This week's lesson is abt understanding learning theories. It initially seemed like rather abstract concepts but however, when explained in layman's terms, these theories can be identified by our past experiences, especially in our growing up years.
Behaviourism
This theory is rather straight forward as it propogates the most traditional way of learning - get it right, you get rewarded or a pat on the back; get it wrong, u get nothing or a smack in the head.
This approach is very close-ended and I believe can be rather effective in driving across correct and undisputed arguements to learners. Other than academic learning, the theory is also applicable to the world of business, in my opinion. One example would be Consumer Behaviourism. Marketeers and advertisers constantly send messages to their intended audiences, illiciting responses, mostly positive ones from them. And over time, such responses will be translated into perceived needs for the products/services that marketeers are selling. The moment the consumer sees the advertising message, his response will most probably be, "i'm gonna get that product."
Thus, even though some people actually argued that this theory is outdated in our current context, as we are living is such an information-rich age where we can choose to learn selectively on what we want to learn, i still do believe somehow, Behaviourism is an embedded trait in human beings, and we will naturally "behave" and "respond" in a certain way.
Cognitivism
This theory believes that learning takes place when the learner adopts an individualistic approach, thinking, interpreting and making sense of the information he or she is exposed to, through a complex, cognitive process.
The first thing that came to my mind was a term which I heard very often while I was serving my national service - "A thinking Soldier".
Well, there is this notion of moving away from "traditional" approaches towards military training in this current generation of soldiers. Gone are the days where we simply listen to orders and do whatever our predecessors had done. Instead, we supposedly, are to internalise what we had learnt, look at our task at hand, look around for available resources and combine these things to generate a viable solution to curb the problem. I believe this is a rather effective approach towards learning as it trains the mind to treat every important task individually and somewhat forces the mind to think deeper into generating solutions to problems. And thru this, the learner will have a deeper impression and better idea of whatever he had learnt from this experience.
Sociocultural Approach
Do we learn things for the sake of the common good? Well, instead of individual learning, this approach believes that only when a collective unit of learners learn together, then learning is considered to take place.
I'm somewhat apprehensive of this theory, as also mentioned in the lecture, that it assumes everyone in the same collective community is willing to share and commit their learning for the bigger cause. I guess it will only work when everyone in the community is passionate about the subject at hand. I suppose a vague example, if I may draw, would be the Open Source community. Programmers from all over the world, program and code softwares to share with each other. They leave the sources open so that should a fellow programmer discovers something new, he/she is free to edit and then, in turn shares his/her new discovery with the entire community. And together, they learn something new.
Well, not sure if the arguments above make sense. Do hope to hear some comments!
cheers!
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hello shifa,
ReplyDeletesince i'm supposed to comment on one blog i thought i should comment on yours! i pretty like the way you try to explain and use examples to illustrate the three different theories. All sounds pretty logical but i find the consumerism behaviourism illustration to be quite hard to comprehend because i thought for behaviourism, audiences/learners are either rewarded or "punished" according to their behaviour. perhaps, in your case, the audiences were "punished" through feeling left out should they not own the product the advertisers are pushing across.
Jiamin :)
Hi,
ReplyDeleteSame for me. I feel that sociocultural approach works less effectively than the rest. maybe the best way to learn is always a mixture of the 3 approaches.
Also, i like your example for cognitivism. This way of learning allows the learner to feel more challenged and thus increasing the satisfaction upon completion of the "puzzle/problem etc.." Learner than feels good about learning.
my thoughts,
fatliao.
opps. must write name, weilin
hey jiamin, thanks for ur comment!
ReplyDeletewell, i suppose the theory on Behaviourism is not merely based on "punishment-reward" basis. Intead, it is more of illiciting a particular reponse from the subject when he/she/it is being exposed to a particular stimulus.
The "punishment-reward" model is just one of the many methods which is used to create this illicited response.
Advertisers will bombard audiences with their specially crafted messages and over time, these stumuli will generate a perceived "want" within these audience-learners, ultimately getting them to buy their products/services, which in this case, is a physical response.
I think there is a little confusion here. As usually when Marketeers (advertisers) craft their messages, they would expect a certain amount of processing. As the consumer does do certain amount of research before he or she makes a decision. In that case, all the other 2 theories are put in place too.
ReplyDeleteHowever marketers have always likened consumers' minds to black boxes, where the message would enter and a response is generated at the other end (Kotler, 2008). So I think Shifa does have a point there, and that successful marketing (advertising) is achieved when the stimuli (message) achieves a desire response (outcome). And when it doesn't, the process is repeated using different stimulis.
Having said that, the marketeers are also experiencing behaviourism learning aren't they?
I always think learning (no matter which camps) always involve human interaction. And for that I would validate socioculturalism.
Zhengguo (Chen Guo) here.
Interesting post, Shi Fa! Your examples are interesting. You made a good point about socioculturalism's assumption that everyone is willing to participate and share their knowledge. This leads back to the question of motivation, which could be aroused by either behaviorism or cognitivism. It's interesting to see how the theories are intertwined and subtly influence people's attitudes and behaviors.
ReplyDelete