Summary Educational Psychology about Student centered and Constructivist Approaches to Instruction

WHAT IS THE CONSTRUCTIVIST VIEW OF LEARNING?

One of the most important principles of educational psychology is that teachers cannot give the student knowledge with the simple ways. The teacher usually fined the problem when teaching the students. So the student have to concept the knowledge by themselves on their mind.

The teacher can help the student by giving facilitate that makes the information meaningful and relevant to students, the student giving opportunity to the student apply their own ideas. Constructivist learning is the theory of learning which make the student can learn individually and they can make their own information. So the student have to make their own information and it can make the student good in learning process.  

Historical Roots of Constructivist

In Piaget and Vygotsky theory, they emphasized the cognitive learning in the classroom only a process of ( both of whom emphasized that cognitive change take place only when previous go through a process of disequilibration in light of new information). They also emphasized the social nature of learning, and make group when the process of learning so the student can mixed their ability with each other in the classroom.

Social Learning In Vygotsky theories this social learning to support classroom instructional method that emphasized cooperative learning, project-based learning, and discovery. In this theory the student proposed to make interaction with the adult or a peer of student, and the student can tell their opinion to their peers’. It makes the process of learning can be understood by all the students and also the other student’s opinion cab able to all the students.

Zone of Proximal Development A second key concept is the idea that children learn best the concept that are in their zone of proximal development. For example the students can’t make a sentence by themselves so the teacher come and teach the student how to make it and the teacher give opportunity to do it by themselves so finally they can do that. It called zone proximal development.

Cognitive Apprenticeship In Vygotsky’s concept, emphasis social nature of learning and on the zone of proximal development is cognitive apprenticeship. This term refers to the process by learner with an expert or an older then the student. With this way the student can get new skill or this term seems like a training process.

Mediated Learning In Vygotsky this is important term in modern constructivist learning. Student will be given some tasks like difficult type pf task, complex task, and realistic tasks, and the student will be given enough help from the teacher to achieve these task. This principle is used to support classroom project, simulation, and exploration.

Top-Down Processing

Constructivist approaches to teaching emphasize top-down rather than bottom-up instruction. The term top-down means that the student begin with complex problems to solve and then work out or discover the basic skills required by themselves and the teacher will be the guide who help the student if they have a problem. For example the student only have learnt about the spelling and grammar but they might asked to make a sentence and they have to know the pattern to make that sentence so the teacher will be the guidance to help them.

 Cooperative Learning

In this theory make the student more easily to discover and understand about the concept of learning if the student usually talk with each other about the problem they found before. So the student need to make interaction with their friend in the classroom.

Discover Learning

Discovery learning is an important component of modern constructivist. In this theory student will be given motivation by the teacher to learn from their concepts and principles that have been controlled by themselves, and the teacher push students to have experience and to make an experiment that permit them to discover principles for themselves. Discovery learning has applications in many subject.

Self-Regulated Learning

In Bandura, 1991; Dembo & Eaton, 2000; Schunk &Zimmerman, 1997; Winne, 1997, Self-regulated learner are ones of the student who have knowledge of effective learning strategies and how and when to use all the knowledge. For example the teacher know how to solve the complex problem by themselves with the simple step.

Scaffolding In this practical term, scaffolding giving more structures to the student at the beginning of the lesson and the student can gradually turning responsibility to operate their own. For example the student can find the answer of their question when they read the material.

APA’s Learner-centered Psychological Principles

American Psychological Association, the learner centered psychological principles paint a picture of the learner as actively seeking knowledge by – reinterpreting information and experience – being self-motivated by the quest for knowledge – working with others to socially constructmeaning and – be aware of his or her own learning strategies.

Reciprocal Teaching in Reading, In Palincsar and Brown (1984) said that this method, the best actor is our teacher. Why? Because the teacher can provoke or can create a good question about what had they read. With creative question, perhaps the students want to answer your question. For the students must be active to answer the question or create a question, not only answer and create a question, the students must active also in reading skill, it can help their skill in reading. This method can develop student confident to speak in the class. In this method the student will have a good opportunity. The opportunity is to be a teacher. e.g. when, I was in senior high school. My teacher asked me a question about some question in Denpasar. At that time, I can answer the question. And my teacher asked to the other students to give the other opinion about my answer.

