Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Constructivism in practice
Both constructivist and contructionist have similar theories. When I think of contructivist it reminds of piaget of thinking cognitive and social interaction. Then contructivist reminds of Vygotsky of thinking of critical reflection. In physical education there is plenty of social interaction. I like having my students work with different partners every class. This way the same people are not grouped with their friends all the time. It makes students work with someone they might not normally talk to. I believe that positive social interaction in class benefits the students tremendously. One way to promote social interaction throughout the year is the use of cooperative games. These activities are meant for the students to problem solve and work together. At the younger level it tends to be much harder for them. Some of the cooperative games that I use are setup in stations. There are various activities that have students thinking and working together to complete the task. In the reading there are six tasks that teachers can use to help students generate and test hypotheses. Three that I like for cooperative games activity include “problem solving, experimental inquiry, and decision making (Pitler, pg 203).” One of the tasks that the students are asked to accomplish is having multiple students stand on a 10x8 sheet of plastic. The object is for the students to turn the sheet over on the other side without stepping of the plastic. This is very hard for some groups of students. But this way the students are social interacting, problem solving, and decision making. They are working together to accomplish a task. Teachers need to create learning environments so that learner can be involved in the lesson. There are several instructional strategies that include direct instruction, indirect instruction, experimental learning, Independent study, and Interactive instruction. I believe that interactive instruction makes learning more enjoyable for students. By having them more involved in the learning process they will retain the information more.
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I know you said that you typically do cooperative activities because it focuses on working with others. Do you usually do a unit on cooperative activities or do you try to infuse it into your lessons throughout the year? I'd also be interested in how you partner up your students. Sometimes it's nice to split students up in different ways so that aren't always working with the same students.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteWe do a unit on cooperative games. But i also do many games throughout the year that involve it. We play a game called "castles" it involves having 6 hoola hoops. and gator balls. there are two teams. its a form of dodgeball but the students are not throwing them at each other. The object is to knock the hula hoops over which is "castle" six hoops put together in a certain way. The students have to work together to put them together. This is a great game. I sometimes will have them find a partner in the other class. or have them line up in front of me with a partner and i will count them off. many different ways to split it up
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI think your cooperative games strategies are fantastic! What an excellent way to bring together problem solving, communication, collaboration and physical activities. I bet for some of your students, those activities where it takes a variety of abilities, not just athletic, to be successful makes them feel great about physical education.
Have you ever thought about creating a website or video log of physical 'puzzles' that need strategic planning and teamwork to be solved? Or even have kids research their own puzzles that can be acted out, a la the Tower Of Hanoi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi)?
I wish I was in YOUR phys ed class as a kid! My phys ed teacher used to make the girls play with jump ropes while the boys got to go play dodgeball! I wanted to play dodgeball too! = )
Megan Boyd
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYou have mentioned several great ways that you can effectively incorporate a constructivist approach to learning in your field of Physical Education. There are many ways for students to "construct" meaning, and this week we explored several of them, including collaborative projects and building artifacts or creating presentations. In addition, as you mentioned, group problem solving is another way for students to make sense out of something and to find meaning in what they are learning. When students are faced with a problem for which they must work together to find a solution, many learning skills are utilized. As Megan said, your cooperative activities not only challenge students physically, but communication and logic skills are also tested. This ensures that any student can be successful and offer valid input to the group, regardless of their athletic ability.