Chapter 8: Student-Centered and Constructivist Approaches to Instruction Cases to Consider

Read this Case to Consider, then voice your opinion on this topic area and see where you stand compared to others.

Teaching First-Graders to Regulate Their Learning

Mrs. Evertson has just finished reading Clifford's Birthday Party with her first-grade class. This week the students are doing activities related to the story. Mrs. Evertson describes the activities and explains that students should select three from the sheet to complete that morning. Activities include writing a story about Clifford, arranging word cards into sentences from the story, and writing a letter to Clifford about his birthday. Students move from center to center working on the activities. Thirty minutes before lunch, Mrs. Evertson asks the students to join her on the rug.

Mrs. Evertson: We had a lot of different activities this morning, and I wanted to know how you did. Were you successful?

Jessica: I didn't get all three of my activities done.

Mrs. Evertson: Could someone help Jessica by telling her how you planned your activities so that you finished them?

José: I kept working and if my friends talked to me too much, I took my work to another place in the room.

Crystal: I asked my friend to help me spell some of the words so I could write the story about Clifford. I got to use big words!

Mrs. Evertson: I see. José knew that he had to watch out and not get distracted so he could focus on his reading. Crystal knew that she should try to spell the words, but that friends can really help us learn new things. Those are good ideas to help us concentrate. Here is another question: Some of you were working with words from the book; you were putting them together so that they were just like the sentences in the story. How did you do that?

Susanna: First, I took out the word that started with a capital letter because I knew it would be the first word.

Mrs. Evertson: You thought about the beginning of the sentence. Did you think about the end, too?

Susanna: Yes, it had a period.

Juwan: I read all the words and kept changing them till they made sense.

Mrs. Evertson: Did you know all the words in the sentence, Tamika?

Tamika: No, I sounded one out. It started with cl. I knew clap, and I used that to figure out close.

Mrs. Evertson: So I hear that some people used the capital letters and punctuation as clues; some kept asking if the words made sense, and some used the letters they already knew to help them sound out new words. Those are all good strategies. You all knew that the sentence was supposed to make sense, just like the story, and you used different ways to do that. Before we go to lunch, I would like to check to see how many students marked off the activities they completed today. [Only three quarters of the students raise their hands.] Do that now. One way you could remember is to make a small mark by each activity you are choosing. Then, before you move on to the next center, mark it off in the box. Any other ideas?

Pasqual: I remember the work I did, and that helps me remember at the end.

Mrs. Evertson: Yes, when you remember the Clifford story you wrote, you can find that on your activity sheet and check it off. Tomorrow, I hope everyone will try some of these good ideas to help them think about how they do their work.

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