Child's Construction of Knowledge: Role of Activities in Classroom

Abstract

What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing. This quote of Aristotle has stood the test of times. In the decade of 1980s constructivist theorists advocated the role of hand on activities in the construction of knowledge by children. This brought in new ideas of teaching and learning in classroom and curricular reforms. The role of teachers change from an information provider to that of a facilitator and children from passive to active. This paper provides insights about how activities are conducted in classrooms, which in turn led to knowledge construction among children and signifies on why there is need to change our teaching methodologies in primary classroom. A variety of activities experiments, interactive tasks, role play, survey and others were organised for children of class IV for Environment Studies. Classroom observations were recorded and analysed to find out how these activities facilitated in construction of knowledge.