What teaching method do you think is the most effective?

To be an effective teaching you have to use a variety of teaching methods. However, I tend to lean towards constructivism when deciphering which teaching method is the most effective. Also I have researched and research does show that constructivist students have higher order thinking and out perform their peers. There are several reasons why I believe this and many ways that I try to implement constructivism in my classroom. First of all, using constructivism brings a lot to the table. When using this teaching method students do not memorize, but construct their own knowledge on their own. This approach allows the classroom to become more student center instead of teacher centered and after all, the student is the most important part of the classroom. Therefore, this is the way that it should be. Through constructivism the independent learner is intrinsically motivated to generate, discover, build and enlarge his or her framework of knowledge. There are several aspects of constructivism that have led this method to being the most effective among classroom students.
First of all, cooperative learning is something that I believe is a must to use and present in your classroom. This is the idea, founded by Vygotsky, in which people more easily discover and comprehend difficult concepts if they can talk out their problems with their peers. I would establish this by putting my students into groups, for example, work on math problem that no one in the class got right on their homework. This teaching approach deals with the idea that students will bounce off ideas from each other and gain knowledge through working with others. Cooperative learning not only helps the students cognitively, but also socially by forcing the students to learn through interaction with others.
Reciprocal learning is a small group teaching method based on principals of questions. In this type of teaching the students usually lead class discussions and teachers foster metacognitive skills mainly to improve reading performance of students who have poor comprehension. I could implement this in my classroom through literary circles or focus units in which students read different books in groups and then talk about the books they read amongst their selves. They lead this discussion and once again learn form each other. Vygotsky also introduced the idea of scaffolding as a part of constructivist teaching. This is the idea that teachers support a student’s learning by using cues, examples, encouragement by breaking the problem down the step by step to support growth of independent learners. Through scaffolding a teacher can gradually pull herself out of the picture until the student can work a task on his or her own. This is ultimately what we strive for as teachers.
When recalling my elementary years and remembering back to the observation and time that I have spent in the classroom, constructivism in the classroom specifically sticks out as the most important. Science experiment, reading groups, using physical knowledge are all activities where learning is constructed by the student and not through memorizing notes. Students tend to be more creative learners when they construct their own knowledge and also tend to retain more knowledge. Constructivism tends to motivate curiosity in students through, for example, science experiments and this is something that all teachers long to have in their classrooms. Although having a mixture of teaching methods will help build great classroom learning, I believe that it is imperative to implement constructivism in everyday teaching. It not only produces independent learners, but it also promotes curiosity and enhances self esteem by showing the student that they can learn on their own