Roth Planetarium teaching philosophy

For grades 3 to 12

Choices

Student-centered learning:

You can let your presentation be driven partly or wholly by questions from the class.

¬… Ask as many questions as possible and call on students.

¬… Hand them the flashlight and have them point out objects.

¬… Quiz them during the class on what you are pointing out.

Constructivist approach:

Constructivism emphasizes the importance of the knowledge, beliefs, and skills an individual brings to the experience of learning. It recognizes the construction of new understanding as a combination of prior learning, new information, and readiness to learn. Individuals make choices about what new ideas to accept and how to fit them into their established views of the world.

Constructivist teachers refer to raw data, primary sources, and interactive materials to provide experiences for their students rather than relying solely on another's set of data.

The premises of constructivism as an epistemology are:

1) Knowledge is constructed, not transmitted.

2) Prior knowledge impacts the learning process.

3) Initial understanding is local, not global.

4) Building useful knowledge structures requires effortful and purposeful activity.

5) The interpretation of stimuli depends upon previously constructed learning .

For pedagogic purposes, the tenets of constructivism can be rephrased as follows:

1) Students come into our classrooms with an established world-view, formed by years of prior experience and learning.

2) Even as it evolves, a student's world-view filters all experiences and affects their interpretation of observations.

3) Students are emotionally attached to their world-views and will not give up their world-views easily.

4) Challenging, revising, and restructuring one's world-view requires much effort.

If we base instruction on the principles of constructivism, the role of the teacher is raised from someone who simply dispenses information to someone who structures activities that improve communication, that challenge students' pre-conceived notions, and that help students revise their world-views.

The MOP activities are the heart and soul of the MOP curriculum materials, but the MOP curriculum is more than a set of student activities. It is an approach to learning physics. Underlying the approach is a set of four basic principles:

1) Knowledge is constructed by each learner, not transmitted to him or her by someone else.

2) The construction of knowledge is an effortful process requiring significant time and engagement by the learner.

3) The construction of knowledge often takes place within the context of social interaction.

4) The construction of knowledge is greatly influenced by the knowledge the learner already possesses.