Penny Oldfather
Published: 1999-01-01
Total Pages: 125
Get eBook
This book illustrates the ways that teachers, by seeing learning through children's eyes, create new possibilities for their students' intrinsic motivation and meaningful learning. Motivation and learning are linked in a view of knowledge that is called social constructivism, the theory that undergirds the ideas in this book. Social constructivist theorists acknowledge multiple constructions of the world. In social constructivist theory, each human being makes sense of the world in a unique way. For teachers to facilitate students' learning, therefore, it is essential that they seek to understand students' unique constructions and to see learning through their students' eyes. Social constructivism has major implications for the ways we understand learning, the ways we as teachers think about our roles, and the ways we teach. Our main purpose in this book is to propose a vision of the ways that learning experiences are transformed when teachers are learning through children's eyes. Seeing learning through children's eyes brings about important changes in classroom culture, including ways that curriculum is negotiated and enacted, changing the content of the curriculum, and changing relationships among all members of the classroom community.