Constructivism TIPR

Current Teacher Behavior

1. How the teacher uses modern constructivist techniques/complex learning environments to promote student learning:

The teacher I've observed uses constructivist techniques. I've witnessed evidence of cooperative learning with a JigSaw. The students were learning the concepts from a book called, They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff. This was a good book that helped the students learn the basics of argument, but it was a bit long for the students to really digest. The teacher thought that the students would be able to understand and comprehend this book better by breaking the class into smaller groups of four to read, analyze, and present on one chapter. In this way, each group would be cooperating to understand and present the material together and also the class as a whole would be cooperating to be able to learn many of the concepts in the entire book. Each group would also become an "expert" in their chapter with the task of teaching the rest of the class what they'd learned. This teacher also used a complex learning environment with an authentic task when she had the students watch a clip from a courtroom scene where a law student was attempting to discredit a witness for the prosecution. The students were asked what happened in the scene. The teacher wrote down all their comments and then she was able to construct a diagram of the Tolman Method of Argument. This is an example of having the students examine a broad/complex idea and then narrowing it down to its individual parts and then determined how they work together. She also used spiraling as she emersed the students by having them play parts in a fictional roleplay of a story regarding an incidence of mass cheating on a final and the subsequent questioning of students by school officials. Elements of argument were readdressed lightly and this was used to introduce the next text they would be reading--The Crucible.

 How is the teacher implementing the 4 tenets of constructivism and the 3 modes of processing?

The teacher is implementing the four tenets of constructivism by first, giving the students tools to work with and then having them actively drawing on their own knowledge and reasoning to construct a model of argument. And second, she is also allowing them to actively process the knowledge to adapt to the learning in the class. And then third, she is guiding them to make sense of what she is laying out in front of them. And fourth, she's using cultural and language-based instruction and interactions.
She is also using the three modes of processing by having the students do presentations (action). She uses the image of the movie clip to make her point (iconic). And finally, she organized the students' words and comments into a usable diagram (symbolic).

Student Needs

2. What are these students' needs through the lens of Constructivism? What more could or should be done?

 These students need to have an environment rich in opportunities for guided observations, problem-based learning, making predictions, spiraling, and collaborative learning. And although the teacher is already doing of a lot of constructivist teaching, there could be more group work and collaboration. And the group work that she had, the individuals in the groups didn't have specific tasks to do or tasks for cooperative learning. One or two members of the group may have worked hard or contributed a lot and the other couple members might have done nothing, were afraid to contribute, or might have been outright ignored. Giving each group member a specific task, or assigning roles, would eliminate this problem. 
 

Plans for your Lesson

3. How will you address these needs when you teach your mini-lesson in this class?

I already did my mini-lesson and addressed the needs of the students by having them work together to solve a problem with some support as needed. The task I gave them was to create a moving citation. I passed out an instructional handout on MLA formatting and then handed out several papers that had parts of a book citation, i.e. the author's name, The title of the book, periods, question marks, the publisher, etc. The students were asked to line up at the front of the room and tasked with putting the parts of the citation in the right order. This is an example of problem based learning. They had to face a challenge and do the best they could to solve the problem. But these students weren't completely on their own. They had scaffolding in the form of handouts with instructions and they had me to give them cues or clues to accomplish the task correctly as needed. This model used collaborative learning as they worked together to get in the right order. This was also spiraling; these students have learned to cite using MLA previously--more than once, actually.