Constructivism

One of the five tenets of constructivism (the major concepts that students should understand) suggest that teachers structure their lessons around ideas that are broad ideas rather than expose them to small pieces of information known as the Top-Down teaching strategy. The website that I found, http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/lp_hs1.html touches on all of the tenets, particularly this one.
The lesson plans use “interactive Internet programs and resources that enable students to construct their understanding of the nature of earthquakes and their impact on the earth.” The use of Internet resources makes the idea of this being constructivist lesson plan positive. Virtual earthquakes (http://www.zephryus.demon.co.uk/education/geog/tectonics/witness/eye.html), Make your own seismogram (http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/bdsn/make_seismogram.html), and Earthquakes: Eyewitness Accounts (http://www.zephryus.demon.co.uk/education/geog/tectonics/witness/eye.html) are a few websites that students are required to go to in order to obtain information and gain insight for their projects. Some portions of the lesson plans highlight the constructivist belief that contents should not be taught in a single realm, but it should be taught in relation to the entire world.
The units of the lesson plans are as follows:
· What is an earthquake?
· What are the causes of earthquakes and their effects?
· How are earthquakes measured?
· How do we get the magnitude and epicenter of an earthquake?
· How do we measure global earthquakes?
Through these lesson plans students experience the diversity of learning in subjects ranging in “earth science for earthquakes, mathematics for calculations and formulas, language arts for writing journals, reports, and presentations to the class; and geography for locating earthquake activities in the world.”
As we learned in our class, the brainstorming activities in these lesson plans gives students the opportunity to draw on previous insights and build on new knowledge – essentially giving the students the opportunity to solve the problems on their own.