Questioning the Author, In Beck and Mckeown (2001) theories said that in this method the students must be active at the class, specifically in reading. In this case the students must read the book like a story. Usually the teacher will ask the learners some question to check the students understanding.

Writing Process Models, Calkins and Graves (1983) said that writing is good activity that uses our physical to committing some words. From writing we can express our feeling about something and we can pour our ideas from writing. In writing process models we can work as a group. The function of way we can help each other. From writing we can get positive effect such as we can improve our ideas and the important one is we can correct our home work alone. e.g. when I was in senior high school, my friend and I have a project. My teacher asked us to make and write some information about tourism object in Bali. Before I collected to our teacher, I went to my friend and ask her to revise and check my grammar and my spelling. So, it made me felt confident to collect my project.

Constructivist Approaches to Mathematics Teaching in the Primary, Grades, Greeno GoldMan, Hiebert Etal and Schifter (1996) said in this subject, the teacher will give the real problems that happen in real life and then the student must solve the problems by their own manner.

Constructivist Approaches in Science, Bainer and Wright (2000) said that this method, the student can find any problem, but especially in science. The learner can work as a group to solve the problem. Usually, the learners and the teacher will work in the laboratory.

Research on Constructivist Methods, Comparing between constructivist and traditional approaches, constructivist method give affect than traditional method. It is on reported increase of some schools that use constructivist approaches. It give better in quality, it also give better affect in many traditional approaches.

HOW IS COOPERATIVE LEARNING USED IN INSTRUCTION?

Cooperative learning is very useful in instruction, because the teacher can asked the student to make a small group. In their group usually, the member have a specific ability. They have speaking ability, listening, writing and give some opinion. So, we can work together as team to solve the problem, its better we work as team. So, we can complementary our group.

Cooperative Learning Methods, There some cooperative learning method that is really different and research.

Student Team-Achievement Division (STAD), Slavin (1994a) said that STAD is good method to improve their responsibility, because we must work as a team. In STAD the student will get homework or some problem from their teacher, they must work together. The student will get two points. First, the teacher will give you point for your homework (group point) and the second is Individual point. We can get individual point from we answer the question and how we delivery our materials to audience. e.g. when, I was in senior high school my friends and I have a project to observation the ecosystem of the beach, so we worked together. And then we collected our homework, from that we already got a point for group because we already finished our homework. At that time, I got another point because I can answer my teacher question. Although we worked as a team, but we still can get another point from our active to answer the question.

Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC).In Stevens and Slavin (1995a), Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition ( CIRC) is teaching reading and writing for upper elementary student. In this program student study in group and they work together by sharing their thought about to each other in a group. By studies of CIRC, this program has given positive effect in reading skill.

Jigsaw. In Aronson, Blaney, Stephen, Sikes,& Snap (1978), Jigsaw is cooperative learning model that make student study in a group Like CIRC. But in this method each members in the group get different section and then everyone in other group that get the same section will discuss it together with their expert. And then explain it for members in their group.

 Learning Together. Learning Together is developed by David Johnson and Roger Johnson (1999), they make students work to solve a single problem in a group and give them appreciation. And after solve the problem in the group they will study together with all the groups and show what they got in their group.

Group Investigation. In Sharan & Sharan (1992), said that group investigation is general studying plan, students work in a small group with members that they chose by themselves. And they choose the subtopic that they divided before and then work with their group. After that they present it in the class with their group.

Cooperative Scripting. Cooperative Scripting has been researched by Dansereau (1985), this method make students work in a pair. They take turns to summarizing and listening. This method gives the more effective than read alone.

Research on Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning methods fall into two broad categories ( Slavin, Hurley, & Chamberlain, 2003 ). One category might be called group study methods ( Slavin, 1996b), in which students primarily work together to help one another master a relatively well-defined body of information or skills-what Cohen (1994b) calls “ well-structured problems”. The other category is often called project-based learning or active learning ( Stern, 1996).

How Are Problem -Solving And Thinking-Skill Taught?

