Reflection regarding to Teaching Practice (part 3)

I always learned about constructivist theory, however teaching practice allowed me to apply what i have learned from ‘book’ into ‘reality’. These are my learning and understanding about the constructivist theory as i used this approach on my planning stage.

According to von Glasersfeld  (1990) constructivist theory of knowing, “knowledge is not an iconic representation of an external environment, but a mapping of ways of acting and thinking that are viable to the acting subject in attaining experiential goals” (p. 37). Von Glasersfeld explains that knowledge is the result of, “an individual subject’s constructive activity, not a commodity that somehow resides outside the knower and can be conveyed by linguistic communication” (p. 37). He asserts that, “language is not a means of transporting conceptual structures from teacher to student, but rather a means of interacting that allows the teacher to constrain and guide the cognitive construction of the student” . Vygotskyclaims that a child’s mental functions need to be fostered and assessed through collaboration with a teacher. He proposed that through collaboration, the teacher is able to determine the distance between actual development and the potential development of the child, that is, a child’s zone of proximal development. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is “the discrepancy between a child’s actual mental age and the level he reaches in solving problems with assistance” ( as cited in Fraser, 2006, p. 58).

The child functions on any given task or tasks with the teacher’s aim to work within the continuum of the zone to help the child move forward. A child’s zone is not static, but instructionally sensitive. It must be recalibrated constantly to accommodate a child’s new learning. Children learn most easily when the teacher provides experiences within the zone of development. Interaction and direct teaching are important aspect of intellectual development; whereby children’s own thinking is ‘stretched’ in term of adding details or clarify concepts.

Young children are easily motivated into discovery by teachers asking open-ended questions that pertain to the child’s own interests as well as encourages critical thinking by challenging children’s assumptions. For instance, teacher poses open-ended questions for children that lead them to suggest a hypothesis such as what might happen if you do that? Children are encouraged to evaluate their own work and learn to defend and explain their creations to other.