For this post, I chose to look at a lesson that I am preparing for my SPED 402 class. It is a 4th grade science lesson about magnets. There are several things that I would do to teach this lesson using a constructivist approach.
1. Activate the students' prior knowledge about magnets by having a class discussion about anything they already know about the topic.
2. Allow students to individually experiment with magnets and different objects. This would allow them to come to their own conclusions about how magnets work and what kinds of things they attract or repel.
3. Have students discuss their conclusions with their classmates. This group interaction would allow them to compare their ideas and build off of each others' knowledge.
4. We would wrap up the lesson by having a class discussion about their conclusions. I would also ask students to give some examples of how magnets are used (or could be used) in daily life.
Below is a link to an interesting article that I found about how constructivist theory can be applied to mathematics. I think this is important because teachers often encourage students to memorize formulas without actually understanding the reasoning behind it. Constructivism emphasizes the importance of building off of prior knowledge and utilizing real world examples.
Constructivist Learning and Teaching
Love the specific steps!
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