2: Theories & Models of Learning

As a teacher, one of my main focuses is to understand how my individual students best learn and understand the material. At the beginning of each school year, I give my students an assessment to determine their preferred learning style and how they learn best. This idea is based on epistemology or what we know and how we know it. Throughout my four years as an educator, I have practiced and applied several different theories of epistemology on how students acquire knowledge, including theories listed in the text. I have used parts of Situated Learning Theory by providing a classroom more based on cooperation than competition so students can acquire meaning based on my “cultural system” I had established in my classroom (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). My students really benefitted from establishing a community together rather than conquering tasks individually. Also, I have utilized Gagne’s Theory of Instruction by gaining my students attention through a “hook” in order to get them engaged in the lesson. I have also organized lessons based on the Project Based Learning (PBL) model by allowing the students to learn by creating authentic problems for my students to solve together. My biggest example of applying this theory would be implementing a Breakout EDU mini-lesson modified to fit the Civil War unit. By giving my advanced Pre-AP class a scenario where they had to solve clues to understand and analyze Lincoln’s assassination. By doing this PBL strategy, I created a buy in and an authentic problem solving experience within a time crunch for my students to become intrigued (www.breakoutedu.com). I see a comparison between all of these theories discussed as they all come down to one audience: our students. In Post-Industrial America, school is seen as “duty” and the excitement has lulled (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). As an educator, we must make learning our content relevant and worthwhile for our students. While I have used aspects of each of these in my classroom on any given basis, I tend to follow the Constructivism collection of views more closely than any of the other theories. As collaborative or cooperative learning stem from ideas on constructivism, I tend to favor more collaboration than competition in classroom activities. This also allows me to not the sole voice in the room, but rather the guide on an activity the students take on together.

Throughout my career and experience inside and outside of a classroom, I have seen a plethora of outlooks on learning and what truth looks like. When determining my stance and outlook of truth and knowledge, even though I do see myself as some of a contextualist, I do believe that I am primarily a positivist. While I cannot say that I am always the most positive person, as a historian, I do believe that knowledge is objective truth with no feelings, biases or opinions (Dictionary.com). In my years as both an educator and a student in school, I have had several conflicts with instructors or coaches. The more prominent conflict is my high school basketball coach’s relativist outlook. As a player and captain for the team, he was very insistent that students learn by their context and relative frame of reference. And if any of the players were not able to understand any aspect of the game or his theories, it was due to their lack of motivation or work ethic, and had nothing to do with any other context. This coach was a very old school soul of education in the belief that education is similar to the “American dream” and that every person is responsible for motivating themselves intrinsically and the teacher serves no role as a motivator. On the contrary, I believe that if teachers can show the students what they are capable of, all students can succeed at whatever they aim to do. In spite of my experience under this high school coach, my constructivist ideals have not changed even while being surrounded by relativist co-workers in almost every setting.

As I have stated earlier, my personal philosophy leans more towards collaboration than competition in my classroom. However, I do see a need for positive reinforcements and instructional feedback in education for students to understand what is expected of them. As a young teacher, classroom management with its base in behaviorism can either make or break a classroom culture. While constructivism and behaviorism both focus on students partaking and engaging in activities while teachers observe as a guide.  Both theories incorporate student-led instruction while still giving the teachers the option to step in with redirections or guidance for students instant feedback. As a problem-solving guide, both behaviorism and constructivism can be easily misconstrued as they both focus on students “actively” responding and engaging (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). However, behaviorism typically ends at students being actively involved in class, while constructivism takes it a step further and creates “authentic” learning through engagement and can be best applied by focusing on relevance of the subject to the learner (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). Also, behaviorism can easily be intertwined in any classroom at any given moment, especially important to a new teacher. Constructivism takes a more learner-centered approach and requires more planning by the teacher to create authentic learning experiences for all students, which fits at least a more advanced and experienced educator. This element of more in-depth planning is one of the many limitations and challenges to constructivism as it can be very overwhelming. But, when applied correctly, this element creates life-long learners by allowing students to master concepts more thoroughly and can instill a motivation for both low and high learners to continue learning even after the duty of school has ended. Because constructivism can be applied and manipulated to fit all students’ individual goals in content and experiences, I believe it benefits classrooms more than just utilizing behaviorism. Rather, I would advocate for a mixture of the two theories.

Breakout EDU. (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://www.breakoutedu.com/

Dictionary.com - The world's favorite online English dictionary! (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://www.dictionary.com/

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2012). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson.