Constructivism

    At the moment I heard about constructivism, it immediately reminded me of other lectures. It reminded me of classes in which students are in center, books that are not the only source of information, the process of learning that occurs in an interactive way and assessment done not only through tests. After reading the lecture, I realized that constructivism is an important theory connected to classroom teaching. Constructivist teaching is different from the traditional way of teaching. It consists on learning based on what we already know. Constructivism can be used in different ways by teachers in classes in order to improve the process of learning. Students become active participants as they are always looking for new ways to construct their knowledge. In this theory I like the fact that, the teacher always helps students to better understand the lesson in an active manner. I believe that this theory is very helpful for both students and teachers.

     As a student, I think that constructivism is part of our learning every day. I find it very helpful because it helps to raise our curiosity on how things function, it helps to find solutions to problems that might rise, or it helps to reflect upon our past experiences. When I first started to write about this post, I made a connection with my past experiences and this is an example of using constructivism. As students, we learn to create a new knowledge for ourselves and how to control our own learning process. This theory can help us to express our understanding using different ways. As students, we get more involved in the process of learning rather than on the final product, and what is more interesting to me is that we learn how to learn on our own. By applying this theory, we collaborate with other students and we improve our skills. We improve our skills in communication and our social skills, as well.

    On the other hand, I find it helpful for teachers, because as their lesson happens in an interactive way through discussions, the teacher moderates students process of learning and suggests, or helps them. By applying these methods, it is much easier for teachers to make the process of learning interesting and cooperative.  A good example from my own experience can be those situations when our professors have asked us to think of our own perspectives, and to make our judgments based on the topic that we were presented. This lead to some discussions among us as students and each of us had his/her own judgment on the topic. Our role, as future teachers as this theory proposes, is to provide a safe atmosphere to our students to feel free in the process of learning. We should present different tasks with real world application, so that we provide students the possibility to conceptualize their knowledge. We should also provide them assistance to fuse their actual experience and their new knowledge. Another thing, that we should do as teachers, is to make the gap between what students know and what they will learn, as much clear and easy to absorb. I think that all this information will be very useful to me as a future teacher, because I can use this theory to improve the process of learning to my students.

    To sum up, constructivism can be applied in a beneficial way for teachers and students. By learning more about this theory we create some knowledge, and learn more about how helpful it can be in classrooms. The best way to reflect on its benefits is achieved only by applying it in our classes as students, and as teachers to be.