Background
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Early
20th century
B.F.
Skinner – his ideas on Operant Conditioning largely contributed
this perspective.
Developed
as a reaction to the study of mental phenomena.
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Mid
20th century
George
Miller – provided two ideas that are fundamental to this
perspective: 1. short-term memory can only hold 5-9 chunks of
meaningful information. 2. The human mind functions like a computer
– taking in information, processes it, stores and locates
it and generates responses to it.
Developed
as a reaction to behaviorism.
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Later
20th century (although ideas of constructivism have
existed prior to the 20th century - Dewey, Piaget,
Bruner, and Vygotsky)
Represents
a collection of theories including - generative learning, discovery
learning, and situated learning..
Ideas
of constructivism come from cognitive psychology, developmental
psychology, and anthropology.
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Definition
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Learning
occurs when new behaviors or changes in behaviors are acquired
as the result of an individual’s response to stimuli.
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Learning
is a change in knowledge stored in memory.
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Learning
is the process where individuals construct new ideas or concepts
based on prior knowledge and/or experience.
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Principles
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The
influence of the external environment contributes to the shaping
of the individual's behavior.
The
environment presents an antecedent that prompts a behavior.
Whether
the behavior occurs again is dependent on the consequence that
follows it.
More on
Behaviorism
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Governed
by internal process rather than by external circumstance (behaviorism).
Process
of selecting information (Attention), translating information
(Encoding), and recalling that information when appropriate (Retrieval).
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Individuals
construct knowledge by working to solve realistic problems, usually
in collaboration with others.
Learning
as a change in meaning constructed from experience.
Individual
interpretation of experience vs. objective representation (information
processing perspective)
More on Constructivism
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Applications
for Instruction
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1.
State objectives
and break them down into steps
2.
Provide hints
or cues that guide students to desired behavior.
3.
Use consequences
to reinforce the desired behavior.
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1.
Organize new
information.
2.
Link new information
to existing knowledge.
3.
Use techniques
to guide and support students' Attention, Encoding, and Retrieval
process.
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1.
Pose "good"
problems - realistically complex and personally meaningful.
2.
Create group
learning activities.
3.
Model and guide
the knowledge construction process.
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