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Have you in your own education, your children’s education, or in a school you’ve taught at experienced a constructivist approach to education? If so, describe some of the impact (positive or negative) you experienced/witnessed.
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My sister spent several years teaching at a Montessori school, though she had originally been trained in traditional teaching methods. She learned to appreciate a blend of both approaches and did incorporate some traditional structure into her Montessori classroom by gathering a small group of students to read and do traditional phonics lessons while others explored at centers. She saw the benefits of both approaches and utilized both with great success.
In my own courses, especially when teaching preschool, I used a similar approach, but also did some traditional whole course lessons on math concepts or language instruction. I tried a variety of techniques depending on the needs of the students in the course.
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I have witnessed it at a charter school in Detroit that my granddaughter attended. She was not progressing in reading as some of her friends were and each year from K – 2nd grade they would say, “She’ll get it. Don’t worry.” By 3rd grade, she hadn’t gotten it and they moved to Ohio where the school immediately intervened with extra help and systematic instruction. Within 1 school year, by the end of 3rd grade, she had gone from beginning 1st grade to end of 3rd reading level.
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I have not experienced particular approach this first-hand, and I believe where I live, it is not very prominent in our public schools either. From speaking with friends who teach in public schools, they have the occasional parent who has the mindset that everything is the teachers fault, but for the most part I believe where I live there is still more of a traditional approach to education.
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I definitely try to tailor my learning to each student in as much as you can. I have definitely experienced interactions with many parents who think everything is all about their child and have difficulty looking at the education experience as a whole. This has seemed to progress more over the years.
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Yes, I really enjoyed experiencing the approach. It needs to really be done with a lot of forethought and executed by a master teacher. It works better in small classroom or where the participants are highly motivated and self-regulated. Otherwise, it can be chaotic and miss the mark. I’ve experienced that too.