I am currently heading into my third year of the Elementary Education program, so I have read up a lot on both behaviorism and constructivism, as they have been integrated into several of my courses. Surprisingly, this is the first time that I have heard of cognitivism.
From previous understandings, I can easily define and understand the difference between behaviourism and constructivism. To me, they are almost opposite in a sense, as through previous courses a very positive light was shone on constructivism and more of a negative one on behaviourism. Based on what I have learned up until this point, I would consider my instructional methods to be more constructivist based. I align with these ideals as I believe students have just as much to contribute to the classroom, if not more, than myself as the teacher. I believe students can bring in their own prior knowledge, experiences, stories and understandings into the classroom and I, as the teacher, can be in the role of a facilitator. As a facilitator, I will be encouraging students to compare and challenge ideas in collaborative work, and scaffolding self guided learning/inquiry.
As I mentioned before, I have never heard of cognitivism up until this point and was confused when I first started reading up on it. I didn’t quite understand the difference between constructivism and cognitivism. Their definitions seem interchangeable, as learners are essentially activating prior knowledge and teaching is student based rather than teacher based (behaviourism). After doing a bit of further reading, and looking at a venn diagram of the three, I now understand the difference.
During my own experience in elementary school, I feel as if most of my teachers used behaviourism when instructing. It almost feels like the default foolproof way to instruct as it comes naturally. Although I think it is effective for a good amount of students, I feel as if constructivism can be more beneficial to students as it is self fulfilling and contributes to motivating students to learn. Although I hope to instruct in a constructivist way, I understand it to be a difficult approach to teaching as it takes a lot more work and trial and error, however has proven to be rewarding. I like the idea of challenging myself in not using primarily behaviourism, just because it is what I am used to.
As for cognitivism, it wouldn’t be my primary choice of instructional method for a whole class, but a learner who needed the extra help. I think using cognitivism when creating for example, an IEP, would be a fantastic choice but as per an entire class I don’t see it as ideal.
This experience of learning about cognitivism and challenging the comfortability of behaviorism, ironically ties into the idea of “un-learning”. Something I once thought I was certain about, has now changed with the new information I have been given. I agree with Steph, I am excited to learn about different perspectives and how I can integrate those perspectives into my future classroom to meet the students needs.
Reference:
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. (2017). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism Comparing Critical Features From an Instructional Design Perspective. Edtechbooks. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/behaviorism_cognitivism_constructivism
