TEORI BELAJAR

1. Teori Belajar B.F. Skinner

Behaviorisme merupakan salah aliran psikologi yang memandang individu hanya

dari sisi fenomena jasmaniah, dan mengabaikan aspek aspek mental. Dengan kata
lain, behaviorisme tidak mengakui adanya kecerdasan, bakat, minat dan perasaan
individu dalam suatu belajar. Peristiwa belajar semata-mata melatih refleks-refleks
sedemikian rupa sehingga menjadi kebiasaan yang dikuasai individu.
hukum belajar behaviorisme yang berupa operant conditioning menurut B.F Skinner :

Dari eksperimen yang dilakukan B.F. Skinner terhadap tikus dan selanjutnya
terhadap burung merpati menghasilkan hukum-hukum belajar, diantaranya :

1. Law of operant conditining yaitu jika timbulnya perilaku diiringi dengan

stimulus penguat, maka kekuatan perilaku tersebut akan meningkat.

2. Law of operant extinction yaitu jika timbulnya perilaku operant telah diperkuat
melalui proses conditioning itu tidak diiringi stimulus penguat, maka kekuatan
perilaku tersebut akan menurun bahkan musnah.

Reber (Muhibin Syah, 2003) menyebutkan bahwa yang dimaksud dengan operant
adalah sejumlah perilaku yang membawa efek yang sama terhadap lingkungan.
Respons dalam operant conditioning terjadi tanpa didahului oleh stimulus, melainkan
oleh efek yang ditimbulkan oleh reinforcer. Reinforcer itu sendiri pada dasarnya
adalah stimulus yang meningkatkan kemungkinan timbulnya sejumlah respons
tertentu, namun tidak sengaja diadakan sebagai pasangan stimulus lainnya seperti
dalam classical conditioning.

2. Teori Belajar Kognitif menurut Piaget

Piaget merupakan salah seorang tokoh yang disebut-sebut sebagai pelopor aliran
konstruktivisme. Salah satu sumbangan pemikirannya yang banyak digunakan
sebagai rujukan untuk memahami perkembangan kognitif individu yaitu teori tentang
tahapan perkembangan individu. Menurut Piaget bahwa perkembangan kognitif
individu meliputi empat tahap yaitu : (1) sensory motor; (2) pre operational; (3)

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 concrete operational dan (4) formal operational. Pemikiran lain dari Piaget tentang
proses rekonstruksi pengetahuan individu yaitu asimilasi dan akomodasi. James
Atherton (2005) menyebutkan bahwa asisimilasi adalah the process by which a
person takes material into their mind from the environment, which may mean
changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit dan akomodasi adalah the
difference made to ones mind or concepts by the process of assimilation

Dikemukakannya pula, bahwa belajar akan lebih berhasil apabila disesuaikan

dengan tahap perkembangan kognitif peserta didik. Peserta didik hendaknya diberi
kesempatan untuk melakukan eksperimen dengan obyek fisik, yang ditunjang oleh
interaksi dengan teman sebaya dan dibantu oleh pertanyaan tilikan dari guru. Guru
hendaknya banyak memberikan rangsangan kepada peserta didik agar mau
berinteraksi dengan lingkungan secara aktif, mencari dan menemukan berbagai hal
dari lingkungan.
Implikasi teori perkembangan kognitif Piaget dalam pembelajaran adalah :

1. Bahasa dan cara berfikir anak berbeda dengan orang dewasa. Oleh karena itu guru
mengajar dengan menggunakan bahasa yang sesuai dengan cara berfikir anak.
2. Anak-anak akan belajar lebih baik apabila dapat menghadapi lingkungan dengan
baik. Guru harus membantu anak agar dapat berinteraksi dengan lingkungan
sebaik-baiknya.
3. Bahan yang harus dipelajari anak hendaknya dirasakan baru tetapi tidak asing.
4. Berikan peluang agar anak belajar sesuai tahap perkembangannya.
5. Di dalam kelas, anak-anak hendaknya diberi peluang untuk saling berbicara dan
diskusi dengan teman-temanya.

3. Teori Pemrosesan Informasi dari Robert Gagne

Asumsi yang mendasari teori ini adalah bahwa pembelajaran merupakan faktor
yang sangat penting dalam perkembangan. Perkembangan merupakan hasil kumulatif
dari pembelajaran. Menurut Gagne bahwa dalam pembelajaran terjadi proses
penerimaan informasi, untuk kemudian diolah sehingga menghasilkan keluaran dalam
bentuk hasil belajar. Dalam pemrosesan informasi terjadi adanya interaksi antara

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 kondisi-kondisi internal dan kondisi-kondisi eksternal individu. Kondisi internal yaitu
keadaan dalam diri individu yang diperlukan untuk mencapai hasil belajar dan proses
kognitif yang terjadi dalam individu. Sedangkan kondisi eksternal adalah rangsangan
dari lingkungan yang mempengaruhi individu dalam proses pembelajaran.

Menurut Gagne tahapan proses pembelajaran meliputi delapan fase yaitu, (1)
motivasi; (2) pemahaman; (3) pemerolehan; (4) penyimpanan; (5) ingatan kembali;
(6) generalisasi; (7) perlakuan dan (8) umpan balik.

4. Teori Belajar Gestalt

Gestalt berasal dari bahasa Jerman yang mempunyai padanan arti sebagai bentuk
atau konfigurasi. Pokok pandangan Gestalt adalah bahwa obyek atau peristiwa
tertentu akan dipandang sebagai sesuatu keseluruhan yang terorganisasikan. Menurut
Koffka dan Kohler, ada tujuh prinsip organisasi yang terpenting yaitu :

1. Hubungan bentuk dan latar (figure and gound relationship); yaitu menganggap
bahwa setiap bidang pengamatan dapat dibagi dua yaitu figure (bentuk) dan latar
belakang. Penampilan suatu obyek seperti ukuran, potongan, warna dan
sebagainya membedakan figure dari latar belakang. Bila figure dan latar bersifat
samar-samar, maka akan terjadi kekaburan penafsiran antara latar dan figure.

