What Theories Supported the Constructs of the Article by Gideon Weinstein - Assignment Example

Full What theory/theories supported the constructs of the article? In his article, Gideon Weinstein theorized that through constructivism, “students become meaning-makers rather than empty vessels waiting to be filled and teachers become facilitators and guides in the co-construction of knowledge” (231). This means that students will cease to be passive listeners who will be active only when called upon by the teacher. In return, teachers will not do all the work of talking and thinking in order to fill the students’ brains with their own understanding. Rather, they become guides who will simply assist students to see if they are learning the right things at the right span of time. Secondly, he also theorizes whether learning should be considered an individual cognitive act or a social cultural one. For this reason, personal characteristics are considered whether a student learns according to his level of understanding or if learning happens more rapidly during socialization. Lastly, Weinstein suggests that two perspectives “give both sides of a good story” (231).
2. If I were to outline the literature review for the article, it would look like this:
A. Introduction:
B. Summary
C. Theoretical perspectives:
1) Constructivism
2) Should learning be considered an individual cognitive act of a social or cultural one?
3) Social and cultural perspectives give both sides of a good story
D. Procedure:
1) Observation/actual teaching
2) Survey
3) Interview
E. Factors affecting failure or success in math studies:
1) Homework hours
2) Peer teaching
3) Student/tutor session
F. Conclusion
3. What sampling techniques did the author use in the article?
The author used stratified sampling, concentrating on one class and then asking for volunteers for the interview from them. For the survey, he used random sampling, giving questionnaires to all participants from which 56% of them returned the questionnaires.
4. The author used survey or questionnaire, interview and observation to collect data.
5. How did each help the author gain insight into how students perceived their math instruction?
From the 18 respondents to the survey, the author was able to identify two remarkable results namely, homework hours and working together. The questionnaires were designed to examine the number of hours a student worked on math each week, how the hours are distributed between the different kinds of study and how often and how much time they spend studying with fellow students, friends, tutors and others (233). From this, the author was able to gain insight about the students’ attitude toward math.
The interview method perhaps gave a better insight to the author in terms of the attitude of students toward math lessons because he was able to ask follow-up questions. The author was able to design a learning strategy for the volunteers, asking them to teach each other and did the interview after the sessions. The follow up questions were often about their failures and successes in learning from each other. Consequently, he was able to determine the relationship between cognitive and sociocultural factors.
Lastly, by observing students during class hours, the author was able to take note of some common problems inside the classroom such as the expected interactions between teacher and students. Nevertheless, the author focused on the students, taking note of how they communicated with each other about various topics but math and how they speak with their teacher mainly about math. Read More