Module 14-18

Constructivsim is a theory on how humans generate knowledge and meaning

from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. It is very true that
people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through
experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. I can somehow relate
this with Edgar Dale’s cone of experience, wherein the more direct the learning
process, the more effective it becomes. So, constructivism is a learning based on
the belief that knowledge is not just a concept that can be simply given by the
teacher in front of the students but rather a knowledge is constructed by learners
through an active mental process of development. Learners become the builders
and creators of meaning and knowledge.

There are two views of constructivisim, the individual constructivism and

social constructivism. In the individual constructivism or the cognitive
constructivism, since it is individual so it has something to with the internal
construction of knowledge. While on the social constructivism, it emphasizes that
knowledge exists in a social context and is shared with others instead of being
represented only in the mind of an individual.

Moreover, in the classroom situation, the constructivist view of learning

usually means encouraging students to use active or performance based
techniques such as experiments, real-world problem solving in order to create
more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and
how their understanding is changing. And as a future teacher, I have to make
sure that they understand the preexisting concepts and guides the activity to
address them and then build on them. Instead of spoon feeding or giving them
everything they need to know, I would rather tell them that I need to know what
they know, understand how they learn and help them develop their own
understanding. In that sense, learning becomes an active process.

Transfer of learning refers to the ability to apply knowledge learned in one

context to new contexts. It occurs when the learner recognizes common features
among concepts or principles and links the information in their memory and then
see the value of utilizing what was learned in one situation to another. As a future
English teacher, the best example of this theory is that the student’s knowledge in
their first language or their native language will help them acquire and learn the
second language or foreign language.This only serves as a bridge for the
students to learn new contexts and have progress in their learning outcomes.
Another example is that learning mathematics in grade school will prepare the
students to learn physics in high school. In that sense, they already have a
background knowledge before they shift to the new concepts. If we did not
transfer some of our prior knowledge, then each new learning situation would
start from scratch. The assumption of education is that what is taught in a course
will be used in relevant situations in other ourses, in the workplace and out of
school.
 Bloom’s taxonomy is a model that described the different levels of learning
outcomes that target what skills and competencies the teachers aim to develop in
the learners. This includes six levels of cognition ranging from recall or
knowledge to evaluation of knowledge. This model is a progress from simple to
more complex levels of thinking. To facilitate learning of the students, we should
begin teaching with facts, stating memorized principles or definition to incorporate
knowledge. Next in line is the comprehension, a proof of comprehension is that
concepts and principles are applied in the learned concepts and principles in real
life situations. And with each part being learned thouroughly and analyzed and
put together afterwards by our students, we are able to witness the
connectedness of each part and that is where synthesizing happens. As we
already synthesized, we are now in the position to pass judgement/evaluation on
the concept being learned.

In order to pratice higher order thinking questions among our students is that
we tend not to “teach the way they are taught” because in that sense literal-level
questions are typically overused. Therefore, even when we are assessing our
student’s learning, we should avoid the literal-level questions in favor of those
requiring higher-order thinking skills. Questions that are classified as knowledge
and comprehension should be avoided because that reflects literal-level thinking
but instead we make sure that our questions can be classified as application,
analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Students responses to the critical thinking
questions will reveal the extent of their understanding whether they can apply it in
real life situations or not. We can now determine how profound their knowledge
on what we taught.

Successful intelligence theory has four skills namely memory skills, analytical
skills, creative skills, and practical skills. Memory skills helps us to recall facts and
pieces of information and it helps us retain the knowledge we acquired. Analytical
skills help the person determine if a certain idea is good. Creative skills allow a
person to come up with a new idea that usually to answer a need or have a
solution to a problem. Lastly, the practical skills which enable a person to apply
what one has learned. It also allows one to carry through or implement a plan.
The next concept that introduced is the WICS model in which intelligence is
viewed as a set of abilities to learn from experience and to adapt to one’s
environment. WICS stands for wisdom, intelligence, creativity and synthesize.
This model explains how humans think and reason out that can help us
understand how our students will learn more effciently. The basic idea of this
model that we need to incorporate among our students is that they need creativity
to form a vision of where they want to go and cope with the changes that the
environment brings them, analytical intelligence to ascertain whether their
creative ideas are good ones, practical intelligence to implement their ideas and
to persuade others of the value of their ideas, and wisdom in order to ensure that
the ideas they have will help them achieve some ethically-based common good,
over the long and short terms, rather than just what is good for them and the
people around them. So, one way to apply the WICS model in classroom
instruction is when we reflect and make choices on the tasks and activities that
will give us to teach and assess our students. We may choose to teach
analytically, creatively, practically or teach for wisdom as well. Based from what I
have read, our main role as a teacher is not to educate their minds alone, but to
educate their soul as well.

Problem solving and creativity module explains the four criteria of creativity
by Torrance in order for us to practice creative thinking and plly the necessary
problem-solving skills. Creative thinking is the way we look at problems or
solutions from a fresh perspective that suggest unconventional solutions. So,
when the first time we encountered certain problems, it is not easy for us to find a
remedy or solution so we have to apply creative thinking. That where
problem-solving occurs, we are in the process of finding solutions to the difficult
or complex situations. Edward Torrance is the father of creativity and he came up
with a framewrok which he later called Torrance Framework of Creative Thinking.
Fluency refers to the production of great numbers of ideas or alternate solutions
to a problem. This implies understanding and not just recalling information that is
learned. Next is flexibility, it refers to the production of ideas that show a variety of
possibilities of thought. It allows the students to see things from different
perspectives, to use many different approaches or strategies. For example, let us
ask our students what will happen if there are no computers or cellphones? If
they answer that, they apply the flexibility because they are able to think other
posssibilities that might happen if there we no technology invented for learning.
While elaboration is the process of enhancing ideas by providing more details.
Additional detail and clarity improves interest in, and understanding of the topic.
We should allow our students to add some information and put their ideas into it
in order to expand our concepts. Lastly, originatlity involves the production of
ideas that are unique. It involves synthesis or putting information about a topic
back together in a new way. As a future teacher, we could let them use their
creative-thinking through letting them design a new invention that is better than
the one we have. Through that, our students become innovative in discovering
things that are unique and unusual.

This reflection encompases of five modules such as constructivism theory,

transfer of learning, bloom’s taxonomy, successful intelligence theory, and
problem solving and creativity theory.