Reflexiones

THE CONSTUCTIVISTIC THEORY, THE SIOP, AND MY TEACHING AT UNICA. Self – Reflection
By: Luisa C. Chávez Q.

Over my career as a teacher, I have been successful in creating a classroom environmentin which the students build their own understanding and knowledge. Essentially, the main objective by the end of each course has been to answer the following questions: Who are we? How do we expressourselves? Where are we in place and time? How does the world work? And the most important: How are we sharing the planet?

Being a follower of the Constructivist Theory, I believe that throughcooperative learning we can focus our attention on the importance of helping the students to realize their full academic potential. Therefore, I have based my planning on these essential challenges:• Carrying out inquiry, investigation and pre-departure activities related to different topics
• Detecting, analyzing and suggesting possible solutions to conflicts emerging from theinvestigation
• Stimulating the student’s creative, analytical and critical abilities regarding cases, themes, and concepts relevant to the study
• Drawing independent conclusions when evaluating theusefulness, applicability and appropriateness of concepts, models and frameworks

During my teaching at UNICA, I have been encouraged to be not only autonomous in my classroom, but also to be anactive participant in both department and school activities. My Administrators have been supportive in my requests for special projects which I feel would benefit my students. At the same time, I havebeen estimutaled to attend conferences and workshops to enhance my professional teaching. Happily, starting last semester, I have become a member of special research team: The University wants toinvestigate the viability of the application of the SIOP Model “Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners”, an innovative constructivist program created to help the second language learners to...