My perspective, informed by the readings and discussions this past week, is that constructivism has a solid place in ongoing educational practice and that it’s accepted– with a variety of interpretive shades – by all. Luke responded to one of my blogs saying that if I spot a non-constructivist I should certainly tag it for research! Thinking more about this, I am less likely than I was last week to consider behaviorism rigidly as an alternative to constructivism, but rather a concept that can be seen within a constructivist context. In fact, I believe that may be the only way to understand it—in a useful way -- at this point and behaviorism may contribute ideas that should not be thrown out, but rather embraced in a constructivist context.
Constructivism is the belief that a learner – the learner’s mind – is an active participant in creating knowledge and understanding because knowledge and understanding can only be built upon prior knowledge using existing skills and cognitive structures/processes within the learner. It is differentiated from the somewhat-straw-man alternative of objectivism, in which knowledge comes from the outside and must be absorbed by the blank slate of the learner. As Luke pointed out in one response this week, viewing constructivism in the context of such an radical alternative as pure objectivism can distort meaning somewhat: given such a black-and-white dichotomous view one might be pushed to two radical and not-supportable ends of a spectrum of pure external truth and pure perspective-based relativism. I understand this point, but think that the argument is simply further reinforcement of how ingrained constructivist thinking -- the idea that the learner / mind has an active role -- has become in the study and practice of education. My sense is there is no real, current argument for the pure objectivist end of such as radical spectrum. I’m not so sure about the other end…
Thinking further about this, my sense is that even a current practitioner who embraces aspects of behaviorism, could still do so within a constructivist context. I found myself uncomfortable with many posts this week that clumped references to behaviorism – sometimes not direct -- with necessarily passive, boring, kill and drill teaching and overall poor quality and ineffective instruction. Behaviorism, as I understand it, is the belief that external motivators (positive and negative reinforcements) are needed to help learners alter behaviors. I’m not sure that it is necessary to say that behaviors are totally, qualitatively different than cognitive understandings. If so, then I see how behaviorism could be said to be non-constructivist. But if behaviors emerge from cognitive structures and processes, reflecting them, then changing the behaviors is related to reconstructing those cognitive processes and structures (though there may be valuable things left to learn about which changes which – direction of causality.)
If we embrace the idea that support for changing behaviors is one route by which changes in cognitive structures and processes are created or observed, then there is a role for positive and negative reinforcements in effective instruction. In my own district there is a strong focus on PBS (positive behavior support) programs…largely with an emphasis on classroom behaviors, including learning behaviors. Teachers are encouraged to recognize students engaged in positive behaviors and reward them with positive reinforcements such as praise, coupons, extra recess, top student awards. School counselors who I have worked with seem to broadly embrace behaviorist models of…behavior modification: sticker programs, earned privileges. I’m not ready to say those are mis-guided. And I’m not ready to say that that learning is somehow so radically different from building other kinds of knowledge and understanding. But we don’t typically call those counselors ineffective, boring, passive, or even that loaded adjective…”traditional.” These efforts are clearly within a behaviorist model, however.
We often use other ways of talking about these efforts, though. We are “building stamina,” or “priming the pump to build internal motivation.” I think that as we recognize the foundational importance of a constructivist view of learning, we need to be open to a range of strategies that need to be engaged and used to help students build their own knowledge. Behaviorist strategies have a place. Varied practice, including memorizing certain ideas for automaticity (math facts) has a place. Collaboration has a place. Direct instruction has a place. But my thinking is that all of it is grounded in the basic belief that individual minds need to build their own understanding, and in order to do so an effective teacher needs to know what’s there already and help learners as individuals layer on new ideas (I think of a spatula spreading frosting on a cake) in effective, useful ways.
