constructivist beliefs amongst teachers

Vignettes describing contrasting instructional styles

Ms. Hill was leading her class in an animated way, asking questions that the students could answer quickly; based on the reading they had done the day before. After this review, Ms. Hill taught the class new material, again using simple questions to keep students attentive and listening to what she said.

and:

Mr. Jones’ class was also having a discussion, but many of the questions came from the students themselves. Though Mr. Jones could clarify students’ questions and suggest where the students could find relevant information, he couldn’t really answer most of the questions himself.

Overall, more teachers felt comfortable with (64%) and thought students preferred (53%) the traditional style of Ms. Hill, with fewer selecting Mr. Jones. (The middle or “undecided” position was chosen by many teachers as well; see Table 1.) Moving quickly over content may pose fewer problems for teachers and students and therefore seem easier. However, in terms of the consequences for students, teachers were more likely to believe that Mr. Jones’ approach was better. Concerning students gaining more knowledge from Hill or Jones, teachers were evenly split — with more than 40% favoring each approach. Concerning the acquisition of useful skills many more teachers favored Mr. Jones' approach (57% favoring Jones, 29% favoring Hill).

source:
Constructivist-Compatible Beliefs and Practices among U.S. Teachers (pdf file)

I find it extraordinary that anyone would find Mr. Hill's "instructional style" acceptable in any way.

It's not the issue of who's asking the questions. It's good for students to ask questions. Obviously.

It's the fact that Mr. Hill is presented as not knowing the answers.

How can this possibly be a good thing in a teacher?

And how can a person who doesn't know the answers to student questions do much in the way of clarifying the questions beyond cleaning up simple errors in logic?

The edu-world really is a parallel universe.


there's more

constructivist perspective:
“I mainly see my role as a facilitator. I try to provide opportunities and resources for my students to discover or construct concepts for themselves."

traditional transmission perspective:
"That's all nice, but students really won't learn the subject unless you go over the material in a structured way. It's my job to explain, to show students how to do the work, and to assign specific practice.

and

constructivist perspective:
"It is a good idea to have all sorts of activities going on in the classroom. Some students might produce a scene from a play they read. Others might create a miniature version of the set. It's hard to get the logistics right, but the successes are so much more important than the failures."

traditional transmission perspective:
"It's more practical to give the whole class the same assignment, one that has clear directions, and one that can be done in short intervals that match students' attention spans and the daily class schedule."

and

constructivist perspective:
"The most important part of instruction is that it encourage “sense-making” or thinking among students. Content is secondary."

traditional transmission perspective:
The most important part of instruction is the content of the curriculum. That content is the community’s judgment about what children need to be able to know and do."

and

constructivist perspective:
"It is critical for students to become interested in doing academic work—interest and effort are more important than the particular subject-matter they are working on."

traditional transmission perspective:
"While student motivation is certainly useful, it should not drive what students study. It is more important that students learn the history, science, math and language skills in their textbooks."


Overall, teachers are substantially more constructivist than traditional in their responses to each of these items. Twice as many teachers agreed that there should be multiple project-oriented activities going on as favored short-duration whole-class assignments instead. Even more teachers believed that their instructional planning should focus on constructing meaning and on student interest than on coverage of curriculum and textbook content (by margins of 2.5 to 1 and 3 to 1 respectively; see Table 2).

students muddling around

This is my favorite:

A huge majority of teachers (85%) rejected the idea that because teachers know more than students, they “shouldn’t let students muddle around when they can just explain the answers directly.” Even more teachers (91%) rejected the idea that student projects aren’t useful because they “often result in students learning all sorts of wrong ‘knowledge.’” More than three-fifths of the teachers (62%) rejected the idea that “instruction should be built around problems with clear, correct answers, and around ideas that most students can grasp quickly”—a clear statement of rejection of the principles of direct instruction formulated two decades ago and around which most traditional instruction is based.

So.... I'm thinking value-added assessment is going to come as a shock to these folks.

Wonder just how much "academic growth" you see in one year of muddling around and students learning the wrong knowledge via projects?