I am Constructivist!

How constructivist am I? How can I become a better constructivist?  Should I bother to try? How may I influence education practice to shift towards constructivist ideology and practice? Should I?

These are the questions that I ponder after understanding and reading our modules about constructivism. We studied and read modules about the four major theories of learning, these are behavioural, social, constructivist and cognitive. Of all the four major theories of learning, my way of handling the classroom, my perception of the learning process, and my methods of teaching my students are more likely in a constructivist approach. 

Constructivism is a student-centred approach where learners are the ones who will create and make their knowledge with the help of the teachers as facilitators. According to Jonassen (1991), this theory applied to the development of learning environments such as focusing approaches to solve real-life situations and problems. 

Until this very moment that I knew constructivism is a kind of approach that I want to have. As I evaluate my strategies and activities on how I impart my knowledge for the past three years, I learned that I have a lot of theory- approaches that I applied such as cognitive, social and constructivists. However, it more on the approach of constructivism. I only apply and create my own learning strategies out of my professors' style way back in college. Most of the time, I see to it that learning must be explored by the students and I will only be the facilitator of knowledge. In my class, before the start of the formal discussions in the first semester, I gave my students an outline of the topics or subjects that we will be discussing in the particular course. Students are highly encouraged to research and deliver their know-how of a certain topic in the class in an oral recitation so that other students can interact and give more inputs about it. Aside from this, I would always incorporate real-life situations and problems in my class. I know that the best knowledge that I could give to them are not the definitions and theories that they will memorize every now and then but to equip themselves and be prepared to the future endeavours in their life. 

Although I already classify myself as a constructivist, I also need some adjustments and eat more things to have a better approach. I need to align my learning activities to help the communities in our small province. Most of my activities are an eye-opener of the societal problems however outputs are just for submission and compliance. I can do better by dedicating it to the community and using the knowledge so that we can contribute something to the society as a whole such as conducting researches addressing the needs of the community and providing outputs that we could use as extension services. Our knowledge will just be nothing if we won't dedicate ourselves in serving the community. 

"Ang aklat ng isang tunay na mag-aaral ay ang lipunang kanyang kinabibilangan, ang kanyang guro ay ang mamamayan, at ang kanyang pagsusulit ay ang pagsasagawa ng mga mapaglayang pagkilos" -Jose Pepe Alcantara 

Improving our constructivist approaches is important in the teaching-learning process. It is necessary for me to be better with my constructivist type of strategies and activities. As what the former Department of Education secretary said that education is the solution to solve the cancer of society. It is important for me as an educator to dedicate my learnings for the development of our motherland and to influence my students to do the same. It is actually easy for us to memorize, to know and understand things, but it not easy for us to give attention and dedicate ourselves to serve the whole nation.

Based on the observation in our educational system, our education practice should be improved. Most of the teachers are still using the traditional cognitive approach. Enhancing cognitivism is not wrong especially for those programs which have board examinations, however, it is also important for us to empower our cognitivism ideology in order to give an active atmosphere and to have active learners in the classroom, to understand and know the real-life problems in our society and to help the society as the future of the nation to bring progress and development using the knowledge and their capabilities that they gained in the institution. 

Intelligence will be useless if we won't use it. Knowledge will be inefficacious if we won't apply it. Education will be nothing without serving the community.

Releasing Piaget and Vygotsky In Me

Jean Piaget’s works and Lev Vygotsky’s works grounded two major strands in Constructivist
Learning Theory. Both psychologists gave different constructivist views. The former had his
cognitive constructivist approach while the latter had his social cognitive approach. However,
as a learner and educator, what are the past experiences that I’ve failed to learn and facilitate
and how I cope with that right now?

Cognitivist Learning Theory is a learner-centred approach where people learn through their
experiences in the learning environment and teachers acted a role of a guide and facilitator of
learning. Knowing the works of both psychologists benefit my understanding of how to learn
and how to impart my knowledge at the same time. This theory is similar to what we have
practising right now in our institution- the Outcomes-based education. Dr. Carlo Magno from
De La Salle University introduced OBE in our institution as relatively similar to this theory.

As a teacher with no background in education studies, I also failed a couple of times in
facilitating learning for others. I used to spoon feed my students with the lessons and in fact
with the information in their activities. Scaffolding as a method is ineffective this time. In fact,
one scenario when we competed in the documentary competition, instead of guiding my
students to do documentaries, I ended up doing the whole production for them and they end
up doing nothing. This failure gives me guilt upon learning in this module. 

I learned in the module that CLT has two major principles- learning shall be an active process
and learning must be meaningful.  As an educator, I now understand that my approach made
my students passive in a learning environment. I need to fully implement OBE this time and
not to spoon feed the lessons in my class. My role as an educator is the facilitator of learning.
Students and learners must also do their job in the learning process. It is not all about teachers
giving everything to their students but on how students give themselves and make themselves
productive in the learning environment. 

It is always been a challenge for a teacher on how to teach his/her students. This coming semester,
I will be releasing all my knowledge in this course. I will be applying all theories and will make
learning activities and strategies that will make my students easily understand our lessons. I will
release the psychologists in me. . . their theories, works, and learnings.