Constructivist educators always have questions, and we need colleagues who invite our questions and continue the discussion! We (Krista & Dana) have continued to discuss our questions about teaching and learning over our 30 years of work together.
We love to hear teachers’ questions because they tell us what they’re interesting in working on now. It’s the same with children whose questions tell us where they are in their learning. And it’s the same for Dana and I (Krista). We bring our questions to colleagues and each other to discuss and grow deeper in our understanding. Sometimes, this just creates more questions! We see this as powerful professional development.
We would love to know what questions you have about constructivist teaching. Please share yours here and we will either post your question with our answer under this dropdown, in our newsletter, or we will respond to you by email.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
Krista and Dana
A: In the past ten or so years, we each noticed how our classroom visits and school
walkthroughs were changing. We were seeing more worksheets and packets, whole
group instruction, and children sitting for most of the day. “Brain breaks” were employed to keep their energy up. We saw teachers using more reward systems to motivate students, and children were less engaged-possibly due to fewer projects, fewer choice activities, or less individual attention. We know if learning is fun,then students are talking, working together, and leaned in – but we weren’t seeing as much of that kind of learning.
Together, we discussed the changes we were seeing. More importantly, we felt the shift wasn’t because of shifts in teachers but primarily due to changing expectations placed upon them by outside entities. For example, to cover more curriculum at scale rather than differentiate for student learning and positive outcomes on the students’ own timetable. Another example is that kindergarteners were now expected to read and seen as behind when entering first grade as pre-readers.
After many conversations, we decided to meet regularly and write pieces about what we had been observing in education and our own experiences as educators. Our focus was to return to the child as the heart of the classroom, centering our focus on each child and their development. We revisited our beliefs, such as the person doing the talking is doing the learning, students need varied groupings and structures for learning throughout the day, students need projects and choices, and their progress needs to be compared to themselves, not esoteric benchmarks that may not consider the individuality of the child as a learner. We wanted to share alternatives to one-size-fits-all instruction.
We are constructivists, believing students construct knowledge based on their learning experiences. Constructivist teachers create those learning experiences by understanding where students are in their learning and then designing or adapting lessons to meet the needs of the learners. They use authentic learning experiences in various configurations throughout the learning day, working with the class one at a time, all at once. We wanted to have that conversation on a larger scale. This is why we wrote the book.
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