Constructivism

IF I DO I WILL LEARN BETTER IF I UNDERSTAND I WILL REMEMBER FOR EVER

The BES educational program is based on an approach which is known as “constructivism”.

Constructivist learning theory suggests that people develop their own understanding and knowledge of the world through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences.

When learners encounter something new, they have to reconcile it with their previous ideas and experience, sometimes changing what they believe, or sometimes discarding the new information as irrelevant. Learners, then, become active creators of their own knowledge rather than passive recipients of ideas gleaned from the textbook or from the teacher. In order to construct new knowledge, students must ask questions, explore, and reflect on what they have learned.
In the classroom, the constructivist approach takes the form of engaging students in hands-on, minds-on learning activities like experiments and real-world problem solving in order to create more knowledge. Students then reflect on and talk about what they are doing with their peers and identify how their understanding is changing.
The teacher is a facilitator who assesses the students' preexisting conceptions and guides the activity to address and build on the students’ ideas. By designing problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities, the teacher encourages students to formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and communicate their new knowledge in a collaborative learning environment.