My Constructivist Reality
As much as I want to be a full-fledged Constructivist educator, I find it very difficult in the current online set-up. The time limit is the major factor that keeps me from taking the discussion to a more student-centered approach. As much as I want to draw out answers from the students, I am often constrained by the 30-minute time limit. Our classes are usually fun and engaging. However, the creation of art is usually done offline or asynchronously. I cannot guide them while they are doing it. I give directions and post my instructional videos, but much leeway is given to them in terms of using materials that are available to them. I encourage them to think-out-of-the-box in finding solutions to the activities that I post.
Pre-pandemic days, when we were allowed to have face-to-face classes, our normal image of a school would be teachers talking, students taking down notes, copying assignments on the board, lugging big bags from one class to another, taking tests, writing down reports, essays, and projects. These are images of the control, the educators and the administration want to employ on its students. It is structured or controlled learning. Perhaps, if we plan to change the system it should be in a gradual manner. Making bold changes now may be difficult, particularly at this time of the quarantine. The transformation can begin with the school giving a heads up to the parents of the changes taking place. The parents should have a clear view that their children are thinkers, creators, and constructors of learning. They will not attend schools to become robots and automatically echo or mimic the thoughts or ideas of their teachers. Instead, the school will be a setting where their children are encouraged to develop their own ideas and hypotheses, to make connections from previous experiences, and to explore and find solutions to current problems that are relevant to the real world. They will be expected to take on an active role of being cooperative with their co-learners, as well as the grown-ups, in their pursuit of understanding difficult concepts. It should be explained to the parents that by applying these changes, their children will be better equipped when they go outside of the four walls of the classroom. Even as they step out of the comfort zone of the school, their children would have developed the mindset of being lifelong learners and would foster the ability to interact with different people, since these skills have been developed in the group activities they were involved in while they were in school.
Aside from the parents, the school administration and teachers should hold monthly sessions to ensure that the educational program being offered by the school is constructivist in approach. Pedagogical issues should be discussed and different techniques or styles should be taught to the faculty so that the whole school is one in this major change.
It is a big step, particularly in the Philippines where our image of a teacher go way back to Iskul Bukol days of Miss Tapya (Oh no, you can guess my age 😂). Seriously though, it is ideal that the students learn how to learn, to be self-assured--not in a negative way---but to be confident in their ideas, to also be respectful in expressing their ideas and also to learn to respect the ideas of others.
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