            We cannot say that students have learnt everything before they can solve problems. So, have to give them the concept how to solve problem. It is not matters if they have good ability in adding, subtracting, and multiplying but they cannot solve the problem. We have some problem-solving process:

The Problem-Solving Process

General problem-solving strategies. In this strategy students consider some ways to solve the problem carefully. It is come from general ways to specific ways.

Means-Ends Analysis. This strategy demand students to know the right ways to solve the right problems. It needs exercise to improve it.

Extracting relevant information. The way to solve problem with related information only.  We must throw away unrelated information.

Representing the problem. For many kind of problem we can used the graphic representation to solve. It may be make us easy to solve the difficult problem. With put the problem in the graphic can make us easy to imagine the problem.

Teaching Creative Problem Solving

In Sternberg (1995), there are a lot of problems that need to solve by creative thinking. So by Beyer (1997) and Frederiksen (1984a) give some strategy to teach creative problem solving. There are incubation, suspension of judgment, appropriate climates, analysis, engaging problems and feedback.

Incubation   Incubation about solve problem with our logic thinking. As when you want to boil the eggs, you have four eggs and one egg need five minutes. How about four eggs? If you think it you should make it with your logic not with your mathematics knowledge. You just need to put in together so you need five minutes.

Suspension Suspension of judgment, you should consider all the reason and opinion to solve the problem. Never ignore the opinion because every opinion can help you to make a best solution.

Appropriate  Appropriate climates, you must make a good atmosphere so student can comfortable to tell their opinion and can increase their problem solving thinking.

 Analysis Analysis, you should think carefully when you find a problem. Don’t hurry to make decision. Like when your sister asked you that how many dresses that will be in the wardrobe when she goes to party tonight if she has ten dresses. Don’t be stuck your mind because there is no more clues. If you be careful you might find that you just wear one dress so it will be nine left in wardrobe.

Engaging Problem  Engaging problems, if you find a problem and you feel boring to solve it just make the problem interesting. Like compare it with something that you like so you will enthusiasm to solve it.

 Feedback Feedback, you give appreciation to everyone who can or can’t solve the problem. You must respect of the way they solve the problem.

Teaching Thinking Skill

In Beyer ( 1998 ) said that the oldest dream of education Is to make student be able to solve the problem with knowledge that they got. Some of researchers have developing this problem strategy and the most popular is Instrumental Enrichment by Reuven Feuerstein (1980). In Tishman, Perkins, and Jay (1995), the give 4 step strategies to teaching of thinking skill. There are state, search, evaluate, and elaborate.

State State is gain all of the problem and make sure what is your problem and what is your goal.

Search Search, collect some resources to solve the problem.

Evaluate Evaluate is consider all of the aspect that will or won’t be happen if you used one of them.

Elaborate Elaborate is careful consider with your choice so it will give you the best goal. For example: Your house is always dirty and you hate it. You and your family discussed about it and recognize what happened and what will you do then. After you consider the problem and then you observe, remember what to do to clean the house and how to keep it clean. Now you have a lot of solutions, and then you evaluated all of them. Which ones are the best ways ,and can you  implement in your house. After you decided it and do it and then check it. Carefully, consider if it is give the best result or not.

Critical Thinking

In Marzano (1995), believe that the important goal in learning is to improve students skill in differentiate right or wrong case. In Halpern ( 1995), said that to improve this skill, student must practice a lot by given complicated problem. The problem must make student interested and have relationship with students’ live or knowledge. And teacher must give appreciate in the way student solve the problem not only in the right answer because it is emphasize the process. This result is depend on the situation that teacher build in the class. In Beyer (1988), give 10 kind of critical thinking skill that can use by student to solve their problem.  Beyer believe that it can help student not only used it to solve the problem but also know the appropriate situation to use it.

Conclusion

Constructivist view of learning is focus at student themselves. Teacher just act as the guide in the proses of learning. Cooperative learning is used between the student interaction in a group or pair. It is more effective to improve student skill to solve their problems. Problem solving and thinking skill thought by give complex problem to student and give them enough time and appreciate so not only can find the right ways but also appropriate ways.