Quick Intro:

Constructivist Math Teaching = Teaching by incorporating

Constructivist Math Teaching

Mathematics teaching with a constructivist focus includes a mathematical learning is an active process of metal construction and sense-making where intellectual abilities knowledge and understanding are developed rather than provided as innate (Shepard, 2000; Luei et al., 2016). Two decades ago, math teaching was reformed at a national level to include a major focus on constructivist teaching practices (Stocks & Shofield, 1997). Instead of procedural teachings from classical views, Constructivist teachers conduct their classroom and instruction to help promote and guide students into an inquiry and discovery, but more importantly to help them gain their own mathematical knowledge to promote creativity and independence.  Yet, students do not learn math completely on their own. In other words, students will not continue to develop information to incorporate it into their framework. Stocks and Shofield (1997) suggested teachers continue to scaffold instruction by actively incorporating information in pre-existing sets of understanding,

Constructivist teaching pedagogies focus on encouraging questions based process where learning is fostered through active thoughtful questioning, and proposing, and defined ideas (Stipek et al., 2001). Also, progress is made based on students progression through topics. This is different from classical teaching and may not a lot much flexibility due to state-mandated testing. Additionally promoting higher levels of questioning may be challenging for teachers addressing a large diverse classroom (cf. Luie et al., 2016).

Below, I have yet another video feel free to skip it, but I find this video represents a teacher who is able to connect and inspire a student to think about math creatively.