Educational Philosophies and Theories

7/29/2019 Educational Philosophies and Theories

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Educational Philosophies and Theories.....

Educational Philosophies

a. Constructivism (Rationalism)

i. Individualii. Socialiii. Contextualism

b. Empiricism (Objectivism)c. PragmatismEducational Theories

a. Communication

b. Systemsc. Learning

i. Behaviorism

ii. Cognitive Learning

iii. Information Processingd. Developmental

i. Piaget

ii. Vygotsky

e. Information Processing Developmentalf. Instructional

Why do we need to delve into understanding these philosophies ortheories?

To begin with, these philosophies or theories are the basis on which anyinstructional design model is constructed. The foundations of these designslie in the concepts that are part of these philosophies and theories.

Therefore, a better understanding of these concepts will enable you toconstruct useful and efficient models. Secondly, as a designer there are

times when you will need to justify why you have chosen a particular design.

If you have a basic understanding of how these philosophies or theoriesapply to your practical design choice, you will have a better chance of

making your point and then, logically defending your design. Finally, in theentire gamut of educational philosophies and educational theories, certain

areas are more stressed upon than others. If you have an understanding of

these philosophies or theories, you will know why these areas have beenhighlighted and are more important than the others.

I will first begin with the educational philosophies and then move onto the

educational theories. There is a very good reading that will be my reference

point, its a book called Instructional Design by Patricia L Smith andTillman J Ragan.
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Educational Philosophies

ConstructivismConstructivism is part of another philosophy called rationalism. A rationalist

philosophy believes that the primary source ofknowledge is reason. Reason

is the source from where knowledge arises. This knowledge is nottransmitted but rather it is constructed. Knowledge helps build a reality for

any situation therefore even reality is not discovered but is constructed.Now, where can such an approach be useful where a learner has to

construct his or her own reality and build knowledge from reason? To bring

terms such as realityand reason into perspective, lets consider a scenariowhere mechanics with an experience of N number of years on a particular

car have to learn the latest software for repairing the cars fuel-injectingsystem. The reality in this case is the new fuel-injection system and the

reason (from where knowledge will arise) is the new training software. The

question you need to ask is do these experienced mechanics need aninstructor to train them on using this software or are they capable of doing

this on their own? In other words, do the learners (mechanics) need aninstructor to build their reality or not? The answer depends on which

philosophy you follow the radical or the moderate constructivistphilosophy.

The more radical constructivists would rather have the mechanics learn the

software on their own no help required in defining objectives or quantifyingany learning outcomes. The mechanics or the learners are free to pursue

this software training on their own accord. Moderate constructivists wouldargue that a skeletal structure of objectives these learners need to cover and

learning outcomes required should be defined. Some level of instructionaldesign should help these experienced learners identify when and howknowledge blocks need to be built from reason and then use these blocks as

per their own accord to construct their own reality.

There are three types of constructivism:

Individual

Social

Contextualism

Individual Constructivism

This philosophy believes that experiences are the building blocks ofknowledge that leads to learning. The premise of individual constructivism

is:

Knowledge is constructed from experience.
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In the realm of learning, meaning is developed on the basis ofindividual experiences.

Learning is an active process.

Interpretation of knowledge leads to learning.

For a radical constructivist, every learners experience is individualized.Therefore, it is meaningless to create a specificset of instructions for agroup of learners wherein each is building and learning basis his or her own

experience. The best way would be to let them interpret the existing

knowledge and construct their own knowledge that will lead to learning.Moderate constructivists would have a more liberal approach they believe

that not all responsibility of what all learning needs to happen should be onthe learner. Rather a blended approach would be batter based on factor

pertaining to the learner, tasks to be performed, and the context in whichlearning takes place.

Now would be a good time to go back to the mechanics example I had given

earlier and see it in the light of individual constructivism!

Social Constructivism

This was a concept that was expounded by post-revolutionary Soviet psychologist,

Lev Vygotsky. As with individual constructivism, social constructivism also believes

that a learner constructs his or her own reality, but now its a group of individuals

who are working in collaboration to construct multiple realities. This is because

learning is now a collaborative process and every learner is bringing his or her ownperspective to this learning. Therefore, learning will have multiple perspectives.

