Hello everyone! This week is our Module 3 post and I will begin with talking about the differences between behaviorist and cognitive perspectives of learning. The differences are, the cognitive perspective is knowledge and strategies that are learned then changes in knowledge and strategies make change in behavior possible. Meanwhile, behavioral perspective is where the behaviors are learned themselves. The important part of these are that behavior views help maintain that reinforcement helps strengthen responses, while cognitive view that reinforcement as a way to find information about what is likely to happen if the behaviors are altered or stay the same (Woolfolk, 2014). It is important to apply these perspectives of learning to instruction because they can help teachers change or help strengthen certain behavior. A teacher can use reinforcement to strengthen a behavior, however if a teacher wants a student, or students, to change their behavior then the teachers can use the cognitive perspective to see the potential of how the students will respond. There are, however limitations to these perspectives. The limitations are that the perspectives are based off of inferences and not on set facts. Since they are based on assumptions means that it cannot be made for sure whether a certain outcome will happen for sure. The view that I think I will use more in the classroom will be the cognitive view. I will use this because it will be based off of previous experiences or actions that can help me decide what might happen if I give certain reinforcement.
I have inserted a table from our textbook. In this chart I believe I fit into the cognitive and constructivist categories. These categories fit me best because I like the idea of having students learn in the classroom and then apply what they learned to situations outside the classroom. This will give them the creative possibilities of problem solving and coming up with unique answers to unique questions. For Physical Education this could be seen in an Adventure Education format where students are told how to set equipment, such as camping for example. However, with the changing weather students have to figure out how to more efficiently set up their equipment. As a future educator I want to make sure that I challenge my students and what they are capable of doing. Having the students in groups for certain activities also allows them to collaborate with others and challenge each other in order to play to each other’s strengths. So, the views of learning that I believe in the most are Cognitive and Constructivism.
Thank you for reading this week’s blog!
-Graham Hevel
Citation
Textbook:
Woolfolk, A. (2014). Educational psychology active learning edition. Pearson
Education, 12, 312-468.