A Review on Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism

By Rainbow,Candy,Mia,

Cognitive theory is a learning theory of psychology that attempts to explain human behavior by understanding the thought processes. The assumption is that humans are logical beings that make the choices that make the most sense to them. “Information processing” is a commonly used description of the mental process, comparing the human mind to a computer.

Pure cognitive theory largely rejects behaviorism on the basis that behaviorism reduces complex human behavior to simple cause and effect. However, the trend in past decades has been towards merging the two into a comprehensive cognitive-behavioral theory. This allows therapists to use techniques from both schools of thought to help clients achieve their goals.

As for cognition I can not give many concrete examples, but I think it is related to the problem of conducting a scientific research on how human brains operate when human being are learning. Sine different problems are related to different regions of human brains. For example, if someone can articulate but can’t organize language, this person has some problem in Broca area. If someone can hear what others say but can’t understand the content. The symptom is that someone have simulating ability but can’t use the right grammar to speak. I think cognitivism is related to how language is learned by human brains. Once we are clear about the mechanism, we can help human beings to better learn language.

Constructivism is a theory of knowledge (epistemology) that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas (During infancy, it is an interaction between their experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns (Piaget called these schemas). Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy, although it is often confused with constructionism, an educational theory developed by Seymour Papert, inspired by constructivist and experiential learning ideas of Jean Piaget. Piaget's theory of constructivist learning has had wide ranging impact on learning theories and teaching methods in education and is an underlying theme of many education reform movements. Research support for constructivist teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting these techniques and other research contradicting those results. Social constructivism has been criticized for being a kind of behaviorism, which reduces the individual to his or her social environment.

I think constructivism is a very popular in mainland and is being promoted now. It let us consider the nature of the learner:

·The learner as a unique individual

·The importance of the background and culture of the learner

·The responsibility for learning

·The motivation for learning

·The role of the instructor

·Instructors as facilitators

·The nature of the learning process

·Learning is an active, social process

·Dynamic interaction between task, instructor and learner

·Collaboration among learners

·Learning by teaching (LdL) as constructivist method

·The importance of context

·Assessment

Nowadays in mainland China, constructivism is gradually put into education especially English teaching. When teaching reading lesson, teachers emphasize on context.

Behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism interlink with each other but also differ from each other. They are complementary and necessary in human beings growing process. A person experiences from cognition to constructivism and then apply what they learn to their behavior. They interact with each other, however they are independent with different conditions. Their relationship lies in that they all belong to learning theories. Like behaviorism, cognitivism emphasizes the effect of environmental conditions in motivating learning. Teaching explanation, demonstration, example and matching are all goods ways for learners.