Going Deeper into The Three Common Schools of Thought

Ok…Now I was really confused. From what I gathered from reading 1 and 2 from the last blog in combination with reading 3, it seems that I still have a distorted view on the learning theories. So here it is. I re-reread the readings thoroughly in order that I might formulate a better way of understating the concepts. This is what I’ve learned from the readings as I’ve interpreted them:

Behaviorism
This school of learning is based on our natural response to stimuli at its most basic form. Negative and positive reinforcement has a big impact on the effectiveness of this type of learning. This is known as classical or operant conditioning. This is rather outdated with the different learning styles today. It is tough for an instructor to constantly reward or punish a student because they have or haven’t effectively grasped a concept due to a particular teaching approach. Behaviorism is therefore a result of a change in behavior based on a negative or positive experience when in implementation of that respective behavior.

Cognitive
As a result of the outdating of behaviorism, cognitive learning was born. Cognitive learning is the use of internal mental processes to guide natural behavior. As opposed to passive learning in behaviorism, cognitive learning encourages more activity on the part of the learner. Learners who use cognitive processes take newer information that is taught and applies them to previous learned processes. This association recreates a link to complex storage of learned information and thereby suggests that knowledge will be better organized in the learner’s mind. Cognitivism is most effective when a student can commit ideal concepts to memory and effective recall/retrieve them at a future point in time.

Constructivism
We looked at this school of learning earlier in the course (Week 2) by reading:

Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching andLearning
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html

Constructivism is an avenue of independent learning. In my post for that week, I explained:

“Constructivism is a theory that encourages semi-guided, independent learning through self-encouragement and self-exploration. Constructivism compared to the other schools of learning seems to be somewhat new. Traditional lectures are a conglomerate of facts that are taught based on the same past principles and never evolving into new practices and ways of thinking or improvement on previous theories. Constructivism breaks all the traditional rules and allows students to explore alternative interpretations of those conglomerates of fact. Behaviorism places limits on exploration into a particular subject where constructivism allows for insight and deeper understanding to basic facts.”

This theory allows the learning to explore new meaning of concepts through experience and construction of real-world situation. The teacher encourages students to create their own ‘constructs’ of the subject at hand, addresses their new conceptions, and then helps guide them to effectively understanding the subject through the student’s own interpretations.

I don’t think that these articles do justice for students understanding the theories as they apply to approaches for teaching. The articles are a wealth of information that doesn’t provide enough clear examples on when and where to apply those approaches. Initially, I took the principles of a given school of thought and directly applied them to a given situation. That was incorrect on my part. Applications of respective approaches take more than just read and apply. It takes one to be well-versed and mastered at the intricacies of these schools of learning in order that one might apply those principles effectively and correctly. It takes further examination into the schools of learning in order to grasp this subject matter completely.