Thursday, June 22, 2006

 

W.A.V.E. AND THE CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO LEARNING

W.A.V.E. is the Wearable Arts Vision in Education and is an annual Performance Event at The Shearwater Steiner School. It is an excellent example of higher order learning for the 80% of the students and staff of the high school. The students, with the support of the staff co-ordinate all aspects of the production which include:




- Costume Production
- Modelling
- Choreography/Dance
- Stage and Set Construction
- Sound & Lighting
- Wardrobe/Makeup
- Stage Management
- Front of House
- Advertising



“All of these activities transform themselves into living realities through the creative agencies of this new, incipient art form.” (Shearwater Steiner School).

“The idea of staging a creative event grew out of the creative flux of the Steiner philosophy. “A moral foundation is laid when the individual is guided by the source whence he must draw the impulses which supply him/her with forces leading to ethical activity.” R. Steiner.

Imbued throughout the event is the principles in action of Vygotski’s Social Interaction Theories where, ”social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition and where the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.

Upon experiencing the Wearable Arts event one can see some of Brunner’s Constructivist Theories of Education. His basic tenets “Where learners construct new ideas or concepts based on their current/past knowledge and where they select and transform information, construct hypotheses and make decisions relying on a cognitive structure to do so.” W.A.V.E. provides ample cognitive structure on which to facilitate learning. Furthermore this example provides meaning and organization to experience and allows the individual to go beyond the information given.

W.AV.E. also facilitates and encourages most, if not all, of the Nine Intelligences each individual possesses as purported by Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory.



*Image taken from multipleInteligences.xls

Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?