Victoria Brown

December 10, 2016

Education 371
Constructivist Reflection
Constructivist theory emphasizes experience and personal
development of knowledge. Constructivism in the classroom asks
students to take an active role in their learning. This role can be
literally or figuratively active depending on the skill or concepts
students are learning (Constructivism). Students may ask
questions carry out experiments in science class as part of a
constructivist theory. Or they may use their prior knowledge of a story
to discuss possible themes. Either way, students use their prior
knowledge to ask questions and construct meaning for themselves.
Constructivist theory fits nicely with the scientific method of
questioning, researching/experimentation, analyzing, and concluding
(Constructivist Theory). While working one-on-one with a struggling
reader, I used constructivist theory to develop and implement lessons.
One of the lessons that I taught that utilized constructivist theory
presented my student with the opportunity to write her own story. After
a teacher workday, I asked my student what she had done on her day
off, and then we read the book The Truth About My Unbelievable
Summer. In the book, a boy tells a crazy story about what he did over
the summer. To teach prewriting strategies, I had my student use her

prior knowledge to describe some activities people like to do over the

summer. Then, she built her own unbelievable story about her day off
from school. I had her start by using a brainstorming web to help her
lay out her story before she attempted to write out the story from
beginning to end. This lesson utilized constructivist theory because my
student had to use her prior knowledge to think of writing ideas and
plan out her writing. She then had to build her understanding of story
writing by attempting to write a short story. We reviewed the story
during the next lesson and she even got to share it with the class.
Another lesson I taught covered synonyms. I showed a pair of
synonyms to my student and asked her what each one meant. I then
asked her if she thought they meant the same thing. I told my student
that these words were synonyms, meaning that they were two different
words with the same meaning. I had her come up with a few synonyms
for some simple words, then we played a matching game to practice
finding pairing synonyms. This lesson used constructivist theory
because I had my student work with examples and come up with her
own understanding of synonyms before providing her with the formal
definition.
With the help of one of my fellow tutors, I covered open and
closed syllables. The goal of the lesson was to aid our students in
decoding. We had our students break up their names into chunks that
sounded reasonable and reviewed syllables with them. We had them

practice breaking words into syllables using our (the tutors) names and
did a matching game with two syllable words. We also had them tell us
how some syllables looked different than others, whether the syllables
were multi-letter, single letter, ended in a consonant or a vowel, etc.
We demonstrated the difference between open and closed syllables,
and then the students practiced breaking words into their syllables in a
Twister game. Since the students actively broke words into their
syllables during the Twister game and created words with syllable
cards, they were actively constructing meaning and practicing
important skills.
Overall, the experiences Ive had with my student have helped
me to gain a better understanding of constructivism and have allowed
me to practice creating constructivist lessons. I believe that
constructivism is a vital part of learning. Not only is it more interesting
than simple lecture-based teaching, constructivism also allows for a
more individualized learning experience for all students.

Works Cited
"Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning." Concept to
Classroom, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2016.
<http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/>.
"Constructivist Theory (Jerome Bruner)." Constructivist Theory.
Instructional Design, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2016.
<http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html>.