Essential question: What is the link between “tinkering”, “hard play”, and the “growth mindset”?Let's start first with an overview of each:
So what do all of these have in common? To me they are all ways to engage students. Many students are unmotivated and maybe the reason has more to do with the way they are being taught than to the student themselves. They are being taught things that have little life value. Why bother learning something when you will have no use for it later? "When putting real-world play into the classroom, students are more motivated when the projects are expansive, big ideas" (Stavely, 2015). The problem lies in how educators think about what to teach next. Districts hand select what needs to be taught and the teacher has little freedom. "When you start with content, and then you think about play, you often think about a game like ‘Jeopardy’ and the facts that kids need to know. If you can really dig deeper into the understandings you want kids to have five or 10 years down the road, those are almost always real situations" (Stavely, 2015). These situations require you to tinker, play, and have a growth mindset. You have to believe that you can make a difference and everything else will fall into place. Sources
Hard at Play. (n.d.). Retrieved May 25, 2016, from https://www2.naz.edu/stories/hard-play Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom [Kindle]. Popova, M. (2014). Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/ Stavely, Z. (2015, July 24). How to Bring Playfulness to High School Students. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/07/24/how-to-bring-playfulness-to-high-school-students/
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This week, unfortunately I had to miss class. I was in charge of organizing a community 5K for the end of the school year. It was a great success. I went back and listened to the recording. Luckily I have already taken a few of Lee’s classes so I didn’t have much to catch up on. I did learn a lot about constructionism this week through reading. Until reading I did not realize there was a much related theory of constructivism. This week the differences were clarified. I also was able to see how important these ideas could be to education.
I read Genevieve’s comment and it made me think about my response. She said constructionism is new. She thought about it in relationship to how it changes how educators think about education. In this sense it is new. Without this theory we would most likely not be considering the maker movement, PBL, and other student-centered approaches. I thought about it in terms of the theory itself. It’s not a new idea, as people have always been trying new things and learning from this. We make models of things we have seen and use this knowledge to make new models as we learn. This is not new but how we use this information could be new. I next read Catherine’s blog and found it put what I thought after reading Genevieve’s post perfectly. I like how Catherine said that it does not necessarily bring new ideas, but brings the theory to the forefront. Finally I read Gerald’s post and I really liked the approach he took. He included a personal example and I think it really showed how important the theory of constructionism is. When students struggle to build or create something and then they succeed, they are more likely to share with others. This is where the real learning happens, because the student has fully processed their experience. I must say I am really excited about this class. I already got the Arduino kit because it did not have to go to Alaska. I will be spending the summer in Indiana. I was so excited to play with it that I opened it up and started messing around with project 1. This just made me more excited about the rest of the semester. I love tinkering and making things! Essential Question: Do you believe Constructionism brings any new ideas to the table as a theory of education? Why or Why not? I don't think it is anything new, rather I think it is something that has always been there but underused. It is scary and different. Sometimes people are afraid to try new things. It also does not align with the amount of material required to be covered by many teacher's curriculums. Lets first start with a definition of Constructionism. "Constructionism views the world as being internally created through constructs, or internal models. We thus view the world through these constructs and which have significant and often unrealized effect on our perceptions" (Constructionism and Constructivism, n.d.). There are 2 parts to this: either constructing a new idea or changing the connections you made about an idea. Constructionism was developed by Seymour Papert and argues for "learning based on creativity, tinkering, exploring, building, and presentation" (Donaldson, 2014). People are constantly creating things to fit the world around them. This is the definition of technology in science textbooks. We are makers and are constantly creating new things, this is not a new idea. This is very related to the earlier idea of constructivism by Piaget. Constructivism is the “… use of active methods which give broad scope to the spontaneous research of the child or adolescent and requires that every new truth to be learned, be rediscovered, or at least reconstructed by the student and not simply imported to him” (Martinez & Stager, 2013). To keep these straight, lets think of constructionism as more hands on, or physical, and constructivism more in the mind, or cognitive (Constructionism and Constructivism, n.d.). I think of both of these theories when I remember a saying I always heard teachers say "if you can teach it you know it." However this does not imply a practicality to the knowledge the student obtained. This statement needs to be revamped to include authenticity of learning, just as constructionism advocates for. There are many benefits to a teaching style that reflects constructionism. One huge benefit is demonstrated by this statement, "Once students mastered a new capability, such as waterjet cutting or microcontroller programming, they had a near-evangelical interest in showing others how to use it" (Martinez & Stager, 2013). I have personally seen this with a project I did this semester with students. They were making models of homes and insulating them with materials they had "purchased." Students wanted to help others, sometimes even above getting their own work done. The students were invested, and wanted to share with each other. Another key idea is that students are in control, and must create their own learning. "Best of all, gone are the days of helplessness, dependency, and consumption. Making lets you take control of your life, be more active, and be responsible for your own learning" (Martinez & Stager, 2013). This also shows how students are invested and this in turn can create a positivity around education that is not found in a classroom taught in the traditional way. Sources
Constructionism and Constructivism. (n.d.). Retrieved May 17, 2016, from http://changingminds.org/explanations/research/philosophies/constructionism.htm Donaldson, J. (2014). The Maker Movement and the Rebirth of Constructionism. Retrieved May 17, 2016, from http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/constructionism-reborn/ Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom [Kindle]. |
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