In a constructivist classroom, teachers should not do which of the following?

Concept: Constructivism, per Piaget and Vygotsky, holds that learners actively build their own knowledge through experience, exploration, and social interaction rather than receiving it ready-made from the teacher. The teacher's role is that of a facilitator who designs situations, tasks, and tools that let students construct their own understanding and strategies.

Application: Checking each listed teacher action against this idea:

• Letting students develop their own strategies to solve questions puts the thinking in the learner's hands — self-directed strategy-building constructivism calls for.

• Asking students to rote memorise formulae hands them a ready-made fact to reproduce by repetition, with no role for the learner in building it — the passive, teacher-delivered transmission constructivism moves away from.

• Creating situations for exploration gives students the raw experience to construct understanding from, rather than a delivered conclusion — the facilitator role constructivism is built on.

• Letting students construct their own meanings for mathematical tools again places the meaning-making with the learner rather than the teacher — consistent with the same principle.

Cross-check: Rote memorisation by repetition is the hallmark of the older behaviourist model of learning (stimulus–response drilling), which constructivism was formulated to move away from; a classroom that still leans on memorised repetition of formulae is behaving in a behaviourist, not constructivist, way.

So, of the four practices, asking students to rote memorise formulae is the one a constructivist classroom teacher should not follow — it treats knowledge as fixed and transmitted rather than built by the learner.