These Activators give students a brief taste of a specific historical event through a direct experience. Prices for the classroom materials are quite reasonable. Constructivist teaching Constructivist teachers use teaching practices that rest on a theory of learning that says that people learn best when they construct their own knowledge. D.E.A.R D.E.A.R. stands for Drop Everything And Read. During D.E.A.R. time, everyone within a school, students and adults alike, reads silently for a specified period of time.
Some schools have D.E.A.R. time daily, while others opt to use it a couple of times a week.
Generally, D.E.A.R. time lasts from 15 to 30 minutes. This technique also goes by the term U.S.S.R. or Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading. The Web site of Saskatchewan Education in Canada gives an excellent overview of the D.E.A.R. strategy, along with very useful suggestions on how to successfully implement a D.E.A.R. program. The program uses no textbook and instead emphasizes hands-on activity based lessons. This is one of the frequent staff development workshops offered by Phi Delta Kappa, the national education fraternity.