If we consider the scenario of a high school teacher planning a class on climate change, learning could be designed very differently by three approaches.
As a behaviorist, the teacher focuses on the stimuli and the consequences. For example, the teacher could make flashcards with one-to-one pairs of what causes climate change. The emissions from manufacturing goods cause air pollution, or the greenhouse effect cause the temperature to raise, or the lack of forests causes the lack of nature’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide. To make the students learn the knowledge, and perform better in exams(taking the exam is an example of stimuli and response), the teacher might give them previous exams and answers as practices and cues of linking the causes of climate change. I would say that behaviorism focuses on doing the correct thing using the previous templates as examples. Also, it relies on one-to-one pairs as A will always led to B, therefore, further learning and development are not provided.
Cognitivism, on the other hand, focuses more on how students learn the causes and the consequences of climate change, and how to store the knowledge. The teacher might make mind maps to make the students think and connect the cause and effects of climate change by themself. More importantly, the teacher focuses more on the students than on teaching. If the mind map doesn’t work for some students, the teacher will think of another way such as storytelling. The main idea of teaching in cognitivism is to let the student make the connection, instead of simply giving questions and answers.
Constructivists are the type of learning designers who believe that learning is best by actually doing, and linking the experience with the previous knowledge and experiences. As a teacher trying to teach climate change in high school, he/she might have a class outside of the classroom, and let the students feel and think about the cause and effects of climate change. Take them to the nearest forest, or the factories that produce emissions, and the teacher could let the students do some experiments about greenhouse gas emissions. Constructivists emphasize the ability to develop a way of studying and apply the ability in future studies.
I entirely agree with the way you broke down and explained each learning theory and the examples you provided for how learning would be when designed by different “ist” (behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist). With that being said, I was wondering: which theory do you think is the most effective under this particular scenario? (A high school social study teacher is planning a class on climate change) And what is your ideal learning style out of the three theories listed?
Hi Zhishan! What great real classroom examples of three learning theories for a teacher planning a class on climate change. I especially appreciate that you provided some key features of each theory and supported them with practical examples. For constructivism, you could also encourage students to research and present on different aspects of climate change to deepen their understanding; facilitate group discussions and debates on controversial topics related to climate change to promote collaboration and critical thinking. Keep up the great work!
Hi Summer,
I am extremely impressed by your learning design in the scenario about the climate change. These three instructional methods created by behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist are quite insightful. It is true that behaviorists would focus on the previous templates as examples and guide students to understand the correct concepts. They are more likely to develop students’ habits through reinforcement and feedback. They can arrange the environmental conditions and guide students to make correct responses. And as for the cognitivists, I think you can add the warm-up sections to allow students to share their previous knowledge about climate change and what they have done to improve this situation. This would greatly arouse their interests in learning and have a positive effect on the learning results.