Exploring Constructivist Theory in Teaching and Learning

The constructivist theory of learning underpins the teaching session, focusing on students' active and dynamic process of constructing knowledge through problem-solving, collaboration, and experiential learning. Students are allowed to lead conferences, brainstorm ideas, form their own partnerships, and share information in their preferred way. The approach emphasizes practical knowledge acquisition and goal-oriented learning, respecting and acknowledging individual grasping methods. Constructivism is a broad theory that suggests students generate their own concepts based on prior experiences, mental images, and beliefs, rather than simply memorizing notes or accepting others' concepts.

Part A
Title of session:
Teaching students how to take care of wounds
and injuries using constructivist methodologies
Related programme or course
 Nursing and patient care
 Patient protection and hygiene
 Surgical care
Teaching Context:
(lecture, tutorial, workshop, student demographics – number, prior knowledge)
The teaching is concerned with providing few minutes of session on understanding the various
aspects of wound care. In the session, different videos will be shown to the student nurse to get the
clear picture. The total expected number of students for the session is 40. It is expected that the
students are attentive to the session and consider such sessions to be beneficial.
Aim (s) of the Session:
The primary aim of this teaching plan is to ensure that the students will be able to learn extensive
methods utilized for wound care.
Learning objectives:
At the end of this session the ‘students’ will be able to:
1. Comprehensive description of signs and symptoms developed after wound infection.
2. Identification of equipment required for wound care.
3. Methods involving wound cleaning and bandaging
4. Description of pertinent actions to be taken when complications arise.
Section Teacher Activity Duration Student Activity
Introduction  Discuss what the topic is
all about
 The use of anecdotes can
be immensely helpful to
be associated with the
topic
 Discuss the initial
feelings regarding the
topic
3 minutes
 Students should sit
relaxed and properly
pay attention to what is
being discussed
 Try to grasp the topic
and relate to it in some
way or the other
 Give time yourself to
understand the
objective and ask
questions
Dialogue /
Body
(Activities /
 A detailed elaboration of
different learning styles
and their demonstration
8 minutes
 Actively engage with
each other as well as
with the teacher to

sections)  Use of new and
innovative ways as to
how the interaction is
made in order to develop
an ability of quick
learning
 Using an approach that
incorporates a mix of
different learning styles
as everyone finds a
different method a
dominant style of
learning new techniques
 Discussing different
circumstances in which a
particular learning
technique can be useful
and effective
understand methods of
taking care of wounds
 Actively participate
and seek every
opportunity and try to
be part of
demonstration as much
as student can
 Contribute towards the
achievement of the
objective of the topic
being discussed
 Try to be part of
different groups as they
are immensely helpful
in new methods of
using equipment
 Try to be constructive
in the session in order
to form genuine ideas
Conclusion
Closure –
includes
assessment /
evaluation
 Completion of notes and
presentation
 Responding to the
questions and queries
 Assessment of students
based on the
questionnaire
4 minutes
 Students will be able to
learn effectively using
learning techniques
 Should be able to pass
the assessment done by
teachers
Resources

