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How would you currently describe your overall approach to teaching in your classroom: traditional, process mastery, or constructivist? What works well in your approach? What needs improvement?
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Because I come from an early childhood education background, I would say that I utilize a combination of constructivist (hands-on learning) and process mastery. Even when I taught 5th grade, I would always work from concrete to abstract when introducing concepts and try to engage students with a variety of modalities.
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Working in special education has really taught me through a lot of process/mastery orientation aspects how to ensure that the students I am working with are able to learn, but unlike constructivism, it is all based on the set standards or the student’s IE/SP goals. This is not to say that I do not accommodate each student’s individual learning styles, I have recently worked with a student who couldn’t focus long enough to get much done at all unless you turned the learning into some sort of game or competition; even his writing had to be either a race or a contest. But the key is that he was still working toward his IE/SP goals and getting the work done. The method of how we are getting there is where our flexibility has to lie. Meeting the standards and expectations of our schools, districts, or state are where we need to remain inflexible.
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I believe my overall approach is a mix of all three. I am in charge of what's taught (following standards of course), but occasionally I give students choice that relates to what we are learning. For example, we recently wrote a persuasive paper in science course and I gave them a choice of topics to select from. I also incorporate lots of hands on learning with experiments. As for process mastery, I tell my students all the time I want to see growth, not perfection, with a goal of hopefully reaching mastery or above. So while some may not meet mastery on certain concepts, we celebrate any growth they do have. I think this approach works well, and I know there are several areas of improvement as I am still a fairly new teacher. I have only taught for 3 years, and this is my first year in middle school math and science. This is why I reflect often and adjust as needed.
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I would say a combination of all three. It is important to think of each learner as an individual. I want to incorporate God’s word into what I teach more often.
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My approach is probably a combination of process mastery with constructivist elements. I think acknowledging that my planning doesn’t always mean learning happens and that I can only, ultimately influence the environment works well. What needs improvement is assessing for understanding.