Category: Paradigms and Perspectives
Humanism
Summary: Humanism is a paradigm/philosophy/pedagogical approach that believes learning is viewed as a personal act to fulfil one’s potential.
Key proponents: Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Malcolm Knowles
Key terms: self-actualization, teacher as facilitator, affect
View details of this theory >>
Cognitivism
Summary: The cognitivist paradigm essentially argues that the “black box” of the mind should be opened and understood. The learner is viewed as an information processor (like a computer).
Originators and important contributors: Merrill -Component Display Theory (CDT), Reigeluth (Elaboration Theory), Gagne, Briggs, Wager, Bruner (moving toward cognitive constructivism), Schank (scripts), Scandura (structural learning)
Keywords: Schema, schemata, information processing, symbol manipulation, information mapping, mental models
View details of this theory >>
Constructivism
Summary: Constructivism as a paradigm or worldview posits that learning is an active, constructive process. The learner is an information constructor. People actively construct or create their own subjective representations of objective reality. New information is linked to to prior knowledge, thus mental representations are subjective.
Originators and important contributors: Vygotsky, Piaget, Dewey, Vico, Rorty, Bruner
Keywords: Learning as experience, activity and dialogical process; Problem Based Learning (PBL); Anchored instruction; Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD); cognitive apprenticeship (scaffolding); inquiry and discovery learning.
View details of this theory >>
Behaviorism
Summary: Behaviorism is a worldview that operates on a principle of “stimulus-response.” All behavior caused by external stimuli (operant conditioning). All behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness.
Originators and important contributors: John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, E. L. Thorndike (connectionism), Bandura, Tolman (moving toward cognitivism)
Keywords: Classical conditioning (Pavlov), Operant conditioning (Skinner), Stimulus-response (S-R)
View details of this theory >>
Design-Based Research Methods (DBR)
Summary: Design-Based Research is a lens or set of analytical techniques that balances the positivist and interpretivist paradigms and attempts to bridge theory and practice in education. A blend of empirical educational research with the theory-driven design of learning environments, DBR is an important methodology for understanding how, when, and why educational innovations work in practice; DBR methods aim to uncover the relationships between educational theory, designed artefact, and practice.
Originators: A. Brown (1992), A. Collins (1992), DBR Collective, and others
Keywords: design experiments, iterative, interventionist, theory-building, theory-driven
View details of this theory >>
