What is the behaviourist (directed instructional) approach?
Behaviorist (directed instructional) approach is one approach whereby teacher plays a central role in classroom such as in explaining, modeling, http://www.blogger.com/and providing opportunities for practice with feedback. Direct instruction does not assume that students will develop insights on their own. Instead, direct instruction takes learners through the steps of learning systematically, helping them see both the purpose and the result of each step.
There are a few basic components of direct instruction which are:
1- Setting clear goals for students and making sure they understand these goals.
2- Presenting a sequence of well-organized assignments.
3- Giving students clear, concise explanations and illustrations of the subject matter.
4- Asking frequent questions to see if the students understand the work.
5- Giving students frequent opportunities to practice what they have learned.
Directed instructional approach is based on teacher-centered classroom whereby teacher is the knowledge disseminator and the students passively receive the knowledge from teacher. This teacher-centered classroom could create a learning environment which is very structured and students need to follow teacher’s instruction and steps in order to learn a subject. Although the role of students is as the passive knowledge receiver, it is useful when it comes to teaching them theoretical-based subject. By using this method, the intended learning outcomes could be achieved. Moreover, this method is useful for monitoring students learning progress and to ensure that the steps are systematically applied without overlooking at any teaching steps.
Besides that, there are also learning websites for science subject which are designed using this approach. The main reason for using this approach would be focusing on the learning outcomes and the intended input that should be grabbed by students in the learning websites. By using this approach, students who do not have the prior knowledge especially in science subject, would not have problems in constructing their knowledge. Therefore, creating learning websites based on this approach would somehow guide the students and increase their level of understanding in learning science.
Some examples of learning websites which apply this approach are:
1) http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/
2) 2) http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/
What is Constructivist Approach?
Constructivist approach is focusing on the students’ capacity to construct their own understanding based on the topics taught. In other words, they prefer to be active learners rather than being passive knowledge receiver. In this approach, students construct their own understanding based on their prior knowledge. This can be a student-centered learning environment which could enhance their learning.
This approach is also integrated in creating learning websites for teaching science. Below are some examples of learning websites which integrate this approach.
1) http://www.kidsastronomy.com/
2) 2) http://www.tryscience.org/
All in all, both approaches are useful and can be integrated in order to enhance students learning in science subject.
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