Positivism is defined as: ”Learning can be “transmitted” to students from texts and teachers. It is linear and predictable. Students “lack” knowledge and get filled with it in the classroom.”
Constructivism is defined as: “Students come into classrooms with prior knowledge. They “construct” meaning based on their knowledge and experiences, and on interactions with texts and people. Learning is active, non-linear, and acquired at an uneven pace.”
I think that the change from positivism to constructivism is more about teachers and students’ beliefs and expectations than about how students learn. Whether the teacher is using a positivist way of teaching or a constructivist way of teaching, the student will learn in a constructive manner because this is how students learn. No one can claim to knowing anything unless they understand. The students can use natural abilities to do so, whether the teacher allows it or not. To have a way of teaching that is more in line with students’ learning will definitely engage more students and allow them to be more successful. Students are naturally very capable and can, many times, do a lot more than we think. By providing a better environment, students will enquire, will experiment, will interact in positive ways, will rise to a challenge if they see the purpose and if they are engaged.
Constructivism recognize that learning may not occur the first time, it may take many attempts at mastering what needs to be done. Even though I may have explained what was expected, I may have showed an example, students may not master the first time around. Students may only put a video and no text. Students may need to learn to search in the French language thinking there is nothing on the internet in French. Students may write only one paragraph instead of two. They may need to use a spell checker to check for typos. Students may copy and paste instead of using their own words. Students may understand that blogs need to be interesting in order to be read and start to be disrespectful to get the attention they crave. Students may have well researched ideas the first time around. In all those cases, the students will need more than one time to learn how to master the idea of blogging and will need feedback to improve. The first attempt may not be entirely what is expected but if they receive timely feedback will improve and showing what they know. Once they figured it out, it does not matter how many trials they needed, they reached their destination successfully and students can show their best work for the final assessment.
The criteria for success needs to be discussed before starting a project and the rubric can be done in collaboration between students and teachers. Jim Knight gives an interesting example of formative assessment in his book High Impact Instruction. He talks about how video games are so successful is that the player have clear goals, he knows what he needs to do at all times and received constant feedback on how they are doing while the score tells him how close he is to the goal. The constant assessment is what makes the task engaging. Teachers could engage students like that, by providing more frequent feedback with the goal in mind. When the student reached the goal, then the student have mastered the task. It does not matter if it was the first time or the 10th time. The students could have several opportunities to show what he has learned. Having a routine for quick assessment is important for that purpose. He provides several examples: Exit tickets, clickers, thumbs up & down, paraphrasing, think-pair-share, graphic organizers, four corners and many others. One last important point he makes. Not all learning needs to be fun but if the formative assessment is fun and meaningful students will be more engaged and motivated.
21st century learning definitely fits within the constructivist paradigm. Our current curriculum nor our current provincial forms of assessment do not reflect those skills. New ways of thinking about learning needs to be developed and new forms of assessment need to be devised. Mark Prenski in the Educational leadership March 2013 | Volume 70 | Number 6 Technology-Rich Learning Pages 22-27 asks if we could think about curriculum all over again, without preconceived notions, what should we use? The need for 21st century skills look quite different than what we have now. He mentions effective thinking, effective action, effective relationships and effective accomplishment as culminating work. Just to elaborate on one of those: teaching about the dangerous flaws in human thinking is so crucially important. There would not be so many wars, so much discrimination, so much damage to the environment if every teacher was doing just this. It can be done at an early age with fables for example. There are so many versions of Cinderella or the three little pigs. Comparing the tales from different perspective can be quite enlightening. Resources to do that can be for example the traditional Disney, the version of the wolf
http://www.amazon.ca/Three-Little-Pigs-Golden-Books/dp/0736423125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365976173&sr=8-1&keywords=three+little+pigs
http://www.amazon.ca/True-Story-Three-Little-Pigs/dp/0140544518/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1365976173&sr=8-3&keywords=three+little+pigs
and also quite interestingly from the guardian newspaper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDGrfhJH1P4
Our students are worth it and we owe it to them. Sometimes we may not be aware of what is missing in education and taking the time to reflect, interact and try new things is necessary. I have been inspired by Gunter Pauli who was thinking his practices were very green and in line with the best environmental practices, just to find out there were a serious flaw in his practice. This can happen to anyone of us. Just have a look. This demonstrates quite clearly, even with the best of intentions, that he had a flaw in his thinking and what he did about it when he found out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C13KuSzOYOo