Improving Teaching and Learning Essay

As all babyrens produces and development be person, every s give flairr will ware their own droll get under ones skining point from where to continue their cultivation of a subject from. Ausubel (1968) puts forward the aro drug abuse thought that we should design our t some(prenominal)lying to start from where the pupil is. just, as Littledyke & Huxton (1998) suggest, it is almost unfeasible to backpack into account every individual childs educational asideset point. I tried to establish a common showtime point by getting the whole class to brainstorm what they knew ab come forward metal.This would provide me with a obscure idea of the acquaintance each child held and enable me to successfully plan sufficient investigative activities. This matches Piagets (1926) nonion of cognitive match. The need to pitch the schooling experience at the effective take, for each child. The teacher leads a discussion on a topic to draw out a range of ideas from this the teach er may be able to judge which children are most or least knowledgeable. However there may be several children within the class about the teacher knows very little even later the brainstorming academic term. (Littledyke & Huxford, 1998, p22) To combat this problem that Littledyke and Huxford (1998) have-to doe with I talked to children who did not take develop in the whole class session individually to found out their level of knowledge on the subject. One of the goals on my display table was a draw. some of the children seemed fascinated by the magnet, as companys of children would endlessly pick it up and play with it. later on seeing this I decided I would get the children to investigate which materials are attracted to a magnet.This seemed like an excellent idea as I had already observed that the children were enkindle in this subject. The probe would be carried out in a pissivist room, with the children working individually. From this I could see that Rodney had had no past experience with magnets and therefore had no knowledge that magnets are made of metal. All he knew was that the object he held in his hand was called a magnet and that it stuck to metal objects. He had guessed that the magnet was made of plastic (probably due to the incident that it was coated in plastic) and constructed a misconception.On analysing this conversation I concluded that carrying my investigation out in a constructivist manner and pitching my investigation at an ordinary level, had missed Rodneys (and no head others) starting point of subject knowledge leading him to create his own ridiculous idea. I deal this evidence contradicts a constructivist authority of training as without positively intervening, inquisitive and explaining to Rodney that the magnet was made of metal, more(prenominal) problems may have arise in the form of further misconceptions or cosmos unable to carry out succeeding(a) work effectively.Instead it matches Littledykes & Hu xtons (1998) suggestion that interconnected every childs starting point is extremely challenging and if not done accurately, as shown from the evidence, can lay down problems for the child. This brings to light that maybe a incompatible command style needs to be adopted. Maybe I should have use the transmission approach of teaching at the beginning of the lesson and clarified vital pieces of knowledge so that non of the children would have had misconceptions and the investigation would have succeed to the best of its ability.This however would have been uninteresting for the children. In using a constructivist method of teaching, allowing the child to work separately building on old ideas to construct new ones, there is always a risk that misconceptions may arise. When children are discovering a convention for themselves and intervention from a more knowledgeable source is absent, children may take the learning and instead of placing it in the vista of conventional science t hey place it in their own logical perspective.For example, after the investigation, I sat with each ability group and asked them to inform me of their findings. Through discussion and questioning within the group, I challenged ideas, aiding children to have gateway and maybe use of other childrens ideas and therefore make their own clearer. The pastime conversation was typical of all the groups. In conclusion, I believe that constructivism is an effective way in enabling children to build on or amend active ideas as it allows the child to undertaking hands on activities and actually appreciate a guess in action.This in turn could any deepen understanding or convince misconceptions they may have emerged throughout the topic. pragmatic activities subsequently dish the children to retain the information as doing experiments, which are of interest to them, help them remember the vital information needed. These facts could therefore be recalled instantaneously when re-visiting an d building on a similar topic, later on in the curriculum. Due to all the disadvantages mentioned ahead in my assignment, it is obvious that constructivism cannot stand-alone.It is acceptable to use constructivist methods but they must be employ in conjunction with other teaching methods also mentioned earlier. This, as teachers, is down to our original judgement to decide when and where they should be used. The in good order teaching style should accommodate the right job and although constructivism is a sound way to allow children to investigate, it does not always satisfy the purpose of the scientific investigation wanting to be carried out. However I believe that we adopt many different teaching styles throughout a lesson without even designed it.BibliographyASHCROFT, K & LEE, J (2000) Improving teaching and Learning in the Core course of study. capital of the United Kingdom Falmer.ATKINSON & FLEER (1995) Science with Reason. Hodder & Staughton.COLLINS EDUCATIONAL (1995 ) Nuffield capital Science, materials teachers guide. capital of the United KingdomDe BOO, M (2000) Science 3-6 lay the foundations in the Early Years. ASE Hatfield.DFEE, (2000) The National Curriculum Handbook for Primary Teachers in England. capital of the United Kingdom DFEE & QCA.FARROW, S. (2000) The Really Useful Science Book. LondonFalmer.