Part B
Introduction
The target audience of this training session is the student nurses who are learning various aspects
of nursing and are yet to be a part of the health care system.
The student nurses around the world are being deployed by the health care organizations and
hospitals for their critical role of saving and taking care of the patients. They always have to use
clear, effective and accurate skills that are used for saving lives, particularly in the absence of
medical professionals like doctors and surgeons. They have to be well versed in understanding
the needs of patients, applications of new and alternative medications, working alongside with
their instructors and following the procedures of the health care facility where they are getting
practical experience.
The topic of the session being chosen here is “Patient safety and wound care”. Therefore, it is
needless to say that safety of any patient is an essential and core part of what nursing is all about.
Nurses, as we know them, are the ones who restore and revive the health of the patients even if
how challenging is it for them to dispense their duties. One of the important aspects of nursing
care is to prevent avoidable errors and extensive caring of the wounds. There are a set of tried
and tested ways or procedures for improving wound care procedures and making methodologies
and medications more reliable (Kalisch, Tschannen, & Lee, 2012).
The teaching session essentially focuses on certain key areas which form the bedrock of the topic
at hand. The central point of this approach is to develop a culture of safety so that undesirable
incidents could be prevented from happening by learning constructive attitudes and behaviors.
The health care organizations are therefore needed to foster a proactive approach when it comes
to patient that develop serious and life taking wounds. It should be noted that the healthcare can
only be termed as reliable when the healthcare professionals are provided with reliable and
sensible knowledge as to how preparations and actions are taken for wound care. Therefore, the
human factors are always a key for safer healthcare.
Preparation
These days, the incidents of drunk driving and because of that accidents are taking place quite
frequently. There is a new sub-urban class of people particularly teenagers that is involved in
these activities of drinking and driving. Therefore, the healthcare facilities are often filled with
such accident patients, who need instant care as they sustain serious injuries. Hence, it was
urgently felt a need by the medical instructors to provide a teaching session to the student nurses
regarding patient safety and wound care.
As a known fact, the learners that is the student nurses generally have a compelling propensity to
empathize with the patients who are very serious or badly injured (Doenges, Moorhouse, &
Murr, 2010). Therefore, to determine and ensure their readiness for the teaching session, we must
put across the context of today’s scenario regarding the rising death toll in the drunk driving

accidents. We educate them that it is not the driver only, whose life is at stake but the innocent
people walking on the roads who are injured because of that and brought to hospital afterwards.
The required knowledge and skills will be demonstrated extensively. To explain them how acute
and chronic lacerations be treated swiftly and effectively so that lesser pain will be experienced
by the patients. They will be made aware all the aspects of prerequisites, safety, resources,
contents and possible outcomes.
The evaluation will be done on the basis of personal observations and reflections of the students
by providing them a feedback form and necessary checklists. In addition to this, the students’
progress will be analyzed by assessing the answers they will be asked at the end of the session.
Development of Learning Objectives
As far as the aforementioned learning objectives of the teaching session are concerned, Blooms
cognitive taxonomy was thoroughly used to devise them.
The level 1 of Bloom’s Taxonomy explains the identification of the type of problem (in this case
wounds and injuries) and define, declare and recognize it for the identification of the wound
infection. Level 2 describes the process of Understanding as the formulation of knowledge in
terms of medicines and equipment used. Level 3 is Application, in which the medical
practitioners are required to demonstrate, elaborate and make full use of the knowledge and
demonstrate the process of cleansing and bandaging. The level 4 of Bloom’s taxonomy is
Analysis which explains connections, criticisms and making comparisons and therefore is
important for the appropriate action (Rahbarnia, Hamedian, & Radmehr, 2014).
SMART goals stand for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. So, the
learning objectives of the teaching session developed on the basis of Bloom’s Taxonomy, have
to satisfy the SMART goals approach.
Specific: The learning session for the students is limited and therefore the learning objectives
also need to be crisp and short as well as highly informative. So, they were kept as specific
according to the topic.
Measurable: the teaching session has been designed in such a way that all of the objectives
would meet the expectations. They will be easily evaluated against the prescribed standards.
Achievable: with the help of Bloom’s Taxonomy, the objectives are such that they are in full
capability of the students to be achieved using the opportunities and resources.
Relevant: The objectives stated in the session are quite relevant and to the point. So, their impact
will be maximum.
Time-bound: In response to the stipulated time for the teaching session, the learning objectives
are just time-oriented. The unnecessary milestones and check points have been done away with
(Poston, Bell, Croker, & Flynn).

