Learning Theories Week 3 (Post One)

Q1: Explain how past experience is important to a learner in both constructivist and behavioral learning theories?

a) In Bloom’s taxonomy, this question falls within comprehension.  It is not a simple restating of fact (it asks for importance, which can be nuanced), but does not involve application to analysis.

b) In constructivist theory, the learner’s conceptual framework is central to the process of learning.  It is this framework that people use to make sense of past experience (thus, the framework is built by past experience).  New ideas are either understood within the learners’ current conceptual framework, or their framework is modified to accommodate the new ideas.  In behavioral learning theory, past experience may simply refer to responses to stimuli received on prior occasions.  Beyond the stimulus-response paradigm, past experience is not central to the theory.


Q2: Why did Vygotsky believe that play time is so important to the development of young children?

a) In Bloom’s taxonomy, this question falls within comprehension.  Again, it is not a simple restating of fact (as it would be if the question were “which researcher believes that play…), but does not involve application to analysis.

b) Vygotsky believed that play develops learning by introducing abstract thought to something real.  For instance, a child could take a stick and pretend that it’s a horse he could ride.  The stick is real, but the idea that it’s a horse is abstract.


Q3: Sally is 8 years old and is already speculating on why acid rain is such a problem in her small coastal town.  She begins to list off data that you as a science teacher know is outdated and inaccurate.  What technique do you use to correct her without discouraging her interest in this subject?

a) In Bloom’s taxonomy, this question falls within application, as it asks the answerer to solve a real world problem using knowledge already learned.

b) I would use the opportunity to teach the class about how people do science, and that often times research or experiments are built upon the work of past scientists.  Sally has done a great job of giving us some research that relates to the town’s past problems with acid rain.  Now let’s collaborate as a class to further that research by looking up the latest data.  We may even find that new ideas have come about since Sally’s research was conducted (thereby addressing any inaccuracies she presented).