A crucially important aspect of a teacher's job is watching, listening, and asking questions of students in order to learn about them

and about how they learn so that teachers may be more helpful to students. Calkins (1986) notes that there is a thin line between research and teaching. At the same time that we teach children, they also teach us because they show us how they learn; we just have to carefully watch them and listen to them . This kind of watching and listening may contribute to a teacher's ability to use what the classroom experience provides to help him or her create contextualized and meaningful lessons for small groups and individuals. The ability to observe and listen to one's students and their experiences in the classroom contributes to his or her ability to use a constructivist approach. Paradoxically, a constructivist approach contributes to one's ability to observe and listen in the classroom. Thus, the process is circular

The Role a Science Teacher Plays in Early Childhood Education

In the constructivist perspective, children are theory builders who construct knowledge through a dynamic and interactive process. Teacher is the facilitator of learning rather than a mere transmitter. Although the teacher loses some control in certain respects, she still has control and responsibility for a greater part of the child's educational experiences. In such classroom, she has numerous roles identified by Challe & Britian (2003) as: 1. An observer A scienceTeacher should be a constant observer in both formal and informal ways. Observation provides the teacher with clues to understanding of individual children and to helping them appropriately. 2. A documenter A science Teacher as a documenter, need to observe and takes down information of what the children learn and what they are interested in. teacher need collect all the information as evidence so as to implement the curriculum and share with the parents. 3. A question asker and problem poser. When a teacher asks children with open-ended/loose questions, it enables children to learn from each other by sharing ideas and points of views. Teacher act as a question asker and problem poser,

children is encouraged to think about the solution and problem solving. It is advisable to ask questions start with why it is happened this way, what, how, when .... 4. A public relations manager A sciene Teacher as an effective public relations manager must be able to explain to the parents, colleagues and administrators of how children can benefit in constructivist classroom with confidence, clarity and enthusiasm. Informal and informal ways to anticipate the task of explaining goals and philosophy such as orientations with video -tapes of children, documentation with digital pictures and newsletter with articles from books and journals. It is good to invite parents to involve in the activities in school as well as home. 5. A contributor to classroom culture A science teacher is a contributor to classroom culture because from the types of questions that she has asks and the type of physical environment set up, to the tone of the teacher's voice, the teacher creates the culture in the classroom. 6. An environment organizer It is important for the children to learn in a well-planned, self-explanatory, self-direction environment with interacting with their peers, materials and environment. It is an extension of a science teacher's role as it can eliminate unnecessary intervention. Besides, the environment has to be planned carefully, observed, evaluated and altered as necessary. 7. A presenter Teachers not only present to a group of children but also need to present options for individual child. She needs to present ideas to children engaged in ongoing activities. It is important that teacher present activities or ideas in an opened-ended manner allows for multiple possibilities of responses from the children. Teacher must observe and listen to the children, response to their ideas and allow different ideas and possibilities. 8. A theory builder

Teacher should allow time and energy for own professional and personal development so to full fill all other roles effectively and enthusiastically. The science teacher must have courage to experiment, be reflective, seek relationships between different variables in the classroom and consider different perspectives. Compare from the past to present, teachers demonstrated the various roles of a science teacher in school now. Teacher plays these important roles throughout the day in constructivist classroom. Hence it is important that a constructivist teacher recognize that they are actually a facilitator of children's knowledge construction

The emphasis is on the learner as an active maker of meanings . The role of the teacher is to enter into a dialogue with the learner, trying to understand the meaning to that learner of the material to be learned, and to help her or him to refine their understanding... This dramatic change of role implies that a facilitator needs to display a totally different set of skills than a teacher. A teacher tells, a facilitator asks; a teacher lectures from the front, a facilitator supports from the back; a teacher gives answers according to a set curriculum, a facilitator provides guidelines and creates the environment for the learner to arrive at his or her own conclusions; a teacher mostly gives a monologue, a facilitator is in continuous dialogue with the learners. Focus on knowledge construction, not reproduction; present authentic tasks (contextualizing rather than abstracting instruction); provide real-world, case-based learning environments, rather than predetermined instructional sequences; foster reflective practice; enable context-and content dependent knowledge construction... The implications of such a view for education are trifold: 1. teaching is always indirect. Kids don t just take in what s being said. Instead, they interpret what they hear in the light of their own knowledge and experience. They transform the input. 2. the transmission model, or conduit metaphor, of human communication won t do... Social constructivism encourages the learner to arrive at his or her own version of the truth, influenced by his or her background, culture or embedded worldview...it is thus important to take into account the background and culture of the learner throughout the learning process, as this background also helps to shape the knowledge and truth that the learner creates, discovers and attains in the learning process.