Essay I Have Wrote in Education

 The concept of social constructivism is that the learning happens through social interactions and with the help of others, often in a group. Social constructivism proposes that the understanding an individual develops is shaped through social interaction. Considering that it helps students invent new ideas and knowledge through dealing with others, new information is obtained and previous ones are expanded with every conversation or encounter between two or more people. 

In order to apply social constructivism in my classroom, it’s a necessity for me to review my perspectives. I must move from being an instructor to be an assessor and facilitator of learning. Therefore, I need to question my students’ answers, without regard if they gave the wrong answers or not, hence making sure that they understood the concept well. In addition to that, I should let my students explain their answers to check that they didn’t just copy the formulas and equations from the book without explaining them, thus assisting my students to analyze their answers. Like, showing my students examples (pictures or doing experiments…) about physical and chemical changes and asking them what type of changes each one of them represents, I must seek for an explanation for why they chose their answers, this way I can ensure that they know the reason and they didn’t  just copy it from there friends or the book. 

Moreover, I should allow my students to come up with their own theories and questions regarding a lesson and leave them to check its potentiality, as they must actively participate in creative activities during the learning process. For example, as a chemistry teacher I can let them do an experiment about the presence of hydrogen gas, where they put a match near a tube filled with hydrogen gas resulting in a pop sound. This will encourage them to ask questions about the reason for the pop sound and even make their own theories about it. However, this paradox between my student’s current understanding and experiences will create a contrast that will lead them to inspect their knowledge and explore new ideas. So instead of scolding my students whenever they think wrong, I must encourage those mistaken ideas. By understanding misunderstandings, this will make it easy for them to understand the concept .

 Nevertheless, I should arrange group work in my classroom for it will help my students exchange ideas while interacting with each other. As an example, I can arrange them in pairs in the chemistry lab to perform a certain experiment, asking them to do the report about the experiment in pairs. 

Last but not least, I should also provoke my students in working to solve problems with lifelike context. This will enable them to explore and come up with confirming or opposing possibilities, and to justify their reasons for opposing them so that I can clarify any misunderstanding they might have while discussing the answers. 

This kind of dialogue and interaction between my students and me or with each other will give those new ideas and wider knowledge. Therefore, my students will be able to discuss and justify their ideas to the wider community outside the classroom and if their ideas are proven to be helpful to the community they might be taken into account.

Although constructivism is the ability of students to construct new ideas and knowledge based on their own present and past knowledge and experiences (According to book “A Guide to Teaching Practices”) so it’s more self-directed, yet instructors have an important role in it as well. Their role is to adjust to the student’s need and give them the independence to manufacture knowledge for themselves, also to offer them help in acquiring those ideas and knowledge. Additionally, an instructor assists students in tailing new ideas and applying them in their own lives, by seeing each one of them as a customized individual, with different cultural background, and with primary knowledge that affects their progress of learning. 

Furthermore, Instructors, as a good constructivist, pave the way for the students’ interaction between each other, because of the impact of Social Constructivism on the process of learning (exchanging new ideas and expanding one's own knowledge). On top of that, instructors have to guarantee that the students find the materials needed to develop enough information about the topic; they create a multiple problem-solving environment where the students become active participants in their own learning and that’s what makes the instructor a guide of learning.

Some of the examples regarding this topic; the teacher or instructor creates small groups of students in classroom and allowing them to teach each other the concepts of the lesson, like dividing the class into 2 groups each group have to explain a part of the lesson (chemical changes vs. Physical changes) to their fellows, this way of teaching is called the reciprocal teaching. Another example, the teacher creates meaning of learning from student’s daily life and real situations that will teach them how to use the skills and information they have learned in real life and on the work field, like requiring internships in medical labs for chemistry students thus they will use the skills they learned in the classroom in workplace, this method is called situated learning. 

For social constructivist teachers, there are few tips that can help them, such as: Encourage learning through team work and interaction. Create opportunities for group work in your classroom, this will help the students exchange ideas thus constructing new ones based on these experiences. Also, promote the use of ICT in your classroom like multimedia (images, videos…), graphing, internet… This will aid shifting from teacher-centered learning toward student-centered one. As well, infuse learning with contexts based on real life situations, this will teach them how to act once placed in a similar situation.