My post this week continues from a series of discussions between well seasoned bloggers and educators: Bill Kerr and Karl Kapp.
The topic simple put: The battle of the _isms: Constructivism, behaviorism, Cognitivism. Betting this is a never ending conversation of which of learning theory is superior over the other. As it is fair to pick a favorite over one, it is also advised to know that that not one of these theories defines the learning process. Kapp puts it best in his post:
Kapp wrote: “The issue many forget is that “learning” is not one thing…it is a multi-layered word that tends to get treated as if it were just one thing…and it’s not. It is multi-facetted and that is why developing new models for “learning” is so difficult…there are too many levels for one school of thought or one model to do it all”.
To blankly reject one over the other would not be a good way to effectively asses the strengths and weakens of the theories.
To summarize in my perspective:
Behaviorism: Observable, external factors, programmable
Cognitivism: The internal process, what mental activities occur for learning to take place?
Constructivism: Experiences, connections
Taking a step back at the above, it is easy to see that learning can occur in any one of these forms. It is fair to conclude not one of these theories is the ultimate best way to learning.
Original Blog posts:
Bill Kerr: Original blog post can be found:
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html
Karl Kapp: http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/2007/01/out-and-about-discussion-on-educational.html
Additional References:
http://www.funderstanding.com/content/constructivism
http://www.learning-theories.com/cognitivism.html
Jules Renard
23 hours ago
Posts
Hi Lola,
ReplyDeleteGood job with your post! Your quote from Kapp about learning is not one thing because it is multi-layered and multi-facetted sums up why a single learning theory is not adequate to solely focus on for everyone to gain new knowledge. The _isms all working together promote successful scholarship for all learning styles.
Kerr mentions “connectivism” as a new learning theory in his blog post. How do you think this learning theory fits in with the other three? I like the way you summarized your perspective of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, how would you summarize “connectivism?”
LeAnn
Very good question LeAnn, I never really thought about it :). Now that you asked though I will suppose it can be a way for us to see how to connect all the -isms together. How does it make sense for us in what we do, sistuations that will require more of the -isms over the other. I can faily say that will be the filter Karl talks about in his post.
ReplyDeleteLola,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you summarized the three 'ism', but I was curious about the use of programmable under behaviorism. What exactly do you mean by this. My first thought when I read it was that "teachers can script the outcome of the learning by manipulating the variable." I teach a lot of computer programming classes, so I viewed it from that perspective. Is that how you meant it? It is an interesting perspective either way.
What I actually meant Grace was that behaviorism was more of a conditioned behavior. Which in essence you continually do something or give certain feedback to generate a particular action; molding an individual or maybe guiding them to the specified result you will like achieved.
ReplyDeleteI do understand where you are coming from as well and yes I believe that can also be done; certain variables will give or generate certain answers in program based class like C++