2. Kedekatan (proxmity); bahwa unsur-unsur yang saling berdekatan (baik waktu

maupun ruang) dalam bidang pengamatan akan dipandang sebagai satu bentuk
tertentu.

3. Kesamaan (similarity); bahwa sesuatu yang memiliki kesamaan cenderung akan

dipandang sebagai suatu obyek yang saling memiliki.

4. Arah bersama (common direction); bahwa unsur-unsur bidang pengamatan yang

berada dalam arah yang sama cenderung akan dipersepsi sebagi suatu figure atau
bentuk tertentu.

5. Kesederhanaan (simplicity); bahwa orang cenderung menata bidang

pengamatannya bentuk yang sederhana, penampilan reguler dan cenderung

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 membentuk keseluruhan yang baik berdasarkan susunan simetris dan keteraturan;
dan

6. Ketertutupan (closure) bahwa orang cenderung akan mengisi kekosongan suatu

pola obyek atau pengamatan yang tidak lengkap.

5. Ausubel : Teori Belajar Bermakna

Ausubel berpendapat bahwa guru harus dapat mengembangkan potensi kognitif

siswa melalui proses belajar yang bermakna.

Sama seperti Bruner dan Gagne, Ausubel beranggapan bahwa aktivitas belajar
siswa, terutama mereka yang berada di tingkat pendidikan dasar- akan bermanfaat
kalau mereka banyak dilibatkan dalam kegiatan langsung. Namun untuk siswa pada
tingkat pendidikan lebih tinggi, maka kegiatan langsung akan menyita banyak waktu.
Untuk mereka, menurut Ausubel, lebih efektif kalau guru menggunakan penjelasan,
peta konsep, demonstrasi, diagram, dan ilustrasi.

Inti dari teori belajar bermakna Ausubel adalah proses belajar akan mendatangkan
hasil atau bermakna kalau guru dalam menyajikan materi pelajaran yang baru dapat
menghubungkannya dengan konsep yang relevan yang sudah ada dalam struktur
kognisi siswa.

Metode Belajar

Untuk mendorong terjadinya strategi belajar yang dianjurkan aliran

konstruktif, dapat dilakukan pembelajaran melalui beberapa metode seperti :

1. Pembelajaran Induktif.
Hilda Taba mengembangkan model mengajar, dimana ia mengemukakan
strategi mengajar yang meningkatkan kemampuan para siswa untuk menangani
informasi. Model mengajar ini dikembangkan dengan asumsi bahwa dalam
mengajar, situasi kelas merupakan kerjasama dari sejumlah kegiatan siswa.

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 Model pembelajaran seperti ini dinilai dapat digunakan sebagai
pengenalan pengalaman baru. Konsep gender bagi siswa pada saat masih
merupakan konsep baru yang belum banyak dikenal oleh siswa.

2. Pembelajaran Kontekstual
Pembelajaran ini merupakan suatu konsepsi yang membantu guru
mengaitkan konten mata pelajaran dengan situasi dunia nyata dan memotivasi
siswa membuat hubungan antara pengetahuan dan penerapannya dalam
kehidupan mereka sebagai anggota keluarga, warga negara, dan tenaga kerja.
Pembelajaran ini mempunyai enam unsur kunci seperti : pembelajaran
bermakna, penerapan pengetahuan, berpikir tingkat yang lebih tinggi, kurikulum
yang dikembangkan berdasarkan standar, responsive terhadap budaya dan
penilaian autentik (University of Washington, 2001).
Model pembelajaran ini dinilai sangat tepat untuk digunakan sebagai
pengenalan konsep ketidaksetaraan, marginalisasi, diskriminasi, dan streotipe
dapat dikembangkan saat pembelajaran.

3. Pembelajaran Kooperatif
Pembelajaran ini cenderung mengacu pada belajar kelompok siswa,
dengan menggunakan empat pendekatan : a). STAD, pembelajaran dilakukan
dengan melibatkan siswa secara heterogen, mereka perlu bekerjasama
menyelesaikan tugas-tugasnya, diskusi, setiap minggu ada penilaian,
diumumkan tim-tim dengan skor tinggi, siswa yang mencapai skor
perkembangan tinggi artinya perlakuan yang diberikan adil baik kepada siswa
laki-laki maupun perempuan memiliki kesempatan yang sama untuk
berkompetisi. b). Jigsaw, cara ini tanpa melihat jenis kelamin memiliki
kesempatan belajar bagian tertentu dari materi ajar dan sama-sama memiliki
tanggungjawab kepada temannya untuk mentransformasi isi dari pelajaran yang
telah dipelajarinya. c). Investigasi Kelompok, model pembelajaran ini
memerlukan cara yang mengajarkan siswa keterampilan komunikasi dan proses
kelompok yang baik, serta norma dan struktur kelas yang lebih rumit. Siswa
dikelompokkan dengan kawannya yang cenderung memiliki minat yang sama,

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kemudian memilih topik yang ingin diselidiki, selanjutnya menyiapkan dan
mempresentasikannya. d). Pendekatan struktural, cara ini memiliki kemiripan
dengan cara lain hanya saja ia dirancang untuk mempengaruhi pola interaksi
siswa. Ada struktur yang dikembangkan untuk perolehan isi akademik, ada yang
dirancang untuk mengajarkan keterampilan sosial atau keterampilan kelompok.

4. Proses Belajar Mengajar

PBM tidak terlepas dari tiga komponen utama yaitu; guru, siswa dan
bahan ajar. Ahli lain menyatakan proses belajar merupakan interaksi antara
berbagai unsur, dengan unsur utama adalah siswa, kebutuhan sebagai sumber,
serta situasi belajar yang memberikan kemungkinan kegiatan belajar. Meskipun
demikian guru merupakan faktor yang cukup menentukan, seperti melakukan
pengembangan bahan ajar serta perangkat lainnya.

