learning theories

Three competing theories

• Behaviorism: e.g., human as "programmed animals"
  
  • Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
  • Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
    
• Cognitivism: e.g., human mind as computers
• Constructivism: e.g., computers as mindtools
  
  • Social Development Theory (Vygotsky)
  • Discovery Learning (Bruner)
  • Stage Theory of Cognitive Development (Piaget)
    

Others (Theories and Models)

• Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
  
• Humanism (Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers)
  
  • Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow)
  • Experiential Learning (Kolb)
    
• Situated Learning Theory (Lave)
• Attribution Theory (Weiner)
• Multiple Intelligences Theory (Gardner)
  

constructivism vs constructionism

Ackermann, E. (n.d.). Piaget’s constructivism, Papert’s constructionism: What’s the difference? Retrieved June 4, 2008 from http://learning.media.mit.edu/content/publications/EA.Piaget%20_%20Papert.pdf

What is the difference between Piaget's constructivism and Papert’s “constructionism”? Beyond the mere play on the words, I think the distinction holds, and that integrating both views can enrich our understanding of how people learn and grow.

Piaget’s constructivism offers a window into what children are interested in, and able to achieve, at different stages of their development. The theory describes how children’s ways of doing and thinking evolve over time, and under which circumstance children are more likely to let go of—or hold onto— their currently held views. Piaget suggests that children have very good reasons not to abandon their worldviews just because someone else, be it an expert, tells them they’re wrong.

Papert’s constructionism, in contrast, focuses more on the art of learning, or ‘learning to learn’, and on the significance of making things in learning. Papert is interested in how learners engage in a conversation with [their own or other people’s] artifacts, and how these conversations boost self-directed learning, and ultimately facilitate the construction of new knowledge. He stresses the importance of tools, media, and context in human development. Integrating both perspectives illuminates the processes by which individuals come to make sense of their experience, gradually optimizing their interactions with the world.

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Back to whole

Eisner, E. (2005). Back to whole. Educational Leadership, 63 (1), 14-18.

Progressive educators gave us a vision of the whole child. Where has that vision gone, now that we need it most?

1. The dominating values currently guiding the reform efforts focus heavily on boosting test scores and standardizing outcomes - a means-ends model. Measurement technology increasingly defines what students will be required to learn.

2. Limitations: means are not always follow goals - goals can also follow means; our preoccupation with standards freezes our conception of what we want to accomplish in our schools. Technical orientation vs organic or humanistic

3. Reasons driving technically rational approaches

• Historical. The industrial revolution invented a way of thinking about productivity (using systematic control to achieve high levels of predictability)
• Making comparative analysis possible. The competitive culture

4. Children respond to educational situations not only intellectually, but also emotionally and socially. School improvement is both a technical problem and a cultural problem.

Care for the whole child

• Recognize the distinctive talents that individual children possess and create an environment that actualizes those potentialities
• Take into consideration the various ways in which students respond to what teachers plan
• Provide a more complete picture of the developing child (not everything that matters is measurable, not everything that is measurable matters)
• Prioritize the social and emotional life of the child

Aims of education

The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.

--Jean Piaget

Links
Eisner, E. W. (2002). What can eduction learn from the arts about the practice of education? The encyclopedia of informal education.