Elementary sledding trip to the "big hill"-voiceThread

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Constructivist/Constructionist

Constructivist/Constructionist is having the students interact with the learning processes while building on what they already know. While using these strategies and implementing a blog, wiki, or some project based learning, students are a generating hpothesis, predicting outcomes and/or analyzing data and are having fun with it.  While students are using these technologies they must create and/or produce a final product. As Dr. Orey has mentioned, project-based learning focuses on students creating an end project or artifact which students will have present to show knowledge and skills acquired during the production process (Orey, 2001).
Once a month I give my students a group project to do on kidblog.org.  My students love to work in groups and love to show off their work.  The final part, on the last project that my students did, was a keynote, or powerpoint of the data they had collected.  Each group showed their presentation to the class.  They were all so proud of themselves, and are eager to start another project.  I gave the class a short assessment on each presentation and everyone quite well.  I don't think they even realized that they were learning.  I believe the definition of  constructionism sums it up best.  Constructionism is the theory of learning that states people learn best when they build an external artifact or something they can share with others” (Laureate Education, 2010).
Reference
Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Instructional Theory vs. Learning Theory Baltimore: Author

Connecting Strategies with Learning Theories

No lesson on student acquisition of knowledge could be complete without a brief discussion of Jean Piaget, a philosopher.  Piaget's has studied developmental stages.   Three areas of Piaget's writings are schema, assimilation, and accommodation. Schema is referred to as a file folder, used to store information.  Assimilation refers to when it changes information into a usable form.  Accommodation is modifying the existing schema (Heinich, 2002).   Throughout our teaching career we will be reminded to connect the content of the lesson to previously learned knowledge.  We are to connect a link from the student's knowledge to new information.  Students need kinesthetic, verbal, and/or manipulative cues to help them make the connections.  I begin my lessons with "Remember what we talked about or learned yesterday..Today we are going to..." By connecting what we did yesterday, students will already be assimilating the content of today's lesson.  If for some reason I can not connect yesteday's lesson, I ask a student to remind the class, what we did.  At the end of the day, I conclude by revisiting everything we covered for the day.  As Dr. Orey reminds us, reinforcement is powerful (Orey, 2009).

Heinrich, R., M. Molenda, J.D. Russell, and S.E. Smaldine. (2002). Instructional media and  

technologies for learning. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.:  Merrill/Prentice Hall.

 Laureate Education, Inc. (2009). Program 4. Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology.

                Behaviorist learning theory. Baltimore, MD.:  Orey, Michael.