HAKIKAT PEMBELAJARAN BEHAVIORISTIK DAN PEMBELAJARAN

KONSTRUKTIVISTIK

a. Hakikat Pembelajaran Behavioristik

Thornike, salah seorang penganut paham behavioristik, menyatakan bahwa
belajar merupakan peristiwa terbentuknya asosiasi-asosiasi antara peristiwa-peristiwa
yang sisebut stimulus (S) dengan respon yang diberikan atas stimulus tersebut.
Pernyataan Thorndike ini didasarkan pada hasil eksperimennya di laboratorium yang
menggunakan beberapa jenis hewan seperti kucing, anjing, monyet, dan ayam.
Menurutnya, dari berbeagai situasi yang diberikan seekor hewan akan memberikan
sejumlah respon, dan tindakan yang dapat terbentuk bergantung pada kekuatan keneksi
atau ikatan-ikatan antara situasi dan respon tertentu. Kemudian ia menyimpulkan bahwa
semua tingkah laku manusia baik pikiran maupun tindakan dapat dianalisis dalam bagian-
bagian dari dua struktur yang sederhana, yaitu stimulus dan respon. Dengan demikian,
menurut pandangan ini dasar terjadinya belajar adalah pembentukan asosiasi antara
stimulus dan respon. Oleh karena itu, menurut Hudojo (1990:14) teori Thondike ini
disebut teori asosiasi.
Selanjutnya, Thorndike (dalam Orton, 1991:39-40; Resnick, 1981:13)
mengemukakan bahwa terjadinya asosiasi antara stimulus dan respon ini mengikuti
hokum-hukum berikut: (1) Hukum latihan (law of exercise), yaitu apabila asosiasi antara
stimulus dan respon serting terjadi, maka asosiasi itu akan terbentuk semakin kuat.
Interpretasi dari hokum ini adalah semakin sering suatu pengetahuan yang telah
terbentuk akibat tejadinya asosiasi antara stimulus dan respon dilatih (digunakan), maka
asosiasi tersebut akan semakin kuat; (2) Hukum akibat (law of effect), yaitu apabila
asosiasi yang terbentuk antara stimulus dan respon diikuti oleh suatu kepuasan maka

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asosiasi akan semakin meningkat. Hal ini berarti (idealnya), jika suatu respon yang
diberikan oleh seseorang terhadap suatu stimulus adalah benar dan ia mengetahuinya,
maka kepuasan akan tercapai dan asosiasi akan diperkuat.
Penganut paham psikologi behavior yang lain yaitu Skinner, berpendapat hamper
senada dengan hokum akibat dari Thorndike. Ia mengemukakan bahwa unsur terpenting
dalam belajar adalah penguatan (reinforcement). Maksudnya adalah pengetahuan yang
terbentuk melalui ikatan stimulus respon akan semakin kuat bila diberi penguatan.
Skinner membagi penguatan ini menjadi dua, yaitu penguatan positif dan penguatan
negative. Penguatan positif sebagai stimulus, apabila representasinya mengiringi suatu
tingkah laku yang cenderung dapat meningkatkan terjadinya pengulangan tingkah laku
itu. Sedangkan penguatan negative adalah stimulus yang dihilangkan/dihapuskan karena
cenderung menguatkan tingkah laku (Bell, 1981:151).

b. Hakikat pembelajaran Konstruktivisme

Pembentukan pengetahuan menurut konstruktivistik memandang subyek aktif
menciptakan struktur-struktur kognitif dalam interaksinya dengan lingkungan. Dengan
bantuan struktur kognitifnya ini, subyek menyusun pengertian realitasnya. Interaksi
kognitif akan terjadi sejauh realitas tersebut disusun melalui struktur kognitif yang
diciptakan oleh subyek itu sendiri. Struktur kognitif senantiasa harus diubah dan
disesuaikan berdasarkan tuntutan lingkungan dan organisme yang sedang berubah. Proses
penyesuaian diri terjadi secara terus menerus melalui proses rekonstruksi.
Yang terpenting dalam teori konstruktivisme adalah bahwa dalam proses
pembelajaran, si belajarlah yang harus mendapatkan penekanan. Merekalah yang harus
aktif mengembangkan pengetahuan mereka, bukan pembelajar atau orang lain. Mereka
yang harus bertanggung jawab terhadap hasil belajarnya. Penekanan belajar siswa secara
aktif ini perlu dikembangkan. Kreativitas dan keaktifan siswa akan membantu mereka
untuk berdiri sendiri dalam kehidupan kognitif siswa.
Belajar lebih diarahkan pada experimental learning yaitu merupakan adaptasi
kemanusiaan berdasarkan pengalaman konkrit di laboratorium, diskusi dengan teman
sekelas, yang kemudian dikontemplasikan dan dijadikan ide dan pengembangan konsep
baru. Karenanya aksentuasi dari mendidik dan mengajar tidak terfokus pada si pendidik
melainkan pada pebelajar.
Beberapa hal yang mendapat perhatian pembelajaran konstruktivistik, yaitu: (1)
mengutamakan pembelajaran yang bersifat nyata dalam kontek yang relevan, (2)
mengutamakan proses, (3) menanamkan pembelajran dalam konteks pengalaman social,
(4) pembelajaran dilakukan dalam upaya mengkonstruksi pengalaman.
Hakikat pembelajaran konstruktivistik oleh Brooks & Brooks dalam Degeng
mengatakan bahwa pengetahuan adalah non-objective, bersifat temporer, selalu berubah,
dan tidak menentu. Belajar dilihat sebagai penyusunan pengetahuan dari pengalaman
konkrit, aktivitas kolaboratif, dan refleksi serta interpretasi. Mengajar berarti menata
lingkungan agar si belajar termotivasi dalam menggali makna serta menghargai
ketidakmenentuan. Atas dasar ini maka si belajar akan memiliki pemahaman yang
berbeda terhadap pengetahuan tergentung pada pengalamannya, dan perspektif yang
dipakai dalam menginterpretasikannya.

