There are many technology tools that can be used to support the constructionist learning strategies. These tools allow the students to learn by getting a firsthand experience of the knowledge so they can assimilate or accommodate the new knowledge into their understanding of the world. In this week’s resources there were several tools and ideas that would be very useful when using constructionist strategies.
The one example listed that I believe exemplifies using technology in a constructionist way is the example of the science class that set out to determine if the rain in their city was overly acidic. They began by making predictions of what they thought the PH of various water sources would be. Then they used technology tools to measure the PH at different locations and then to record and chart their data. They also used the internet to get information about acid rain and other resources to determine the acidity of rain in other places around the nation. This type of project based, real world data gathering is exactly what constructionist theory is all about.
Another tool listed in the resources was the use of Gizmos from Explore Learning. Gizmos are online simulations that provide an excellent opportunity for students to perform experiments in a virtual environment online. Last year I had my classes use the reaction time simulation to do a real world experiment to find out several questions. First, do people respond to visual or auditory stimuli faster, and second, do males or females respond faster to the stimuli? After making predictions, the students each ran the simulation that first shows something on the screen and as soon as the students see it they click the mouse button to measure their reaction time. They do that 10 times to get an average response time, and then they did the same thing with sound. The students then used a spreadsheet to record the data from each student in the class, and then they graphed the data. We were able to determine that in general, students reacted faster to the visual stimuli than the auditory, and that males were generally faster than females with their reaction times. It was really a fun project to work on and I think students really get a better understanding when they experience this type of thing.
I am a complete supporter of project based and inquiry based learning. The genuine, authentic learning that takes place when students are actually discovering things on their own is something to strive for as a teacher.
Posts
Doing projects that really get the students to "buy in" to what they are doing makes the learning process just that much easier to teach. I am sure that this project included some type of competition between the boys and girls which made them more anxious to get the correct results. Nice work and sounds like a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteChristopher, I agree that students discovering things on their own is something to strive for as a teacher, but how do you manage to get enough time to plan for these activities? Do you get time alloted at your school to collaborate with other teachers so that two or more subjects can work on these pojects/problems together?
ReplyDeleteAaron:
ReplyDeleteOf course, whenever we do projects like this there is a competitive nature to it. That really does add to the fun and motivates the students. When we found out that the boys reacted faster than the girls, I did a little research and found that in studies, males do generally react faster than females. So, our data corroborates other data that has been done in this area.
Kim:
ReplyDeleteI am in the fortunate position of being our school's technology coach and coordinator. My responsibilities include maintaining the technology equipment and working with teachers on how to use it with their students. I also teach one or two sections of classes each term. This allows me some time to find technology tools to use with various classes.
In our school, each teacher has two planning periods a day and they teach 4 or 5 classes depending on if they are a core or elective teacher. They meet regularly with their core teams and with their content area teachers to collaboratively plan what they are doing. This is a great way to share what is working with other teachers and to not have to reinvent the wheel every time you teach a new unit. This type of collaboration is very beneficial to everyone involved because it saves a lot of teacher planning time and teachers can share their best lessons with others.
Christopher, it must be very nice to be able to collaborate with the core team regularly. It is a goal at our school, but it just hasn't gotten off the ground. Maybe I need to force the issue a bit! Each time I use one of these new tools, I get so excited to share it with someone else.
ReplyDelete