Spotlight
Summer 2007 Back to Spotlight home page
WOW! The sensation of discovery: faculty research and creativity
By Matt Seimears
Pre-service teachers at Emporia State University must successfully complete Block I, Block II, and Block III before entering the classroom as a fully licensed teacher. In Block I, the student must successfully pass EE 311 Planning and Assessment and EE 316 Elementary Science Methods. As the students’ Science Methods instructor, I often challenge them to think critically through a Radical/Social Constructivist teaching pedagogy. According to Staver (1998), there are two main forms of constructivism. In social constructivism the focal points are the language and the group. In radical/psychological constructivism the focal points are cognition and the individual. Social constructivism emphasizes the important of culture- and language-based social interactions and knowledge at a group level. Radical/psychological constructivism emphasizes the importance of cognition in understanding how an individual builds and uses knowledge.
Students are challenged to think critically while performing a variety of science activities, assessments, and many other tasks while enrolled in EE 311 and EE 316. Students are given the opportunity to write lesson plans for English language learners and students with special needs from a constructivist perspective. The students must take existing knowledge and apply new knowledge to their existing knowledge so that they successfully construct an understanding of how to teach children in diverse situations.
Last Updated April 17, 2008