Week 5 - Theories of Learning & Instruction: Cognitive and Constructivist Perspectives

Continuing from the material reviewed last week, this weeks material focused on the Cognitivist and Constructivist perspective of the theories of learning and instruction. Cognitive information processing (CIP) is broken down into how information is received by a learner (sensory memory), how that info is then processed into first short-term memory, then long-term memory (with models of memory storage explained), and also how long-term memory is retrieved.  Cognitivist prescriptions have some fairly solid training models or lesson frameworks one can follow. Constructivism on the other hand, doesn't have a single theory of instruction, rather a conglomeration of perspectives based on the assumption that knowledge is constructed by the individual learner, rather than it being acquired.


Again, I found myself reflecting frequently throughout the readings as to how I've encountered the particular theories of learning in various experiences. One that stands out is my experience going through the Navy Nuclear "pipeline" of school. The instructions provided there seemed to have been heavily based on cognitive learning theories in the way we were taught and tested for that knowledge. For a given day in the classroom, a curriculum was provided for the material, yet ALL of the instructors would stress key concepts (good chance you'd see it on a test) by stamping their foot at the time of presentation of the material (cues related to material). We were taught to use both rehearsal and encoding techniques for transferring this information in to long term memory (encoding through the use of mnemonics, some of which I still remember today). Even though cues were provided during the introduction of new material, the tests provided quite a bit of stress since they did NOT contain many cues (no multiple choice there, essay answers only). My time in the Navy taught me that I could retain material (learn, as far as cognitivist theorists were concerned I think), no matter the subject. I was also very adept (and still am) at retrieving this information during test times (so my methods of encoding to long term memory work for me!).  I've reflected since then on my time in the Navy, and sometimes wish I could go back and do it again, with what I know now about myself. Does this have anything to do with learning? Maybe - I feel as if I'd take a somewhat different approach to the learning and understanding of my environment (seeing the bigger picture beyond my every day life onboard the ship and out to sea) and it seems as if the constructivist perspective better fits those thoughts (more mindful reflection, reasoning, and critical thinking involved). And then maybe that's the natural progression anyways as to what would have happened if I had stayed in? Maybe the two perspectives (all three would have been involved, behavioral learning was at the heart of boot camp) complement each other throughout a given learners life?


Having rambled on, one of the biggest points I took from the material was that the cognitivist theories existed well before the behaviorist ones. Fellows such as Wertheimer, Freud (I've heard of that guy!), and James were some of the earlier cognitive thinkers. While I don't completely understand why the behaviorists such as Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner were so very against these earlier theories (they do give reasons in the material, just not sure they're giving all the good ones), I think their rebellion and determination at looking at the learners mind ONLY as a "black box," allowed us to sit down and focus, giving the field a starting point. As Professor Myers pointed out to us this week, the first definition for the field of Instructional Technologies came about in 1963 - "more or less the heyday of behaviorism." One thing I've learned throughout my Lean and Six Sigma training is that you can't improve on something, if you don't know what you're improving on (you have to write down what your current processes are- in this case, beliefs or theories - before improvement opportunities can be seen or made apparent and can happen).  So as much as Skinners' views could be (and were) seen as mechanistic in nature, he gave people something to work with and focus on - through this work, we started to allow ourselves to start questioning the "gaps" and unanswered questions behaviorist theories left us with and started reviewing the cognitivist perspective again, and have now started to evolve into constructivist theories. Skinner gave us a place to start and I do applaud him for sticking to his guns (beliefs)!

Sidenote - I watched the presentations FIRST this week (helped a lot), and managed to read all reading material provided. I was a little confused why Driscoll's "Cognitive information processing" article was optional, whereas Silber's "Designing instructional strategies: A cognitive perspective" was required. The Driscoll material seemed to provide better background on the cognitive theory itself.

References:

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Constructivism. In Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.) (pp. 384-410). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Silber, K. H., & Foshay, W. R. (2006). Designing instructional strategies: A cognitive perspective. In J. A. Pershing (Ed.) (2006), Handbook of human performance technology (3^rd ed.) (370-413). San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Cognitive information processing. In Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.) (pp. 71-110). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Wilson, B. G. (1996). What is a constructivist learning environment? In B. G. Wilson (Ed.), Constructivist learning environments (pp. 3-8). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.