I am an art teacher, and when you get right down to it, I have used Constructivism to teach many art lessons. I can't honestly say that I have purposely done this, but in my ten years of teaching experience--along with my continued pursuit of higher education wherein I've learned much about learning theory--I can see that Constructivism has played a large role in my teaching, whether I knew it at the time or not.
Teaching art is very often open-ended, collaborative, and relevant in some way to a student's life or experiences. Most art teachers plan a good portion of their lessons with these things in mind. Because no matter what skills or concepts we may be teaching, we are usually hoping that the students will have experiences and make projects that are personally meaningful. That is what helps to engage them and motivate them more as well. This week's readings have made me more aware of the kinds of lessons I want to teach, and how important it is for me to consciously use the Constructivist model of learning with my students in the future.
With that in mind, I began to search for an appropriate exemplary lesson for this weeks' activity. The lesson that I found for Using Constructivism and Technology to Teach Art is on the Concept to Classroom website at Thirteen.org. It is part of their workshop on Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. It is a Middle School lesson on Tessellations and it can be found at the following link:
It is actually a three-part lesson unit. I've converted the lesson into a PDF that you can download here:
This unit is very comprehensive and includes many web links and resources, and it was too long to be included here in the blog post. So I will simply summarize why I feel it is exemplary, constructivist, and equitable.
This unit is Constructivist because it was created specifically using the elements of the Constructivist model of learning. Rather than simply being told the definition of tessellations, the lesson is structured to allow students to discover its meaning and the concept through teacher-guided activities. The teacher is there to facilitate learning, but is not giving typical direct instruction through carefully planned steps. The students then examine a problem through various perspectives, which encourage them to draw on prior insights and experiences with hands-on experience. Then the class must work together collaboratively in groups to solve a problem using their acquired knowledge and understanding of tessellations. All of these are essential elements of a constructivist learning environment.
This unit is Exemplary because of the way it integrates Constructivism, as well as Technology, Math, and Art within its lessons. It is a multifaceted unit that provides experiences that are beneficial to a variety of learning styles, therefore it is also hitting on Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. Additionally, it reaches multiple levels of Lori Anderson's revised Bloom's Taxonomy (which I prefer because it is in verb form): Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating).
And this unit is Equitable because all the students have access to the same technology resources. It also allows the students to work together to exchange ideas and knowledge, in order to take their academic learning and utilize it to solve a real world problem. Students are also very active in their learning, rather than passive--they are designing, creating and sharing content that is relevant. They are also provided with multiple kinds of activities to help them produce personally meaningful content, and motivate them to explore new means of using technology. Lastly, the students also have the teacher there as a support system and mentor while completing their activities.
I have taught tessellations at various grade levels in art, but never in this way. I do hope to be able to use this constructivist lesson though at some point in the future.
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