Designing and Experimenting of English Instructional Material for Facilitating Constructivist Learning
Author: Sharma, Ritu
Date: 2011-07-14
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Constructivism (Learning),Instructional Materials,Educational Change,Educational Technology,English Instruction,Experimental Groups,Teaching Methods,Experiments,Academic Achievement

Background: Constructivism has emerged as one of the greatest influences on the practice of education in the last twenty-five years. Teachers have embraced constructivist-based pedagogy with an enthusiasm that is rare in these days of quick fixes and a shopping mall approach to school improvement. For many teachers, the focus on constructing meaning in the teaching-learning process resonates with prior beliefs because constructivist-based instruction firmly places educational priorities on students. In the classroom, the constructivist view of learning points towards a number of different teaching practices. In the most general sense, it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing. The teacher makes sure she understands the students' pre-existing conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then build on them. Purpose: Following are the objectives of the study: 1) To develop criteria for a framework for developing Instructional material for facilitating constructivist learning. 2)To design instructional material for class VIII level within the developed framework in the light of selected objectives of teaching English as laid down by the Central Board of Secondary Education. 3) To experiment with the developed instructional material on a selected sample of students. Research Design: Experimental; Findings: Mean achievement of the students exposed to constructive learning is significantly higher than the mean achievement of the students taught through traditional method (M1 = 15.38, M2 = 13.83). It implies that constructivist learning has a significant impact on the achievement of class VIII students in English. Result: It was found that students who were taught through designed Instructional material based on Constructivist Learning had performed better than those who were taught through Traditional method. Conclusion: Although constructivism is not a theory of teaching, it suggests taking a radically different approach to instruction from that used in most schools. Instructors need to realize that the best way to learn is not from lectures, but by letting the learners construct knowledge for themselves. People often say that everyone can learn. Yet the reality is that everyone does learn. Every person is born with a brain that functions as an immensely powerful processor. However, traditional schooling inhibits learning by discouraging, ignoring, or punishing the brain's natural learning processes. In order for learners to be able to actively construct their own knowledge, rather than receive preformed information transmitted by others, curriculum emphases, classroom interactions, and classroom dynamics must change in major ways. Changing the traditional ways of schooling is not an easy task though. Just as students do not easily let go of their ideas, neither do school boards, principals, parents, or even teachers. The constructivists propose several instructional strategies among them cooperative learning, collaborative learning, problem based learning etc. are prominent. Therefore to keep pace with the changing circumstances, we should not keep ourselves aloof from new experiments in the field of education to make learning more effective and enjoyable experience for pupils. Clearly, the constructivist approach opens new avenues for learning as well as challenges for the teacher trying to implement it.