Most Effective Teaching

The best approaches to effective teaching are continuously evolving. They are changing on a daily basis because you must cater to your students and their learning styles. A method that I feel is most effective and can be molded to fit the structure of your growing classroom is the ideals of the constructivist method.
Constructivism is based on the idea that learners can individually discover and transform complex information. The elements that constructivism incorporates are social and discovery learning, scaffolding, and the zone of proximal development. Based on my ideals of a classroom that is a community, interactive, and evolving, I feel it is the most effective method that is based on student-centered learning where they discover and interactively learn.
The first element of this most effective method is social learning where the students learn together and work as a unit. I believe that a class should be a team and community where they learn and work together. Many times in the classroom you have group projects and constructivism utilizes social learning to prepare students for working together and learning from each other for the future.
The second element of constructivism is discovery learning which is similar to the previous discussed social learning. Discovery learning is an incredibly effective element of constructivism. Discovery learning is based on the idea that students are guided through their learning, where they discover answers to complicated problems raised in class. When students discover knowledge, it is very rewarding for them rather than the teacher lecturing. Confidence and motivation is a factor because when the students realize they can discover answers, they are confident in themselves and are motivated to continue on actively learning.
The third element of constructivism is scaffolding. This element along with social and discovery learning add to the effectiveness of constructivism. The idea of scaffolding is to present students with a complex problem where they are guided to discovery learning. I believe students take more from solving a complex problem independently and with their peers rather than the teacher conducting bland lectures and solving through worksheets.
The fourth and final element of constructivism is the zone of proximal development. This zone is the knowledge you are developmentally able to comprehend; it is not what you know or cannot know. It is another contributor to the incredibly effective constructivist method because it deals with further developing knowledge through social learning. I believe it is crucial for students to work together because they work within each others zones of proximal development where they learn from each other and are able to bounce knowledge off one another.
In order to create a community classroom where students gain knowledge from each other through student centered teaching, I feel constructivism is the most effective method. Although lecturing and worksheets may be appropriate at times, an environment that includes social and discover learning, scaffolding and working within each others zone of proximal development is a method that is effective in that it creates a stimulated learning environment where students can grow and expand their knowledge to reach their goals.