ipt 301 social constructivism

Week 7 Social constructivism

1. What types of cooperative learning activates have you experience at both an elementary and college level?

-In elementary school, there were many times when we would have to work together to build model projects. One example was building a noodle bridge. During this activity, all the members had to bring different noodles and then took part in building different parts of the bridge. In collage, a lot of cooperative learning I have done has been in presentations. We would work as a group to put together a presentation during which, different parts were assigned to different people to do. The group relied on each other because if someone did not do their part, the presentation would be incomplete and everybody would get a bad grade on it.

2. In your opinion, do you feel that cooperative learning promotes learning? Why or why not?

-I believe that it can promote learning. By working together, students can help each other come to understand things so that the whole group can be effective in their project. Unfortunately, there are times when other group members may refuse or not care about helping others and just let the other members in the group fall behind, even though it is hurting the group project. In this case, cooperative learning becomes a negative experience.

3. What are the similarities and differences between Reciprocal questioning and instructional conversations?

-The differences between these two is that Reciprocal questioning seems to rely on the teacher for giving or reinforcing ideas while instructional conversations relies more on the students on giving their impute on a subject.
-although they are different, both of these methods are effective on helping students/teachers have a better understanding of the subject matter they are looking at.

4. What are some examples of when you would want to use ability grouping? When would mixed-grouping be more appropriate?

-One reason why I would want to use ability grouping is if I was trying to get just a few students prepared for a single event like a spelling bee or math tournament. Having students of the same ability would be needed for preparing for this since it is a specialized event that not everybody participates in
-For mixed-grouping- I would want to use it in curriculum where I want students to learn from each other. By having different levels of students in a group, students who may not have such an easy time on the subject when it is explained by the teacher may have a better understanding when instruction is coming from their peer who is more at their level and may understand their confusion in a different way from the teacher.