Development of an Instructional Model Based on Social Constructivism for Enhancing Essential Social Skills in Modern Teaching Profession

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to 1) analyze essential social skills for modern teaching profession based on the need of Rajabhat Universities in the upper-northern region, 2) develop the instructional model based on social constructivism to enhance essential social skills for modern teaching profession in accordance with the need of  Rajabhat Universities in the upper-northern region from the result of the analysis, and 3) study the result of using the instructional model based on social constructivism to enhance the essential social skills for modern teaching profession. The research was done by using mixed methodology through which both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The sample groups in the three phrases of this research were as follows:  For the first phrase, the analysis of essential social skills for modern teaching profession, the sample group consisted of 117 teachers of the Faculty of Education in Rajabhat Universities in the upper-northern region, 80 school supervisors and 376 third-year students in the Faculties of Education of those universities. For the second phrase, instructional model development, the samples were 40 third-year students of the Faculty of Education in Chiang Rai Rajabhat University, and in the third phrase, implementing the instructional model and the result, the samples were 45 second-year students of the Faculty of Education, Chiang Rai Rajabhat University.

 The finding were: 1) The essential social skills in each of the three aspects which were chosen  the first rank by every sample group consisted of a) making group decision critically (the ability aspect),  b) responsibility (the characteristics aspect), and c) the public-mindedness (the moral aspect).                     2) The instructional model based on social constructivism for enhancing essential social skills for modern teaching profession consisted of eight steps: examining learners, considering the problems and grouping, studying through external interaction, increasing difficulty, encouraging and assisting, exchanging and sharing, constructing their own knowledge, and evaluating. The strength of this instructional model was on encouraging learning through the social contexts by emphasizing on thinking and working in groups, sharing, increasing difficulty of assignments for students to think and work together, knowing their roles, having self responsibility, using reasons in decision making, all of which would lead to the internalizing of learning  3) After using the instructional model, the students’ three social skills were found to be at the high level, higher than before learning which was at the average level.  Most of the students were very satisfied with the learning process and the outcomes.