liked it. It captured my interest in learning. It had given me more sense of being part in the discussion. And the lessons were making sense because I constructed those from my own experience. I didn’t know that teaching had different forms until my professor discussed about “Constructivism”. In traditional teaching, a learner sit, listen, and acquire factual information. On the other hand, in constructivism the knowledge is constructed by the learner through an active mental process, and build and construct their own meaning and knowledge. This is done by incorporating knowledge to their previous experience.

Fast forward, I adapted constructivism when I became a teacher for roughly 2 years. Take this simple example. When I taught “Oral Communication” to my students, I didn’t just let them listen to me and acquire information. But instead, I let them joined the discussion for the entire class period. Questions were being asked like, how do you define communication? How communication affects your dealing with other people? How communication important in developing peace? Etc. I saw strengths in this approach because it enabled my students to be part in the discussion, it gave them the thought that their ideas matter, it gave a sense of teamwork, and most importantly, recollection of previous experiences.

Just like any other approach, constructivism has flaws. One of it is the learner’s experience. Students are not born equal. One may experience one thing that the other have not. This may cause a conflict in learning. This can be further discuss in the next article. Stay tune!

Image source:

Credit: targovcom

Retrieved from: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/children-building-blocks-in-kindergarten-group-kids-royalty-free-image/826194278

Developing Self – Efficacy

Social cognitive theory is developed by psychologist and a professor in Stanford, Albert Bandura. According to him, there are 3 ways a student can learn. Through observation, self – efficacy, and modelling. I have applied social cognitive teaching strategies to my past senior high school students, and found out that the best strategy turned out to be “Self-Efficacy”. Let me just define briefly the two strategies I applied in my class.

Observational learning

This is when a student observe and imitate models they encounter in the environment, enables them to acquire information. There are 4 phases of observational learning.

1. Attentional processes – account for the information that is selected for observation in the environment.
2. Retention processes – remembering the observed information.
3. Production processes – reconstruct and apply the acquired information.
4. Motivational processes – states that an acquired observation is likely to be performed by the observer in an appropriate situation if it can lead to positive outcome or results.

Self – Efficacy

This is the belief of an individual in his capacity to achieve a goal.

How my students learn best?

The best way to get students to learn best is to believe that they can do it. Thus, improving their self – confidence. In my case, I let my students developed their self – efficacy through vicarious experience and verbal persuasion.

Vicarious experience

I let my students observed their peers succeed in tasks. In this way, they can develop a strong belief that they, too, can do it. I never had let them compare to one another as this might cause havoc and can be just a disappointment if they failed to reach the achievement of that other student. It is important to let them compete to their previous performance. In this way they can see the trend of their improvements.

Verbal Persuasion

Effective communication and feedback is the most essential in the learning development of my students. I am so transparent in their development and where they are heading. I sometimes created a graphical excel sheet of their performance. There were ups and downs. I asked them what happened to these times where the performance was low and what they did when the performance was high. After that, I asked for their commitments to improve. This kind of communication built our strong connection.

Source:

Vinney, C. (2019). “Social Cognitive Theory: How we learn from the behavior of others.” ThoughtCo. Retrieved from: https://www.thoughtco.com/social-cognitive-theory-4174567

Image source:

Photo by Jilson Tiu. Retrieved from: http://nine.cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/2018/02/28/teachers-salary-philippines.html