Constructivist teachers use raw data and primary sources, along with manipulative, interactive, and physical materials.
Concepts, theorems, algorithms, laws, and guidelines are abstractions that the human
mind generates through interaction with ideas. These abstractions emerge from the world of phenomena such as falling stars, nations at war, decomposing organic matter, gymnasts who can hurl their bodies through space, and all the other diverse happenings that describe our world. The constructivist approach to teaching presents these real- world possibilities to students, then helps the students generate the abstractions that bind these phenomena together. When teachers present to students the unusual and the commonplace and ask students to describe the difference, they encourage students to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. Learning becomes the result of research related to real problems—and is this not what schools strive to engender in their students?