Warrington

A huge advantage to teaching mathematics with constructivism is that students think for themselves. The students use their logical skills to solve problems on their own. Based on the ability to do similar problems the students can figure out how to do more complex problems. For example, in Warrington's paper her students had already done fraction addition, subtraction, and multipication. Warrington began her lesson with easy fraction division problems the students could easily do on their own and gradually increased their difficulty. Using the students' previous knowledge of fraction math she built on it and added more.

A disadvantage would be the time constraint. It takes so much longer for the students to learn constructionally. The teacher must give the students' adequate time to figure out the problems. It is also difficult time wise for the teacher to get the students used to thinking constructively. especially if the students has never had to think constructionally before.

Von Glasersfeld

Von Glasersfeld Uses the word 'construct' rather than 'acquire' because of his constructivism theory. to construct is a verb implying the person who is learning needs to be the active one and construct their understanding. Where acquire is a more passive verb that implies the person who is learning is just listening and retaining knowledge. they are simply acquiring it. The key difference here is the activity of the learner. A learner who is actively involved in the learning process is going to understand better and remember the information better and longer.

When I am teaching math i need to do activities where the student is not just watching and listening to me teach but rather are constructing their knowledge themselves. I need to have learning activities where my students can explore what they have learned so as to construct and heighten their knowledge.