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: This is a dilemma most teachers face in their classrooms. It’s such an important question if we believe the one doing the talking is doing the learning. You can use discussion structures like turn-and-talk or think-pair-share regularly so the students can get used to talking to a partner. You can start with one-on-one conversations with the student and move up to small groups and then whole groups. You can pull students aside in the morning and “rehearse” what they could say later in the group discussion. Some students won’t share their thinking but will share their writing. Other students are the opposite but will let the teacher read their writing. It won’t happen overnight but you can work toward facilitating a path for each student to feel comfortable using their voice in the classroom.
A: You may want to try a math workshop model for your math instruction. Math
workshop can be implemented at any grade level and consists of a general structure of starting with a number talk, then a whole group focus lesson, guided math groups, and a final student reflection time to reflect on learning (possibly an exit ticket, math journals or turn-and-talk). Implementing a workshop model can offer more opportunities for student ownership and engagement.
A: Constructivist teachers approach parent conferences by building on strengths to meet students’ learning needs. We share the student’s strengths and progress. We also share students’ areas needing improvement as feedback the child can use to move forward with the teacher’s scaffolding and support. Constructivist teachers view the whole child as essential and share the child’s social and emotional development in parent-teacher conferences. We use our conferences as a way to learn about the child’s family, culture, and interests. We build a bridge between school and home by
suggesting ways the parents can support the child’s growth and development.
Student-led conferences are another constructivist practice where students lead, sharing their strengths, needs, achievements, and goals with their parents. At the same time, the classroom teacher supports the student’s report with artifacts and examples, clarifying where needed. This puts the child squarely at the center of the parent-teacher conference.
A: It sounds like you are having what I called my beginning-of-the-school-
year dreams, where you wake yourself up at night planning your classroom. It is very fun to make plans for how you want your classroom to look and feel. But it can be stressful to feel unsure about how the room will set up when you may have inherited someone else’s materials.
I would encourage you to begin with a thorough “clean out” of the
room. We teachers fear discarding something we might find useful in
the future. We stick it in a storage bin and forget we even have it. It all
begins to add to clutter, which takes away valuable storage space for
materials we use frequently.
Pull everything out of storage and evaluate what you find. If the materials are not in good shape, have missing pieces, or are outdated,
discard them. Don’t be afraid to eliminate materials you have no use
for. Living with too much unused stuff is stressful. Once you have
paired down to the useful materials, you can think about where it makes most sense to be located. Materials you use frequently should be labeled and placed where they are most likely to be used. Materials for small group instruction should be stored near that area. Store materials for learning centers in their area.
Place playground equipment near the door where you go for recess. Put your books and resources up higher and near where you will use them.
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.