Behaviorism, Cognitive Information Processing, and Constructivism

Being a visual learner, the diagrams in the readings for this week really helped me understand the concepts at hand.

BehaviorismM. Driscoll, “Radical Behaviorism,” in Psychology of learning for instruction, 2nd ed. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon), 31-70.

I felt like behaviorism was a limiting theory, as a potential subject. The idea that someone could manipulate my behavior solely by outside stimuli was a very difficult concept to like. While I think it is probably a necessary learning theory for parents of children who are not old enough to make good decisions on their own or who do not know any better yet, I do not think it can or should be a lasting theory throughout life.

• Positive Reinforcement - Give to strengthen a behavior
• Punishment - Give to weaken a behavior
• Reinforcement Removal - Take away to weaken a behavior
• Negative Reinforcement - Take away to strengthen a behavior

Cognitive Information Processing

M. Driscoll, “Cognitive information processing,” in Psychology of learning for instruction, 2nd ed. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon), 73-112.

The best way to learn this for me was the analogy of the short-term memory being the RAM and the long-term memory being the hard drive. It was interesting to discuss what it means to forget something, because it is so much a part of this theory, and yet, no one really seems to know what makes us remember or forget.

Constructivism

M. Driscoll, “Constructivism,” in Psychology of learning for instruction, 2nd ed. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon), pp.373-396, http://docutek.lib.byu.edu/eres/coursepass.aspx?cid=3662.

What I liked about this theory is that it addresses the individuality of learning. I think this is a true principle. I believe everyone learns from their past and current personal experiences, and because those are unique for everyone, it would only make sense that each person's ontology would be different.