Theoretical underpinnings
The various learning styles that naturally come to the students for comprehending and learning
new things effectively are:
Visual: When any learning is aided and complemented by images, pictures and spatial
representation of different learning elements.
Auditory: It allows the use of music, sound, rhyme, poetry and spoken voices so that the
students grasp by listening to them.
Reading/writing: Whenever reading or writing materials are provided to the students, they tend
to learn more.
Kinesthetic: This is the way of learning when different parts of the body are moved such as
hands, feet and sense of touch (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 1998).
The strategies that were applied for the students are as follows:
1. They were allowed to lead conference
2. They were allowed to brainstorm their ideas
3. They were allowed to form their own ideas according to their own choice
4. They were allowed to make partners and share the information according to their own way.
As we know that the adults are motivated and self-directed and they believe in taking
experiences and evidential knowledge. So, the approach being used here is that their learning is
problem-solving and collaborative rather than traditional methodology of lecturing. They are
goal oriented and weigh the relevancy of the learning methods, therefore the approach used here
is to give them practical knowledge as much as possible. They will learn the way they feel they
want to learn the new things (Kiraly, 2014). So, their grasping methods are deeply acknowledged
and respected and the session was designed accordingly.
The learning theory that comprehensively underpins this teaching session is constructivist theory
of learning. This theory basically focuses on critical thinking, formation of genuine concepts,
application of reasoning and problem solving tactics. It is a broad theory that suggests that
students generate their own of concepts according to their understanding rather than simply
memorizing the notes and considering other’s concepts of reality. As a matter of fact learning is
an active and dynamic process that takes a basis for the inference that knowledge being
constructed by means of learners’ attempts of creating their own experiences. In this regard, the
knowledge is constructed on the basis of prior experiences, mental images as well as the beliefs
acquired in the memories in order to genuinely interpret objects and events. Observation and the
scientific knowledge are the key elements of constructivist theory (Fosnot, 2013). The theory
further goes on to say that whenever we encounter new concepts in our lives, either we have to
reconcile with it based on our prior experiences and make alterations on what we believe or

discard it as an irrelevant concept. So, the point is we are active and dynamic creators of our own
knowledge and in order to achieve this, we must ask pertinent questions, explore new avenues
and assess what we understood.
Constructivism, according to the new studies, does not discard, and rightly so, the active role
what teacher ought to play to provide the ingenuous knowledge that he/she genuinely achieved
constructively in life. It allows a valuable modification to the role of the teachers for allowing
students to construct knowledge rather than making a series of fact presentation. The elementary
tools being provided by a constructivist teacher are problem-solving and query-based learning
methodologies that could go a long way to help students formulate their own ideas,
understanding, conclusions as well as inferences. Therefore, it can be said that constructivism is
weapon that transforms students from passive recipients to active recipients of knowledge
(Gopnik & Wellman, 2012). Constructivism taps the human potential and channelize a student’s
congenital desire as to how to fully cope up in new learning environments.
Conclusion
The important and effective theories used in the teaching session had an inherent objective of
learning for the students. These theories without a shred of doubt, were very helpful in bringing
together various aspects of knowledge, skills, values, attitudes as well as behaviors regarding
whole new avenues of world view. So, the theories that were incorporated in the teaching for a
sole purpose of learning for students are: cognitive, experimental, experiential, behavioral and
most importantly constructivist.

References
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Press.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028044
Kalisch, B., Tschannen, D., & Lee, K. (2012). Missed Nursing Care, Staffing, and Patient
Falls. Journal Of Nursing Care Quality, 27(1), 6-12.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/ncq.0b013e318225aa23
Kiraly, D. (2014). A Social Constructivist Approach to Translator Education. Hoboken: Taylor
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Knowles, M., Holton, E., & Swanson, R. (1998). The adult learner. Houston, Tex.: Gulf Pub.
Co.
Lawlor, K. B. (2012). SMART Goals: How the application of SMART goals can contribute to
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Rahbarnia, F., Hamedian, S., & Radmehr, F. (2014). A Study on the relationship between
multiple Intelligences and mathematical problem solving based on Revised Bloom
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