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EDUCATIONAL REFORM PROPOSALS Page 2
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Constructivism and Charter Schools As indicated, being scheduled and routinized creates many complications for divergent minded students. In this regard, they are fundamentally different than convergent thinking children. A proposal of educational reform that will liberate these students, and thus greatly improve their academic performance, is to provide them with an educational method of learning called constructivism. Since traditionalism commonly has immense difficulty adapting to major changes, much less initiating those changes, charter schools that promote "entire-school" reform using the constructivist method of instruction should be hastily established. Grouping of this nature allows for more appropriate, expeditious, and advanced instruction that matches the potential for rapidly developing skills and capabilities of students with divergent mindsets. What is constructivism? During the last half of the 20th century, two very different views on teaching and learning developed. One view, called directed instruction (Roblyer, 1997, p. 55), is grounded primarily in behaviorist learning theory. This is the method which is predominately used in today’s traditional classrooms. The other view, which is referred to as constructivism, evolved from other branches of thinking in cognitive learning theory. Constructivism is not a theory about teaching. It is a theory about knowledge and learning (Brooks & Brooks, 1993, p. vii). To understand constructivism, educators must focus attention on the learner (p. 22). |
Continued from left column The constructivist method
emphasizes students’ ability to solve real-life, practical problems. They tend to focus on projects that require solutions to problems rather on instructional sequences that require learning of certain content skills. Problem-Based-Learning (PBL) is an example of a constructivist model. In a PBL setting, teachers decenter their roles as the source of knowledge by consciously refraining from giving only right-answers, and helping students observe how other resources can teach them about effective language use. Acting as "facilitators" and "cognitive coaches", teachers ask questions such as: "Why? What do you mean?" and "How do you know that is true?" By asking such questions, facilitators also model critical thinking, with the purpose of stepping back and letting students begin to ask themselves and their peers those same types of questions (Abdullah, p. 2). Every day, millions of students enter school wanting to learn, hoping to be stimulated, engaged, treated well, and hoping to find meaning in what they do. And every day that educators stimulate and challenge the students to focus their minds on meaningful tasks, to think about important issues, and to construct new understandings of their worlds, both teachers and students achieve a meaningful victory (Brooks & Brooks, p. 120). Partitioning divergent minded students by placing them in charter schools archetyping the constructivist method of instruction will best assist them in accomplishing the highest of excellence in their educational pursuits. |
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In
this model, learners construct knowledge themselves, rather than
simply receiving it from knowledgeable teachers.