Learning theory statement:

Its important in a classroom to encourage students to be actively

involved in their learning. Our ICT project aims to engage students
to construct their own understandings and meanings through
providing students with hands on activities, which will encourage
the students to collaboratively work with their peers to collect their
own research and information and resolving problems. According to
Woolfolk (2008), social constructivism focuses on maximising
student understanding, it is a type of instruction that emphasises
the active role of the learners in building understanding and making
sense of information. Through out the four-lesson sequence the
students are working together to construct their own
understandings of a particular subject through the use of authentic,
hands on and interactive resources and activities.

Our first lesson aims to encourage the students to use their prior
knowledge and understanding of ANZAC History to form and create
new information and understanding of this particular topic. We do
this at the beginning of the lesson by asking the students what they
already know about ANZAC, as we brainstorm this information on
the smart board. According to Arends (2009) the schools
curriculum becomes a set of learning events and activities through
which students and teachers jointly negotiate meaning. Its
important as a teacher to not just pour information into the

students, rather cooperatively work with the students to negotiate

and create meanings. Through constructing an understanding in
active and cooparatively way encourages the students to be actively
involved in their own learning.

According to Marsh (2010) constructivism encourages learners to

engage in dialogue with the teacher and other students are learning
is more effective in communities of learners. The second step in
the lesson provides students the opportunity to engage in dialogue
with their peers by working together in small groups of four to
answer the quiz questions. Before they get into groups the teacher
will provide the students with the important facts and dates of
ANZAC, which the students can recall from when they are answering
the questions from the quiz. According to Marsh (2010) its
important for the teacher to provide assistance or scaffolding to
help the students progress in their learning. Through the students
working in small groups will encourage them to form relationships
with their peers, as its just as important for the students to work
collaboratively in constructing knowledge as it is to learn
independently. When concluding the lesson the students will have
the opportunity to share their answers on the smart board, this will
allow the students the opportunity to an open discussion so they
can each reflect on what they have learned.

Students need hands on and physical materials when they are

solving problems and forming their own knowledge and
understanding. Its important for students to use and test their
skills, information and knowledge, therefore authentic and hands on
activities will allow this to happen for the students. Learners
engage with concrete tasks rather than the abstract (Marsh, 2010),
therefore its important to provide students with the opportunity to
solve problems and form their own understandings through the use
of authentic and physical materials and activities. This is provided
for the students in lesson three, when the students have the
opportunity to cook their own ANZAC cookies as well as making
their own cook books through the use of the iPad app book
creator. The students will work in groups of four; so they can each
have a designated role in the group when they are making the
ANZAC cookies. During the cooking process they will take photos of
each step and upload each photo into their own cook book, this will
allow the students to each have a copy of the cook book so they can
make ANZAC cookies whenever they would like. The cookbooks
created by the students also allow the teacher the opportunity to
easily assess the students learning process. This authentic activity
of cooking is very relevant to the students life, as they have the
opportunity to use their skills and knowledge in their home
environments. The cook books also provides the students the
opportunity to describe each step in detail whilst they are cooking,
as they are discussing, explaining and recalling their knowledge and

information which helps build the students language and writing

skills.

The cooking experience for the students also strongly supports

Gardners multiple intelligence theory. As Gardners theory is
described as a set of intelligences based on studies in child
development and cognitive science. (Marsh, 2010). The cooking
experience provides the opportunity for the students to explore and
use multiple intelligences, as every student are unique and different
therefore its important to students to explore and discover their
multiple intelligences not only just their mathematical and language
skills. The cooking experience also allows the teacher to easily
assess the students on their strengths and weaknesses, as some
students might be very good at following directions and instructions
in comparison to a student who finds it difficult to follow instructions
although enjoys being creative and coming up with their own
ingredients and recipes when cooking. According to Gardner (1993)
there are eight intelligences, as this particular cooking project
explores certain intelligences such as intrapersonal intelligence,
bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence, linguistic intelligence and logicalmathematical intelligence.

Intrapersonal intelligence: Students are learning about their own

their capacities, as they are learning about what they can or cant
do when they are learning how to cook.

Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence: Students are using parts of

their bodies such as their hands to solve problem (putting
ingredients together to cook biscuits).
Linguistic intelligence: Students are using their language skills
when they discussing the recipe when they are writing the
cookbook. They are using new terminology such as bake, blend,
knead, grease, stir, whisk and measure when they are cooking the
ANZAC biscuits with their groups.
Logical-mathematical intelligence: Students are creating
quantities, numbers and measurements when they baking the
cookies to make sure everyone receive an even amount of cookies
to eat.
(Marsh, 2010, p.261).
Through this particular lesson will allow all students the opportunity
to explore their strengths and weaknesses, as they will time to
explore the different types of intelligences (as seen above).

Vygotsky strongly believes that learning begins in the social world.

As children learn language and ways of thinking from others, they
transform their knowledge of what they have heard from others and
put into their own personal context and language (Marsh, 2010,
pg.47). Through the use of the teacher working cooperatively with
the students to learn and understand the history of ANZAC as well
as the students to work in small groups to form their own
understandings and meanings. Vygotsky believes teachers should:

1. Present challenging tasks for students within cooperative

learning frameworks.
2. Assess students abilities under a variety of work conditions.
3. Provide opportunities for students to engage in authentic
activities.
(Marsh, 2010, p.49)
In our ICT project we demonstrate all three of these steps. As
ANZAC History is quite a broad topic with a lot of material for the
students to learn therefore we are providing students the
opportunity to work cooperatively within small groups to learn
about such an extensive and important topic. The teacher has
the opportunity to assess all of the students abilities and
knowledge through a variety of different activities and tasks.
Finally the ICT project provides the opportunities for the students
to engage in hands-on and authentic tasks, as they are using
different resources, ICT equipment and activities to form their
own understanding of the importance and relevance of ANZAC.
According to Vygotskys cognitive development is essentially a
social process (Marsh, 2010, p.48), therefore we must provide
students the time to learn and develop through their peers and
their teachers. Once they have made this development, its up to
them as individuals to construct their own understandings and
meanings.

After the four lessons have concluded the students have the
opportunity to reflect and summarise on what they have learned,

as it allows the students to reflect on how much they learned

since the beginning of the ICT project.

In todays classrooms its important to not just deliver and

provide students information in a conservative way, instead we
must make sure students form their own understanding, opinion
and questions towards any given topic. As teachers we can
facilitate this unique learning opportunity by providing students
with opportunities to work within small groups, work with
authentic and hands on tasks and use their prior knowledge and
skills to form new information and understandings to a particular
topic.

References:
Woolfolk, A (2008) Educational Psychology, (11th ed), Alyyn & Bacon.
Boston.
Arends, RI (2009), Learning to Teach, (8th ed), McGraw Hill, New
York.
Marsh,C.(2010).Becomingateacher:Knowledge,skillsandissues.
(5thed.)FrenchsForest,NSW:PearsonAustralia.