Week 4 - Constructivism in Practice

Constructionism is “a theory of learning that states people learn best when they build an external artifact or something that they can share with others” (Laureate, 2009)

I believe that physical education and constructionism work perfectly in educating students. In physical education we are always building upon a previously learned idea in an abstract way using artifacts. They can be balls, hoops, beams, minds, and etc. Constructionism to me falls right in line with doing activities as a team. Everybody must do there part and when the parts are put together in the correct way the group has success.

When it is time to use technology in physical education, I always run into two direct problems. If I can not do my technology activity in co-operation with the classroom teacher it often does not happen. My classes are only 30 minutes long and that really does not give the students the opportunity to explore and create they way I would like. By they time they get in the computer lab and get settled they have very little time to create and work. That leaves a lot of work to be done at home and not everybody has the means to create the artifacts or parental support to understand that these ideas can be done in physical education as well as their regular classroom.

My second problem is that the base of my subject matter is physical movement, not sitting in front of a computer. I have not yet found a way to truly integrate physical movement in to sitting at the computer working the mind. Without using the computer, I have been able to create artifacts as students perform different activities and combine those activities with creations from other classmates to make one project. That was a thrill and the students often talk about those lessons and how much they enjoyed it.

I truly believe that physical education and constructionism can expand a child’s knowledge. When constructionism is looked at in its most basic form, “its constructing anything using whatever tools that you choose to use, but it is all focused on the students being active and engaged in the construction of artifacts” (Laureate, 2009). The creating of artifacts is easy; it is the insertion of technology in a thirty minute class period that is causing me problems.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology. Baltimore: Author.

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