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ASPEK-ASPEK PEMBELAJARAN KONSTRUKTIVISTIK

Fornot mengemukakan aaspek-aspek konstruktivitik sebagai berikut: adaptasi

(adaptation), konsep pada lingkungan (the concept of envieronmet), dan pembentukan
makna (the construction of meaning). Dari ketiga aspek tersebut oleh J. Piaget bermakna
yaitu adaptasi terhadap lingkungan dilakukan melalui dua proses yaitu asimilasi dan
akomodasi.
Asimilasi adalah proses kognitif dimana seseorang mengintegrasikan persepsi,
konsep ataupun pengalaman baru ke dalam skema atau pola yang sudah ada dalam
pikirannya. Asimilasi dipandang sebagai suatu proses kognitif yang menempatkan dan
mengklasifikasikan kejadian atau rangsangan baru dalam skema yang telah ada. Proses
asimilasi ini berjalan terus. Asimilasi tidak akan menyebabkan perubahan/pergantian
skemata melainkan perkembangan skemata. Asimilasi adalah salah satu proses individu
dalam mengadaptasikan dan mengorganisasikan diri dengan lingkungan baru perngertian
orang itu berkembang.
Akomodasi, dalam menghadapi rangsangan atau pengalaman baru seseorang tidak
dapat mengasimilasikan pengalaman yang baru dengan skemata yang telah dipunyai.
Pengalaman yang baru itu bias jadi sama sekali tidak cocok dengan skema yang telah
ada. Dalam keadaan demikian orang akan mengadakan akomodasi. Akomodasi terjadi
untuk membentuk skema baru yang cocok dengan rangsangan yang baru atau
memodifikasi skema yang telah ada sehingga cocok dengan rangsangan itu. Bagi Piaget
adaptasi merupakan suatu kesetimbangan antara asimilasi dan akomodasi. Bila dalam
proses asimilasi seseorang tidak dapat mengadakan adaptasi terhadap lingkungannya
maka terjadilah ketidaksetimbangan (disequilibrium). Akibat ketidaksetimbangan itu
maka tercapailah akomodasi dan struktur kognitif yang ada yang akan mengalami atau
munculnya struktur yang baru. Pertumbuhan intelektual ini merupakan proses terus
menerus tentang keadaan ketidaksetimbangan dan keadaan setimbang (disequilibrium-
equilibrium). Tetapi bila terjadi kesetimbangan maka individu akan berada pada tingkat
yang lebih tinggi daripada sebelumnya.
Tingkatan pengetahuan atau pengetahuan berjenjang ini oleh Vygotskian
disebutnya sebagai scaffolding. Scaffolding, berarti membrikan kepada seorang individu
sejumlah besar bantuan selama tahap-tahap awal pembelajaran dan kemudian
mengurangi bantuan tersebut dan memberikan kesempatan kepada anak tersebut
mengambil alih tanggung jawab yang semakin besar segera setelah mampu mengerjakan
sendiri. Bantuan yang diberikan pembelajar dapat berupa petunjuk, peringatan, dorongan,
menguraikan masalah ke dalam bentuk lain yang memungkinkan siswa dapat mandiri.
Vygotsky mengemukakan tiga kategori pencapaian siswa dalam upayanya memecahkan
permasalahan, yaitu (1) siswa mencapai keberhasilan dengan baik, (2) siswa mencapai
keberhasilan dengan bantuan, (3) siswa gagal meraih keberhasilan. Scaffolding, berarti
upaya pembelajar untuk membimbing siswa dalam upayanya mencapai keberhasilan.
Dorongan guru sangat dibutuhkan agar pencapaian siswa ke jenjang yang lebih tinggi
menjadi optimum.
Konstruktivisme Vygotskian memandang bahwa pengetahuan dikonstruksi secara
kolaboratif antar individual dan keadaan tersebut dapat disesuaikan oleh setiap individu.
Proses dalam kognisi diarahkan memalui adaptasi intelektual dalam konteks social
budaya. Proses penyesuaian itu equivalent dengan pengkonstruksian pengetahuan secara

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intra individual yakni melalui proses regulasi diri internal. Dalam hubungan ini, para
konstruktivis Vygotskian lebih menekankan pada penerapan teknik saling tukar gagasan
antar individual.
Dua prinsip penting yang diturunkan dari teori Vygotsky adalah: (1), mengenai
fungsi dan pentingnya bahasa dalam komunikasi social yang dimulai proses
pencanderaan terhadap tanda (sign) sampai kepada tukar menukar informasi dan
pengetahuan, (2) zona of proximal development. Pembelajar sebagai mediator memiliki
peran mendorong dan menjembatani siswa dalam upayanya membangun pengetahuan,
pengertian dan kompetensi.
Sumbangan penting teori Vygotsky adalah penekanan pada hakikat pembelajaran
sosiakultural. Inti teori Vygotsky adalah menekankan interaksi antara aspek internal dan
eksternal dari pembelajaran dan penekanannya pada lingkungan social pembelajaran.
Menurut teori Vygotsky, funsi kognitif manusia berasal dari interaksi social masing-
masing individu dalam konteks budaya. Vygotsky juga yakin bahwa pembelajaran terjadi
saat siswa bekerja menangani tugas-tugas yang belum dipelajari namun tugas-tugas
tersebut masih dalam jangkauan kemampuannya atau tugas-tugas itu berada dalam zona
of proximal development mereka. Zona of proximal development adalah daerah antar
tingkat perkembangan sesungguhnya yang didefinisikan sebagai kemampuan
memecahkan masalah secara mandiri dan tingkat perkembangan potensial yang
didefinisikan sebagai kemampuan pemecahan masalah di bawah bimbingan orang
dewasa atau teman sebaya yang lebih mampu. Pengetahuan berjenjang tersebut seperti
pada sekema berikut.
Effective habits of mind

