Applying Standards Based Constructivism:
A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Students
Relationship Between Standards and Constructivism

Examples of Constructivist-Based Standards

1. The students will demonstrate map skills by constructing simple maps using title, map, legend, and compass. (Virginia Standards of Learning-Social Studies, grade 2)

2. The student is expected to demonstrate that electricity can flow in a circuit and can produce heat, light, sound, and magnetic effects. (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills-Science Concepts, grade 5)

3. Student demonstrates application of appropriate science process/inquiry skills (i.e., question, observe, use simple equipment and skills, use evidence to develop reasonable explanations, design and conduct simple scientific investigations and explanations) to solve problems and/or address issues. (Kentucky Student Performance Standards - Science, grade 4)

4. Students will understand mathematics and become mathematically confident by communicating and reasoning mathematically, by applying mathematics in real-world settings, and by solving problems. (New York State Learning Standards and Performance Indicators, elementary level.)

5. Students speaking demonstrates a command of standard American English and organizational delivery strategies. (State of California English Language Arts Content Standards, grade 2.)

These standards (above) are representative of what states are requiring across the nation. The key word (either expressed or implied) is demonstrate. How can students demonstrate what they know and can apply competently while sitting passively in a classroom and taking an occasional short answer/essay test? State standards call for teaching practices based on constructivist theory about how people learn. (p.1)

Three concepts should drive teaching for learning:

1. Student engagement with information must precede teacher explanations.

2. Instruction (guidance) should come in the form of interventions as students engage with information, ideas, and concepts.

3. Authentic tasks create an environment for student engagement and teacher interventions. (p.3)

How You Assess (What Evidence of student learning will you seek)?

Is the assessment for the purpose of high stakes, instructional improvement, pro-gram assessment, or a combination of any two or all three?
Is the assessment formative or summative?

Also, the teacher should abandon the paradigm that all assessments are in the form of short-answer or essay tests or an occasional project. Think, instead, of the multiple forms of assessment listed earlier.

When the term multiple assessments is used, it refers to what a teacher can learn about a student when constantly integrating a variety of methods of assessment. Seeking answers to the following questions, which inform the teacher about the effectiveness of his teaching strategies, should be among the purposes of the teacher's multiple forms of assessment:

Am I requiring my students to think?
If so, how deeply?
How insightfully?
How do I know they are thinking? What is the evidence that my students are thinking? Are just a few students giving evidence of thinking, or am I really challenging every student to think?

Think of what a teacher learns about a student by:

Working the room and observing the student doing group work, working indi-vidually, or working in a pair on a task.
Examining the completed project that is the outcome of an authentic task assign-ment, and/or viewing the process the student uses to complete the task.
Reviewing written feedback elicited by a feedback form, process, or some kind of journaling.
Reviewing the student's response to the kinds of questions that would appear on a feedback form.

Obviously, a primary value of assessment, as noted earlier, is for instructional improve-ment, to guide the teacher with regard to which learning objectives are being grasped and which need renewed emphasis.

Throughout this book, we have emphasized the importance of working the room-ac-tively observing student thinking and student production by looking over shoulders and being easily accessible while students work individually or in groups. The elementary school teacher who designed the waterways and history lesson claims, "You can tell when you are with a group of kids which ones know about locks and which don't, and you know when they've taken ownership of the task." Another teacher added, "You can tell what they are thinking; you can see the wheels turning."

Generating Student Feedback

There are quick-take techniques that a teacher can use to take the temperature of a class and to determine what is going well and what needs improvement or additional emphasis. Two strategies for generating student feedback beyond what a teacher receives through observation, interaction, and tests involve asking students what they have learned. One is the use of a student feedback sheet (Fig. 2.12) at the end of class (occasionally, frequently, or ev-ery day). Another is to ask a question of students in the last five minutes of class and request a 10-second response from every student. Alternatively, occasionally put students in groups of three or four, pose a question, allow three minutes for internal group discussion, and then ask a reporter from each group to summarize the group's response in 15 seconds or less. (p. 78, 79)

Figure 2.12 Student Feedback Sheet-A Sample

NAME _______________________________ DATE_____________

1. Today, the topic that we investigated





2. My teacher should give me 5 4 3 2 1 0 (circle one) bonus points today because





3. One thing that I learned from my partner(s) was





4. It was really interesting to learn that





5. The neatest thing that I did today was





6. One thing that I am still wondering about is





7. A song that will remind me of today is _______________________ because

When the authors don't use the written feedback form, they close classes with a question that elicits a response, in 10 seconds or less, from every student (or they seek group re-sponses as suggested earlier). The question may be any of the following (and the author will change the question, partly for variety and partly depending on the nature of the lesson and the kind of feedback that is desired:

What is one thing you know now that you didn't know when you walked into class 43 minutes ago?

