INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN PEDAGOGY Topic: CONSTRUCTIVIST PEDAGOGY FOR NEXT-GEN STUDENT

The growth and development of a country, by and large depends on the quality of education offered to students. The quality of education in turn depends on the effective planning and execution of four integral aspects of education viz., Formulating Value-Based Aims and Objectives; Developing a Reflective, Need-Based and Context-Relevant Curriculum; Employing Effective Teaching Strategies and Creating Learning Contexts in schools and colleges; and improvising most Objective Techniques and Tools of Evaluation. It is indeed a sorry state of affairs that even today teaching is just transacting curriculum by way of direct explanation of the content for conceptual understanding by students where students are just passive recipients of information rather active producers of new knowledge. In the context of NCF 2005, which strongly advocates self-construction of knowledge, it is very significant to rethink about the dynamics of curricular transaction and redesign the pedagogic dimensions so as to enable students construct their own knowledge, relate it to the immediate environment, reflect it in their personality and extend the same for problem solving in life and community for a better quality of life. More specifically learning needs to be shifted from passive and conventional methods to active and innovative methods. In this context one has to seriously think about how to make children active learners with an enhanced ability to construct their own knowledge and become productive citizens of our country. There is an element of discovery, exploration, and inquiry in every child that probably lead him or her to a contributory individual. In a nutshell each individual student is a budding scientist. Pull out that scientist from each student. This would be possible only when we modify our information transferring conventional classrooms into a place where new knowledge is produced, skills are sharpened, attitude is positively shifted, aptitude is magnified and in total the competence levels of students are boosted up. This indeed requires a new pedagogy called constructivistic pedagogy employed in constructivist “Total Quality Management in Education” College of Education, Srinivas University 23 classroom contexts. This article is an attempt to throw light on sensitizing the teachers with regard to refine their understanding of their constructivist roles and transform into facilitators of active-self-learning among students. It is titled, “Constructivist Pedagogy for Next-Gen Students.