Cooperative colaborative

Effective communication

Information processing

Complex thinking

Pengetahuan dan pengertian dikonstruksi bila seseorang terlibat secara social

dalam dialog dan aktif dalam percobaan-percobaan dan pengalaman. Pembentukan
makna adalah dialog antar pribadi.dalam hal ini pebelajar tidak hanya memerlukan akses
pengalaman fisik tetapi juga interaksi dengan pengalaman yang dimiliki oleh individu
lain. Pembelajaran yang sifatnya kooperatif (cooperative learning) ini muncul ketika
siswa bekerja sama untuk mencapai tujuan belajar yang diinginka oleh siswa.
Pengelolaan kelas menurut cooperative learning bertujuan membantu siswa untuk
mengembangkan niat dan kiat bekerja sama dan berinteraksi dengna siswa yang lain.
Ada tiga hal penting yang perlu diperhatikan dalam pengelolaan kelas yaitu:

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 pengelompokan, semangar kooperatif dan penataan kelas. (Pranata,
http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/interior/.
Pengetahuan berjenjang tersebut dapat digambarkan seperti pada skema berikut:
Secara singkat teori Peaget dan Vygotsky dapat dikemukakan dalam table berikut
ini.

Tabel 1 Piagetian and Vygotskyan Constructivism

Piagetian Constructivism Vygotsky Constructivism

Concept constructivism focus on individual Vygotsky, in order to understand human
cognitive development through co- development, a multilevel analysis using
constructed learning environments all four levels of history must be
with national, decontextualized employed: sosiocultural constructivism,
thinking as the goal of
development
Subject of Focus on the development of argued that individual development
Study autonomous cognitive forms cannot be understood without reference
within the individual, culminating to the interpersonal and institutional
in rational thought that is surround which situates the child
decentered from the individual.
Develop-ment the structure of the mind is the the construction of knowledge occurs
of cognitive source of our understanding of the through interaction in the social world.
forms world. Thus for Vygotsky the development of
cognitive forms occurs by means of the
dialectical relationship between the
individual and the social context

Pembelajaran konstruktivistik dan pembelajaran behavioristik yang dikemukakan

oleh Degeng dapat dilihat pada table-tabel berikut.
Table 2
Pandangan Konstruktivistik dan behavioristik tentang belajar dan pembelajaran.

Konstruktivistik Behavioristik
Pengtahuan adalah non-objective, bersifat Pengetahuan adalah objektif, pasti, dan
temporer, selalu berubah dan tidak menentu. tetap , tidak berubah. Pengetahuan telah
terstruktur dengan rapi.
Belajar adalah penyusunan pengetahuan dari Belajar adalah perolehan pengetahuan,
pengalaman konkrit, aktivitas kolaboratif, sedangkan mengajar adalah memindahkan
dan refleksi serta interpretasi. Mengajar pengetahuan ke orang yang belajar.
adalah menata lingkungan agar si belajar
termotivasi dalam menggali makna seta
menghargai ketidakmenentuan.
Si belajar akan memiliki pemahaman yang Si belajar akan memiliki pemahaman yang

10
berbeda terhadap pengetahuan tergantung
pada pengalamannya, dan perspektif yang
dipakai dalam menginterpretasikannya.
Mind berfungsi sebagai alat untuk
menginterpretasi peristiwa, objek, atau
perspektif yang ada dalam dunia nyata
sehingga makna yang dihasilkan bersifat
unik dan individualistic.
sama terhadap pengetahuan yang diajarkan.
Artinya, apa yang dipahami oleh pengajar
itulah yang harus dipahami oleh si belajar.
Fungsi mind adalah menjiplak struktur
pengetahuan melalui proses berpikir yang
dapat dianalisis dan dipilah sehingga makna
yang dihasilkan dari proses berpikir seperti
ini ditentukan oleh karakteristik struktur
pengetahuan.

Table 3
Pandangan Konstruktivistik dan Behavioristik tentang
Penataan Lingkungan Belajar

Konstruktivistik Behavioristik
Ketidakteraturan, ketidakpastian, Keteraturan, kepastian, ketertiban
kesemrawutan,
Si belajar harus bebas. Kebebasan menjadi Si belajar harus dihadapkan pada aturan-
unsure yang esensial dalam lingkungna aturan yang jelas dan ditetapkan lebih dahulu
belajar. secara ketat. Pembiasaan dan disiplin
menjadi sangat esensial. Pembelajaran lebih
banyak dikaitkan dengan penegakan disiplin.
Kegagalan atau keberhasilan, kemampuan Kegagalan atau ketidakmampuan dalam
atau ketidakmampuan dilihat sebagai penambahan pengetahuan dikategorikan
interpretasi yang berbeda yang perlu sebagai kesalahan yang perlu dihukum, dan
dihargai. keberhasilan atau kemampuan dikategorikan
sebagai bentuk perilaku yang pantas diberi
hadiah.
Kebebasan dipandang sebagai penentu Ketaatan pada aturan dipandang sebagai
keberhasilan belajar. Si belajar adalah subjek penentu keberhasilan belajar. Si belajar
yang harus memapu menggunakan adalah objek yang harus berperilaku sesuai
kebebasan untuk melakukan pengaturan diri dengan aturan.
dalam belajar.
Control belajar dipegang oleh si belajar. Control belajar dipegang oleh system yang
berada di luar diri si belajar.

Table 4 Pandangan Konstruktivistik dan behavioristik tentang Tujuan Pembelajaran

Konstruktivistik Behavioristik
Tujuan pembelajaran ditekankan pada belajar Tujuan belajar ditekankan pada
bagaimana belajar (learn how to learn) penambahan pengetahuan.

Tabe 5 pandangan Konstruktivistik dan behavioristik tentang strategi pembelajaran

Konstruktivistik Behavioristik
Penyejian isi menekankan pada penggunaan Penyajian isi menekankan pada keterampilan
pengetahuan secara bermakna mengikuti yang terisolasi dan akumulasi fakta
urutan dari keseluruhan-ke-bagian. mengikuti urutan dari bagian-ke-

11
 keseluruhan.
Pembelajaran lebih banyak diarahkan untuk
meladeni pertanyaan atau pandangan si Pembelajaran mengikuti urutan kurikulum
belajar. secara ketat.

Aktivitas belajar lebih banyak didasarkan

pada data primer dan bahan manipulatif
dengan penekanan pada keterampilan
berpikir kritis.
Pembelajaran menekankan pada proses.
Aktivitas belajar lebih banyak didasarkan
pada buku teks dengan penekanan pada
keterampilan mengungkapkan kembali isi
buku teks.
Pembelajaran menekankan pada hasil

Tabe 6 Pandangan Konstruktivistik dan Behavioristik tentang evaluasi

Konstruktivistik
Evaluasi menekankan pada penyusunan
makna secara aktif yang melibatkan
keterampilan terintegrasi, dengan
menggunakan masalah dalam konsteks
nyata.
Behavioristik
Evaluasi menekankan pada respon pasif,
keterampilan secara terpisah, dan biasanya
menggunakan paper and pencil test

Evaluasi yang menggali munculnya berpikir Evaluasi yang menuntu satu jawaban benar.
divergent, pemecahan ganda, bukan hanya Jawaban benar menunjukkan bahwa si-
satu jawaban benar belajar telah menyelesaikan tugas belajar.

Evaluasi merupakan bagian utuh dari belajar
dengan cara memberikan tugas-tugas yang
menuntut aktivitas belajar yang bermkana
serta menerapkan apa yang dipelajari dalam
konteks nyata. evaluasi menekankan pad
aketerampilan proses dalam kelompok.
Evaluasi belajar dipandang sebagai bagian
terpisah dari kegiatan pembelajaran, dan
biasnaya dilakukan setelah kegiatan belajar
dengan penekanan pada evaluasi individual.

RANCANGAN PEMBELAJARAN KONSTRUKTIVISTIK

Berdasarkan teori J. Peaget dan Vygotsky yang telah dikemukakan di atas maka
pembelajaran dapat dirancang/didesain model pembelajaran konstruktivis di kelas
sebagai berikut:
Pertama, identifikasi prior knowledge dan miskonsepsi. Identifikasi awal terhadap
gagasan intuitif yang mereka miliki terhadap lingkungannya dijaring untuk mengetahui
kemungkinan-kemungkinan akan munculnya miskonsepsi yang menghinggapi struktur
kognitif siswa. Identifikasi ini dilakukan dengan tes awal, interview
Kedua, penyusunan program pembelajaran. Program pembelajaran dijabarkan
dalam bentuk satuan pelajaran.

12
 Ketiga orientasi dan elicitasi, situasi pembelajaran yang kondusif dan
mengasyikkan sangatlah perlu diciptakan pada awal-awal pembelajaran untuk
membangkitkan minat mereka terhadap topic yang akan dibahas. Siswa dituntun agar
mereka mau mengemukakan gagasan intuitifnya sebanyak mungkin tentang gejala-gejala
fisika yang mereka amati dalam lingkungan hidupnya sehari-hari. Oengungkapan
gagasan tersebut dapat memalui diskusi, menulis, ilustrasi gambar dan sebagainya.
Gagasan-gagasan tersebut kemudian dipertimbangkan bersama. Suasana pembelajaran
dibuat santai dan tidak menakutkan agar siswa tidak khawatir dicemooh dan ditertawakan
bila gagasan-gagasannya salah. Guru harus menahan diri untuk tidak menghakiminya.
Kebenaran akan gagasan siswa akan terjawab dan terungkap dengan sendirinya melalui
penalarannya dalam tahap konflik kognitif.
Keempat, refleksi. Dalam tahap ini, berbagai macam gagasan-gagasan yang
bersifat miskonsepsi yang muncul pada tahap orientasi dan elicitasi direflesikan dengan
miskonsepsi yang telah dijaring pada tahap awal. Miskonsepsi ini diklasifikasi
berdasarkan tingkat kesalahan dan kekonsistenannya untuk memudahkan
merestrukturisasikannya.
Kelima, resrtukturisasi ide, (a) tantangan, siswa diberikan pertanyaan-pertanyaan
tentang gejala-gejala yang kemudian dapat diperagakan atau diselidiki dalam praktikum.
Mereka diminta untuk meramalkan hasil percobaan dan memberikan alas an untuk
mendukung ramalannya itu. (b) konflik kognitif dan diskusi kelas. Siswa akan daapt
melihat sendiri apakah ramalan mereka benar atau salah. Mereka didorong untuk menguji
keyakinan dengan melakukan percobaan. Bila ramalan mereka meleset, mereka akan
mengalami konflik kognitif dan mulai tidak puas dengan gagasan mereka. Kemudian
mereka didorong untuk memikirkan penjelasan paling sederhana yang dapat
menerangkan sebanyak mungkin gejala yang telah mereka lihat. Usaha untuk mencari
penjelasan ini dilakukan dengan proses konfrontasi melalui diskusi dengan teman atau
guru yang pada kapasistasnya sebagai fasilitator dan mediator. (c) membangun ulang
kerangka konseptual. Siswa dituntun untuk menemukan sendiri bahwa konsep-konsep
yang baru itu memiliki konsistensi internal. Menunjukkan bahwa konsep ilmiah yang
baru itu memiliki keunggulan dari gagasan yang lama.
Keenam, aplikasi. Menyakinkan siswa akan manfaat untuk beralih konsepsi dari
miskonsepsi menuju konsepsi ilmiah. Menganjurkan mereka untuk menerapkan konsep
ilmiahnya tersebut dalam berbagai macam situasi untuk memecahkan masalah yang
instruktif dan kemudia menguji penyelesaian secara empiris. Mereka akan mampu
membandingkan secara eksplisit miskonsepsi mereka dengan penjelasa secara keilmuan.
Ketujuh, review dilakukan untuk meninjau keberhasilan strategi pembelajaran
yang telah berlangsung dalam upaya mereduksi miskonsepsi yang muncul pada awal
pembelajaran. Revisi terhadap strategi pembelajaran dilakukan bila miskonsepsi yang
muncul kembali bersifat sangar resisten. Hal ini penting dilakukan agar miskonsepsi yang
resisten tersebut tidak selamanya menghinggapi struktur kognitif, yang pada akhirnya
akan bermuara pada kesulitan belajar dan rendahnya prestasi siswa bersangkutan.

13
Lev Vygotsky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lev Vygotsky

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (Russian: ) (November 17

(November 5 Old Style), 1896 June 11, 1934) was a Soviet developmental psychologist
and the founder of cultural-historical psychology.Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Work
2.1 Cultural mediation and internalization
2.2 Psychology of play
2.3 Thinking and Speaking
3 Influence and development of Vygotsky's ideas
3.1 In the Soviet Union, Russia, and Eastern Europe
3.2 In the West
4 Critics of Vygotsky

14
5 Secondary literature
6 Vygotsky's texts online
7 External links

[edit]
Biography

Lev Vygotsky, psychologist, was born in 1896 in Orsha, in the Russian Empire (today in
Belarus). Vygotsky was tutored privately by Solomon Ashpiz and graduated from
Moscow State University in 1917. Later, he attended the Institute of Psychology in
Moscow (192434), where he worked extensively on ideas about cognitive development,
particularly the relationship between language and thinking. His writings emphasized the
roles of historical, cultural, and social factors in cognition and argued that language was
the most important symbolic tool provided by society. Vygotsky died of tuberculosis in
1934, leaving a wealth of work that is still being explored.

[edit]
Work

A pioneering psychologist, Vygotsky was also a highly prolific author: his major works
span 6 volumes, written over roughly 10 years, from his Psychology of Art (1925) to
Thought and Language [or Thinking and Speech] (1934). Vygotsky's interests in the
fields of developmental psychology, child development, and education were extremely
diverse. His innovative work in psychology includes several key concepts such as
psychological tools, mediation, internalization and the zone of proximal development.
His work covered such diverse topics as the origin and the psychology of art,
development of higher mental functions, philosophy of science and methodology of
psychological research, the relation between learning and human development, concept
formation, interrelation between language and thought development, play as a
psychological phenomenon, the study of learning disabilities and abnormal human
development (aka defectology).

[edit]
Cultural mediation and internalization

Vygotsky investigated child development and how this was guided by the role of culture
and interpersonal communication. Vygotsky observed how higher mental functions
developed historically within particular cultural groups, as well as individually through
social interactions with significant people in a child's life, particularly parents, but also
other adults. Through these interactions, a child came to learn the habits of mind of
her/his culture, including speech patterns, written language, and other symbolic
knowledge through which the child derives meaning and affected a child's construction of
her/his knowledge. This key premise of Vygotskian psychology is often referred to as
cultural mediation. The specific knowledge gained by children through these interactions

15
also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as
internalization.

Internalization can be understood in one respect as knowing how. For example, riding a
bicycle or pouring a cup of milk are tools of the society and initially outside and beyond
the child. The mastery of these skills occurs through the activity of the child within
society. A further aspect of internalization is appropriation in which the child takes a tool
and makes it his own, perhaps using it in a way unique to himself. Internalizing the use of
a pencil allows the child to use it very much for his own ends rather than draw exactly
what others in society have drawn previously.

[edit]
Psychology of play

Lesser known is his research on play, or child's game as a psychological phenomenon and
its role in the child's development. Through play the child develops abstract meaning
separate from the objects in the world which is a critical feature in the development of
higher mental functions.

The famous example Vygotsky gives is of a child who wants to ride a horse but he
cannot. As a child under three, he would perhaps cry and be angry, but around the age of
three the child's relationship with the world changes, "Henceforth play is such that the
explanation for it must always be that it is the imaginary, illusory realization of
unrealizable desires. Imagination is a new formation that is not present in the
consciousness of the very young child, is totally absent in animals, and represents a
specifically human form of conscious activity. Like all functions of consciousness, it
originally arises from action." (Vygotsky, 1978)

He wishes to ride a horse but cannot, so he picks up a stick and stands astride of it, thus
pretending he is riding a horse. The stick is a pivot. "Action according to rules begins to
be determined by ideas, not by objects..... It is terribly difficult for a child to sever
thought (the meaning of a word) from object. Play is a transitional stage in this direction.
At that critical moment when a stick i.e., an object becomes a pivot for severing the
meaning of horse from a real horse, one of the basic psychological structures determining
the childs relationship to reality is radically altered".

As children get older, their reliance on pivots such as sticks, dolls and other toys
diminishes. They have internalized these pivots as imagination and abstract concepts
through which they can understand the world. "The old adage that childrens play is
imagination in action can be reversed: we can say that imagination in adolescents and
schoolchildren is play without action" (Vygotsky, 1978).

Another aspect of play that Vygotsky referred to was the development of social rules that
develop, for example, when children play house and adopt the roles of different family
members. Vygotsky cites an example of two sisters playing at being sisters. The rules of
behavior between them that go unnoticed in daily life are consciously acquired through

16
play. As well as social rules the child acquires what we now refer to as self-regulation.
For example, as a child stands at the starting line of a running race, she may well desire to
run immediately so as to reach the finish line first, but her knowledge of the social rules
surrounding the game and her desire to enjoy the game enable her to regulate her initial
impulse and wait for the start signal.

[edit]
Thinking and Speaking

Perhaps Vygotsky's most important contribution concerns the inter-relationship of

language development and thought. This concept, explored in Vygotsky's book Thinking
and Speaking, establishes the explicit and profound connection between speech (both
silent inner speech and oral language), and the development of mental concepts and
cognitive awareness. It should be noted that Vygotsky described inner speech as being
qualitatively different than normal (external) speech. Although Vygotsky believed inner
speech to develop from external speech via a gradual process of internalization, with
younger children only really able to "think out loud", he claimed that in its mature form it
would be unintelligible to anyone except the thinker and would not resemble spoken
language as we know it (in particular, being greatly compressed). Hence, thought itself
develops socially.

An infant learns the meaning of signs through interaction with its main carers, e.g.,
pointing, cries, and gurgles can express what is wanted. How verbal sounds can be used
to conduct social interaction is learned through this activity, and the child begins to
utilize/build/develop this faculty: using names for objects, etc.

Language starts as a tool external to the child used for social interaction. The child guides
personal behavior by using this tool in a kind of self-talk or "thinking out loud". Initially,
self-talk is very much a tool of social interaction and it tapers to negligible levels when
the child is alone or with deaf children. Gradually self-talk is used more as a tool for self-
directed and self-regulating behavior. Then, because speaking has been appropriated and
internalized, self-talk is no longer present around the time the child starts school. Self-
talk "develops along a rising not a declining, curve; it goes through an evolution, not an
involution. In the end, it becomes inner speech (Vygotsky, 1987). pg 57 Inner speech
develops through its differentiation from social speech.

Speaking has thus developed along two lines, the line of social communication and the
line of inner speech, by which the child mediates and regulates her activity through her
thoughts which in turn are mediated by the semiotics (the meaningful signs) of inner
speech. This is not to say that thinking cannot take place without language, but rather that
it is mediated by it and thus develops to a much higher level of sophistication. Just as the
birthday cake as a sign provides much deeper meaning than its physical properties allow,
inner speech as signs provides much deeper meaning than the lower psychological
functions would otherwise allow.

17
Inner speech is not comparable in form to external speech. External speech is the process
of turning thought into words. Inner speech is the opposite, it is the conversion of speech
into inward thought. Inner speech for example contains predicates only. Subjects are
superfluous. Words too are used much more economically. One word in inner speech may
be so replete with sense to the individual that it would take many words to express it in
external speech.

[edit]
Influence and development of Vygotsky's ideas

[edit]
In the Soviet Union, Russia, and Eastern Europe

In the Soviet Union, the work of the group of Vygotsky's students known as the Kharkov
School of Psychology was vital for preserving the scientific legacy of Lev Vygotsky and
identifying new avenues of its subsequent development. The members of the group laid a
foundation for Vygotskian psychology's systematic development in such diverse fields as
the psychology of memory (P. Zinchenko), perception, sensation and movement
(Zaporozhets, Asnin, A. N. Leont'ev), personality (L. Bozhovich, Asnin, A. N. Leont'ev),
will and volition (Zaporozhets, A. N. Leont'ev, P. Zinchenko, L. Bozhovich, Asnin),
psychology of play (G. D. Lukov, D. El'konin) and psychology of learning (P. Zinchenko,
L. Bozhovich, D. El'konin), as well as the theory of step-by-step formation of mental
actions (Gal'perin), general psychological activity theory (A. N. Leont'ev) and
psychology of action (Zaporozhets).

[edit]
In the West

In the West, most attention was aimed at the continuing work of Vygotsky's Western
contemporary Jean Piaget. Vygotsky's work appeared virtually unknown until its
"rediscovery" in the 1960s, when the interpretative translation of Thought and language
(1934) was published in English (in 1962; revised edition in 1986, translated by A.
Kozulin; and as Thinking and speech in 1987, translated by N. Minick). In the end of the
1970s, truly ground-breaking publication was the major compilation of Vygotsky's works
that saw the light in 1978 under the header of Mind in society: The development of
higher psychological processes.

Vygotsky's views are reported to have influenced development of a wide range of

psychological and educational theories such as Ecological Systems Theory, activity
theory, distributed cognition, cognitive apprenticeship, second language acquisition
theory, gesture theory, etc. Strong influences of Vygotskian thought can be found in the
work of a number of scholars such as Urie Bronfenbrenner, Jerome Bruner, Michael
Cole, James V. Wertsch, Sylvia Scribner, Vera John-Steiner, Ann L. Brown, Courtney
Cazden, Gordon Wells, Ren van der Veer, Jaan Valsiner, Pentti Hakkarainen, Seth
Chaiklin, Alex Kozulin, Dorothy Robbins, Nikolai Veresov, Anna Stetsenko, Kieran
Egan, Fred Newman, David McNeill and Lois Holzman, to mention but a few.

18
Western scholars have also begun to apply the Vygotskian paradigm to the domain of
moral development. In Educational Psychology, first published in English in
1997,Vygotsky devotes a chapter to the discussion of moral development and moral
education. Vygotsky viewed moral development as involving similar processes as other
areas of cognitive development. Examples of scholars applying Vygotskian theory to
moral development include Mark Tappan and Val D. Turner.

[edit]
Critics of Vygotsky

The school of Vygotsky and, specifically, his cultural-historical psychology was much
criticized during his lifetime as well as after his death. By the beginning of the 1930s the
school was defeated by Vygotsky's scientific opponents who criticized him for "idealist
aberrations", which at that time equaled with the charge in disloyalty to the Communist
Party and frequently entailed very serious consequences not only for the academic work
but also for freedom and even life itself. As a result of this criticism of their work a major
group of Vygotsky's students including Luria and Leontiev had to flee from Moscow to
Ukraine where they established the Kharkov school of psychology. Later the
representatives of the school would, in turn, in the second half of the 1930s criticize
Vygotsky himself for his interest in the cross-disciplinary study of the child that was
developed under the umbrella term of paedology (also spelled as pedology) as well as for
his ignoring the role of practice and practical, object-bound activity and arguably his
emphasis on the research on the role of language and, on the other hand, emotional
factors in human development. Much of this early criticism of the 1930s was later
discarded by these Vygotskian scholars themselves. Another line of the critique of
Vygotsky's psychological theory comes from such major figure of the Soviet psychology
as Sergei Rubinshtein and his followers who criticized Vygotsky's notion of mediation
and its development in the works of students.

B. F. Skinner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from B.F. Skinner)Burrhus Frederic Skinner

Born March 20, 1904

Susquehanna, Pennsylvania
Died August 18, 1990 (aged 86)
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Nationality American
Field Psychology
Institutions University of Minnesota,
Indiana University
Harvard University
Alma mater Hamilton College,
Harvard University

19
Known for Behavior analysis, Operant conditioning, Radical behaviorism, Verbal
Behavior, