The other principle which underlies the constructivist approach is a deep focus on main ideas as well as relationships within the key ideas that lie within a given subject area (Grobecker, 1999). The application of this principle means that a teacher must stress the various connections of the more important concepts that form the main idea for a given discipline as opposed to teaching several bits of knowledge which are isolated.
Duhaney & Duhaney (2000) proposed the use of active learning as an important element of the constructivist instructional approach. This is because when students are actively involved in a given lesson, they tend to learn as well as retain most of the presented information (Harris & Graham, 1996).
Behaviorist theory and its application
The other theory / approach of learning that should be used on children with learning disorder are behaviorist theory. This has in most cases been refereed to as direct or explicit instruction. Mercer (1997) pointed out that even though the application of this approach in the general education setting has been met with a lot of criticism, it has been indicated to be effective for children with learning difficulties. Its positive aspects are therefore worth considering.
One of the strategies that is associated with the structured approach to student teaching entails the breaking down of the available tasks into smaller and manageable teaching segments/tasks (Grobecker, 1999). The simplification process is very important to student with learning difficulties due to the fact that they are easily overwhelmed and frustrated whenever their learning process is complicated. This makes them to give up way too early (Lerner, 2003).
The other important component of the direct instructional technique is modeling (Olson & Platt, 2000).This means that a teacher must be able to explain as well as demonstrate each and every stage.
Grobecker (1999) pointed out that the explicit instructional approach involves the practicing as well as reviewing of the new learning activities until there is mastery. Olson & Platt (2000) pointed out that explicit teaching entails the reliance on structure as well as a systematic process of planning.
Conclusion
The academic as well as processing deficit problems make teaching student with learning disabilities t be a complex one. It is therefore important for the instructor to comprehend the strengths as well as the weaknesses of various teaching approaches such as constructivist and behaviorist techniques in order for effective learning to be achieved by the students. A combination of approaches should be adopted together with legislations...
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