From a radical social constructivist point of view, all these multiple perspectives

brought forward by the multiple learners in all subjects and in all social settings are

equally viable and carry equal weight. Let us give this an instructional point of view.

Consider a toddler classroom. There are blocks of the same color and size. Toddlers

build or play with these blocks as per their fancy. Now, the blocks can be

considered learning and what a toddler (learner) does with the blocks (learning) is

based on the toddlers perspective. The teacher cannot pick any single toddlers

work of art and hold it supreme. Every perspective for learning is correct and the

truth however abstract (toddler's art of work!) carries equal weight. However, it is

my belief that the radical point of view cannot be applied to all subjects.
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Moderate constructivists believe that in certain situations, some perspectives are

more viable than the others. Multiple perspectives of multiple learners condense

into a single perspective for facts. One cannot dispute a fact, such as frogs

breathe using their skin. The truth about facts is usually non-negotiable. In an

instructional setting, it is very much possible and even encouraged to divide

learners into groups to facilitate learning. Group learning is very effective in

situations where multiple perspectives are required.

Consider a group of instructional designer trainees evaluating the design of an e-

learning website. Multiple perspectives of these IDs can be very helpful in

identifying various areas where the website can be improved and where

enhancements can be made. Such an exercise works upon the premise of social

constructivism that individual learning occurs when learners are in a group. There is

collaboration between learners and learning at all times with the learners

negotiating their perspective of learning with other learners who are part of the

same group.

This concept of multiple perspectives for a particular learning can also be applied to

individual constructivism where a single learner is negotiating her learning or

understanding of knowledge to build her own reality. For example, consider a

student taking an online course. There is no instructor present but knowledge is

being assimilated by the student and is being negotiated at every step to build a

reality or a perspective. By negotiation I do not imply alteration of the meaning ofknowledge. I merely imply the method used to construct knowledge from the

text/graphics on a page to allow learning to take place. Now, individual

constructivism becomes part of or rather a subset of social constructivism.

To summarize this, collaborative learning in a given social setting can be very

effective and efficient as an instructional design strategy.

For any learning to take place, the learner should be able to connect to the

setting in which learning is expected to happen. For example, if you want toteach a child how to ride a bicycle, you cannot show a simulation or a video

tutorial. Instead, take her to an open ground and give a real tutorial-- giveher a bike, teach her to sit on the seat, then tell her to hold the handles,

place her feet on the pedals, and finally start peddling. You can provide

assistance by allowing the bike to have training wheels or holding her so she
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does not fall off the bike. Now, let her pedal away to glory(figurativelyspeaking of course!).

In other words, the first precept that contextualists believe in is that learningand assessment should be part of a realistic setting. The second precept is

that assessment should be integrated into the learning process and should

not be an isolated activity. Learners can relate to tasks that need to beaccomplished and then get a fair assessment of how well he or she did if the

learning context is close to their real life environment. This type of learningthat happens in realistic situations is called authentic learning and the

instructions associated to facilitate learning are called anchored instructions(Cognition and Technology Group, 1990; Streibel 1995) as the instructions

are anchored to the realistic situation.

Another belief of the contextualists is regarding assessment or testing.Testing should not be oversimplified, even for novice learners. Else they will

believe that the concept can only be applied to simplistic situations.Continuing with our bike example, if the child rides only on a leveled ground,

she will believe that cycling can only be done if the ground is leveled and

without any obstacles, such as stones. So, to test whether she has learnthow to ride, take her to an uphill trail. The uphill ride on a road full of little

pebbles and stones will surly test her riding skills in addition to breaking the

assumption that only leveled grounds are needed for riding the bike.

However, as an instructor, you also need to be careful not to put the

learners in difficult situations for assessment purposes before they havemastered the basic skills. By doing so, you risk them losing interest in the

learning process entirely. For example, if you let the child start with riding ina difficult terrain, she might not want to ride at all! Let the learners master

some basic skills, test them on those skills, and then move towards more

difficult and complex testing scenarios. This type of strategy ensures thatlearners retain interest in the learning process and construct their own

reality from the little knowledge blocks that they are assimilating along theway.

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Educational Philosophies and Theories