Week : 3

Mahmoud ElMahdi

ID:

2015101091

Stream: MeD

Dr. Sufian A. Forawi

Module: 502

Early twentieth-century witnessed the earlier attempts by Pavlov (18491936), Thorndike (1876-1949), Watson (1878-1990) and Skinner (1904-1990)
to shape an approach to understand and describe the ways in which learning
is happen. All these attempts were centred on what is known as behaviourist
or stimulus-response theories. Then, the constructivism movement comes up
which is a broader version of life and society. The beginning of the
constructivist approach to learning is considered to be the work of Jean
Paiget (1896-1980) and Vygotsky (1896-1934). The difference between
earlier attempts of learning and constructivism can be summarized in three
main areas learning, knowledge and understanding.
For old school, learning is a passive process and is observed by a change in
behaviour. Learning is nothing more than the acquisition of new behaviour.
Therefore, mistakes are viewed as result of inadequate training, without
appropriate repetition students will make mistakes.While constructivism
emphasized on the importance of social interaction; students are active
learners through a constructivist strategy often called student-centered
instruction in which teacher is a facilitator and guide on the side.
Old School believes that knowledge is mind-independent and can be
mapped onto a learner (Ertmer and Newby, 1993); it is a matter of
recalling information. Constructivism believes that knowing is a process not
a product (Bruner 1966, p.72) and teacher cannot simply give students
knowledge, they must construct knowledge in their own minds. Students
should check new information against old ones and then revise existing rules
or schema when they are no longer work or construct another one through
assimilation, accommodation and equalization processes. By doing these
things, they incorporate new knowledge with prior knowledge to create new
meanings.
In Behaviourism, teacher uses bottom-up processing in which basic skills are
gradually built into more complex skills. While constructivism emphasis on
top-down processing in which students begin with holistic, complex and
authentic problems or issues to solve and then to analyize their parts and
discover with the teacher guidance.
While behaviourism discounts mental activities, constructivism favours
cooperative learning, questioning or inquiry strategies and other
metacognitive skills in order to expose the learner to alternative viewpoints.
Also, constructivism emphasize on discovery learning and scaffolding. Bruner
(1966) put it this way We teach a subject not to produce little living libraries
on that subject, but rather to get a student to think.

Week : 3

ID:

2015101091

Stream: MeD

Dr. Sufian A. Forawi

Module: 502

At the end, intentional teacher should think about the balance between
direct, teacher-centred approach and student-centred approach. Each
teacher should choose his strategy based on his goals for students and also
realize that a balance of both kinds of approaches might be best for
promoting variety of learning results. Behaviourism still continues to play a
large role in motivation, classroom management, and special education
needs.