When I think of the types of experiments that I did as a K-12 students, I can only think about my science classes, although I can actually think of only one class that used science experiments in a constructivist way. My teacher’s name was Mr. Koper and he looked like the mad scientist that he sometimes turned out to be. He only had three rules: (1) don’t catch yourself on fire, (2) don’t catch the building on fire, and (3) figure out why the things you tried actually happened. His goal, although he never told us specifically, was to get us to think like a scientist, using different approaches to a problem to support our thinking.
There was another teacher that tried to be a constructivist science teacher but wasn’t actually successful. This teacher taught physics, one of my favorite classes. I liked it so much because I really thought it was quite easy. I was decent at memorizing formulas so I did well on the tests. In addition, we got to set up catapults and other physics-y things, sending various objects flying across the classroom. Where this teacher (who’s name is being withheld intentionally) failed to meet the constructivist standard was illustrated during our yearly Physics Olympics. That year, I proudly served on my school’s team… yes, I am a geek. That year, I, along with my teammates (my brilliant younger sister was also a member), quickly and decisively lost the competition. It turns out that we were all really good at doing the equations in class but not so good at thinking them through in a way that we could apply them to novel situations. And, thus began my journey away from the halls of science. My physics teacher did get at least one thing right, though; we certainly had fun with physics, an important piece of what experiments should be.
When we talk about experiments across the content areas, we want to take a broad view of what an experiment is. Certainly, there is going to be some difference between what a science experiment looks like and what one in English or social studies looks like. We might say that an experiment is the method used to validate, falsify, or establish a hypothesis (although I don’t really like the word hypothesis for use in all humanities and social science research). Experiments enable students to test approaches to support their thinking an assumption, might be another way to put it. Although experiments in science seem like fairly obvious activities, many might not actually involve students testing their own thinking. A great example not only of what experimentation in math might look like but also of how to make sure that experiments in STEM fields are constructivist is Dan Meyer’s explanation of non-linear math teaching.
Enabling students to test their own thinking in English and social studies is important too, although we don’t talk about it much…. Ok, maybe never. How much could students learn in an English class about media literacy is they were tasked with designing an advertisement for a book and tested different versions of the ad on focus groups? How many connections might they make between what words and texts are used, where they are located, and how they interact, especially with various groups of people? Google has made an entire science out of this!
Social studies teachers can also include experiments into their lessons. Obviously, psychology teachers can ask students to test various instruments on family and friends but social studies students can also experiment with their own civic power as well. As part of my teaching and research, I work with Generation Citizen to provide students with a chance to test various approaches to solving real, authentic civic issues in their communities. It is great when these civic experiments work and real change is created. However, when they don’t work, trying to figure out how to do it better the next time is sometimes even more fun.
Experiments aren’t just for science anymore. This video will help provide some guidelines for how to make STEM and social experiments work in your constructivist classroom.