Applying Standards Based Constructivism:
A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Students
Summary of Conclusions

Each of the models described in this section have aspects that are potentially powerful as learning approaches in student-centered and thinking-centered classrooms. Hunter’s notion of anticipatory set was the first experience many current teachers had in putting the work of thinking-learning on the student: all of the other models expanded and modified that act and today the two-step stands as the most useable approach in that genre. We think it answers the limitations in other models, while maintaining an elegantly simple design.

It must also be said that the evolution of schooling practices reflects demands by society and are consistent with research. In some ways, the REFORM MOVEMENT in education has been itself driven by forces in the society, the market, the work force and the research community. But all reforms recognize that teachers are the ones who have to implement any significant change: they are at the point at which real change and real impact occurs. Thompson and Zeuli (in Darling-Hammond & Sykes, l999), made it obvious that all the new standards and all the new assessments are moving toward a THINKING centered pedagogy. They say it succinctly and powerfully this way:

“The essential point - the inner intent - that seems so seldom grasped even by teachers eager to embrace the current reforms is that in order to learn the sorts of things envisioned by reformers, students must think. In fact, such learning is almost exclusively a product or by product of thinking. By “think” we mean that students must actively try to solve problems, resolve dissonances between the way they initially understand a phenomenon and new evidence that challenges understanding, put collections of facts or observations together into patterns, make and test conjectures, and build lines of reasoning about why claims may be true or not. Such thinking is generative. It literally creates understanding in the mind of the learner. …Students do not get knowledge from teachers or from books. They make it by thinking, using information and experience.” (p346)

It is pretty clear that our strategies, this two-step model, are designed to accomplish what we all want from education and today are expected to deliver: competent, analytical, knowledgeable, and willing thinking people who become good decision-making citizens, are democratic and empathetic in orientation and effective/productive workers in a technological, data driven pluralist society.

We hope that the readers who use this model realize these potentialities.