Constructivism, at its core, is curiosity. The role of the teacher is to actively, not passively as some critics may content, co-design the learning experience, including the big ideas and essential questions along with students. In a traditional classroom, typically the teacher asking all the questions and making all the decisions about what lesson comes next in the sequence. In a constructivism classroom, students offer their suggestions and ideas that often stem from interaction with a well-developed phenomenon crafted by the teacher.

Source: https://www.rubicon.com/phenomenon-based-learning/

Examples of phenomena in science might include:

• a video of someone shattering a glass with their voice
• a giant newton's cradle
• a demo of air pressure with an expanding marshmallow man in a bell jar hooked up to a vacuum pump (this is the one I did in my 8th-grade classes!)

A great resource for science phenomenon can be found at https://thewonderofscience.com/

Source: https://thewonderofscience.com/

Examples of phenomena in math might include:

• an investigation of vessel shape and volume
• exploring symmetry in nature
• modeling of large numbers

I would argue that being curious is not just having fun learning something (although I am a huge proponent of play in the classroom). Instead, curiosity is wanting to know and understand something for one's own sake rather than the sake of the teacher. In this sense, constructivism is building knowledge through the questions students ask. For this reason, teaching students how to ask great questions and even better follow-up questions is essential. When I taught 8th-grade science, I used a question spinner designed from the question matrix by Chuck Weiderhold. This resource helped my students expand their questions beyond "What is" and towards "How might."

Source: https://cortesfranciscojr.wordpress.com/higher-order-thinking-skills-2/

In my new role this next year as Director of K-8 Science I am starting a #BeCurious campaign with my teachers and students. My vision is for teachers to come up with their own experiments they want to do and then share their experience with their students. Maybe someone wants to know how "dirty" ice is at different restaurants or maybe they are curious about whether their kids can really taste the difference between generic Cheerios and the real thing. My hope is that as teachers get engaged in exploring their own ideas, they will find even more time to dedicate to exploring students' ideas.

References:

The Wonder of Science. (n.d.). Phenomenon. Retrieved from https://thewonderofscience.com/

Educational Broadcasting Corporation. (2004.) Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from https://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html