Understanding constructivism through a ramp activity

By Troy Hassler
College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
November, 2010

Today in class we discussed Costructivism and we also had a group project. I thought the project was fun, I gathered all of the materials and when I went back to get the last piece of tape we needed my group had already formed a plan and started working on it. I did not have much input at the beginning but when I figured out what they were trying to do I had a few suggestions which were welcomed and worked out very well for us.
Although our project was not exactly done in time or didn’t exactly work (hahaha) if we had a little bit more time we could have made it work properly. I like how the project was a part of teaching the class the meaning of constructivism. I think it worked well because after the definition was given by all of the students it was clear that we all understood the meaning of constructivism even if we did not get to the finish in the same route.

I am enjoying this class much more than all of my other classes. There are interesting projects to do and were not just regurgitating information we read from our notes or what we read from a text book, but we are actively learning which helps our retention of the information.