What have you chosen as a topic for the paper (project) that is due next week? * What is one thing you learned today?

What do you feel is the most important quality for a person to possess as a member of a group?

What part of this course have you found the most difficult to learn?

What do we do in class that you enjoy the most?

When you are studying effectively (at home or in school), what do you find helps you learn well?

Can you give one reason why it is important to learn about chemistry?

What is one thing we can learn from the American Revolution that we can apply in today’s society? (p. 80)

The Significance of the Rubric

Once we accept that engagement is necessary for understanding, the following chain is set in motion: active learning begets constructivism, which leads to authentic assessment, which begets rubrics. Figure 2.13 is a template for a rubric. Notice that the teacher's learning objectives should be replicated in the dimensions column to guide the student toward understanding the teacher's expectations for the lesson.

Rubric for Assessment of the Performance Task

The significance of the rubric is its function as a vehicle for assessing student perfor-mance. (p. 83)

THE TWO STEP MODEL BEGINS WITH THE EXPLORATORY PHASE which uses

Constructivism: A Definition

Constructivist theory is about facilitating the learner to go beyond simple recall (memo-rization) toward understanding, application, and competence. Constructivist theory indi-cates that understanding, application, and competence cannot be achieved without actively engaging the learner.

There can be lecture and assigned readings in a constructivist process, but they must be part of a larger picture that involves challenging the learner to apply the knowledge and to discover meanings and understandings that the learner will need to reconcile with prior knowledge and perceptions. (p. 111)

What is it that makes a task authentic?

Fred Newmann of the University of Wisconsin has defined authenticity as a task that has personal or public value (Newmann,1990). For instance, if a student writes a letter to the ed-itor and mails it, there is personal value if it is on a topic that has engaged the student's interests. If the letter is published, it has public value. A more precise definition from Newmann is that there must be an audience beyond the teacher for a grade.

What motivates a student to engage in a classroom lesson? Too often the answer is sim-ply for a grade. Instead, we can often hook students on becoming engaged in a learning ac-tivity by providing an audience beyond the teacher for a grade. (p. 122)

Authentic Task Continuum

Tasks become more authentic on two dimensions: 1: their complexity, e.g., use of higher order skills, and 2: their similarity to real -life problems.

The central red area is where most teachers are as they work to make their instruction more authentic. Few classrooms use solely tasks on the far right of the continuum. Many t4achers, committed to authentic instruction and assessment, try to use tasks that are to the right of the middle of the continuum, some begin more genuine and complex than others. (p. 124)
Jill Owen, The Regional Laboratory for School Improvement of the Northeast & Islands, May 1993.

Authenticity is relative. Some school tasks are more authentic than others. And even the same project will have greater authenticity for one student than for another. If Billy is saving money for a video game and, as part of a school task, he can figure out how much money he needs to save each month, then he will perceive the task as more authentic than Barbara who may not see any relevance in a task that involves learning to count. However, if Barbara is trying to design her own Mother's Day card and is allowed to work on that, while having to meet criteria that will also force her to address the same mathematical problems that Billy will be addressing, she may be able to find a level of authenticity in the same lesson. Jack may not be able to perceive the relevance of any task involving math, but if the task seems to be just plain fun, then Jack may be willing to engage himself along with Billy and Barbara. Authenticity is relative. (p. 125)

In the final analysis, a constructivist educator needs to convey three things: trust, re-spect, and confidence. To reach students, they must feel your trust and your respect, and they must believe in your ability to create a productive environment. They must sense that you know how to frame a learning challenge and that you will be constantly monitoring their progress to meet that challenge, so that when they need help, you will be able to tailor your support to enable them to work through their confusion. The constructivist educator is the coach who knows that the students are the players and that it is her job to set up condi-tions through which they learn that they have it in themselves to be winners. The constructivist educator believes that a school must be a community of learners, all of us teachers, all of us learners.