Constructivism in my Learning Experience

     One of the biggest examples that I can think of in my learning life of any of the theories, was during my fifth-grade year. I was in the gifted program called GATE. We wanted to learn more about our city, Las Vegas. We had the idea to see what it was like to be a tourist in our city – since all of us had been there since we were rather young. So, our advisor had us come up with a plan to make money to support this endeavor. We decided that we would sell hot dogs, chips and lemonade during both lunches to generate the necessary revenue.

     First, we had to come up with a viable business model and proposal so that we could present it to Principal Vining for permission. We drafter it up, and sent two students (I was one of the two selected, that is what happens when you are a loudmouth, people think you will talk under all circumstances) to present it to her. Upon her approval, we went back to our advisor and other GATE students to start putting together a budget sheet. We put down the costs of all the materials: hot dogs, buns, ketchup, mustard, lemonade mix, cups, chips, and sometimes we would sell cookies. We wanted to make it profitable, and to do so, we would need to find price points that work. With our advisor’s help, we put the hot dog price at $.50 and a meal price at $1.00.

     Though she would be the one handling the cooking of the hot dogs, we would be the ones putting them together. We also made the lemonade, poured them into cups, put the hot dogs together, took the money, gave change, cleaned up after, and crunched the numbers (we had her help at this part). We then would start to look at how much it would cost to rent hotel rooms for a night, how much it would cost to go to the different attractions we wanted to attend, and how much it would cost to eat while we were acting as tourists. We concluded it would cost $125/person with 6 people (adults would pay for themselves). We needed to profit $750 to reach that goal. After two weeks of selling, you saw that it would take four months to obtain the sufficient funds. It ended up only taking us 3 months.

     When the time came, we called to book our hotel, we bought the tickets to go and see the show we wanted to, we even called to make reservations at the restaurant where we wanted to eat. Everything was in place. The activity itself was amazing! We had so much fun pretending that we were new to city, and for most of us, the was the first time staying at a hotel on the strip (back then, it was a push for family friendly, completely different than it is now). Once, we were done, we had to type up a report together and give it to Mrs. Vining. This really was the best learning experience I had in all my educational experience. I learned more about running a business, budgeting, planning for a trip, and being patient working for what you want than at any other time. Because of this, I really have a deep appreciation for constructivism.