Construcitivsm in Practice

When looking at the instructional strategies used from the text, it is apparent to notice the correlation between them and the constructionist perspective. For example, Mr. Dave McDivitt's multiplayer World War II strategy game is very similar to the board game "Risk". Students who are familiar with "Risk" will have a much smoother transition of assimilating the game into an existing mental map than other students. Students who are unfamiliar will have to accomodate the information by adjusting their existing mental maps.Thus, students are able to accomdoate their mental equilibrium.

Additionally, students in Mrs. Omar's 5th grade class created a spreadsheet with Microsoft Excel in order to learn about savings, investments, and interest rates. Through the creation of the artificat, students are actively participating in constructionsim and creating mental maps of the knowledge they gain. While students may not remember the mathematics or the graphing skills they used, they do create a foundation to build upon later. Most importantly, however, is learning that savings and interest and lead to big earnings over time.

Cognitivism in Practice

Tools such as concept maps and rubrics can be directly related to the cognitive learning theory. Since this learning theory focuses on how one thinks or the mental processes that one undergoes during learning, these tools help in that regard. By providing a concept map of a topic, students are given the framework to begin learning. This tool helps the student organize his or her thoughts in a logical manner and prepares them for the content. Rubrics are great organizers as it allows the student to apply their skills in the correct manner and in the correct situations. These tools provide students the structure needed to complete their mental processing that occurs during learning.

Behaviorism in Practice

Behaviorism and technology defintitely have a correlation in regards to education. In order to help students appreciate the role that effort plays in achievement, Mr. Ekuban created a free survey at surveymonkey.com to collect date to then share with incoming freshmen. From this, students are able to see how achievement is reached with strong effort and good attitude, both qualities that are controllable by the individual. Furthermore, learning with multimedia can be more engaging and worthwhile than learning from multimedia. I have seen students do some amazing things when they are given the freedom to explore the software and use different features rather than be limited to just a select few. Reinforcing this type of exploratory learning and then allowing the students to demonstrate to the class how it was accomplished has been a positive and rewarding method within my classroom.