Student-Centered Instruction

            Slavin (2012) stated, “ Students must construct knowledge in their own minds” (p.218). I chose to start with this quote for my reflection because it summarizes the whole concept of this chapter. This chapter emphasizes many influential topics of learning such as cooperative learning, critical thinking, and constructivist views.

            Students must be able to explore information, test knowns and unknowns, and eventually apply the learned information to their own lives (Slavin, 2012, p. 218). Something new that I learned in this chapter is that the constructivist theory is when individuals discover and transform information to make it their own. The Constructivism Theory was guided by the works of Piaget and Vygotsky. One thing that Vygotsky emphasized that I currently use in my classroom is scaffolding. Scaffolding helps my students think more critically and it deepens their learning.

I loved this chapter and agree pretty much with the whole chapter but one topic in particular that makes me excited to talk about is cooperative learning groups. I absolutely love cooperative learning groups and I utilize them in my classroom. In this week’s discussion post Ian Lyle mentions that choosing the most appropriate learning strategy when allowing for cooperative learning groups can be very challenging. I have to admit that utilizing the best strategies for a particular activity that is student-centered instruction driven, was very challenging for me because I usually have the gifted students and lower students in my classroom. Given that I am fairly new to teaching, a lot of times I have to just think of what I think is best and go with it! Mixing the groups with different academic levels of students has seemed to work well. I usually reflect back to what worked and what didn’t’ work with a particular student-centered instruction activity.

As mentioned in the readings for this week, I use a lot of group investigation, jigsaw, and learning together. The models that I would like to start using in my classroom are peer-assisted learning strategies and cooperative scripting. Slavin (2012) stated, “PALS is a structured cooperative learning method in which students work in pairs, taking turns as teacher and learner using specific metacognitive strategies” (p.234). One way that I can see PALS being beneficial in my classroom is to pair my lower students with my higher students. The important idea to remember is that when pairing them, I must create scenarios that allow for both students to show their strengths. PALS will also help my students learn how to problem-solve with each other if given the appropriate activity. I think that PALS is a great way to build confidence, especially with my lower learning students.

   Reference

Slavin, R.E. (2012). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (10^th ed.). Boston:Pearson.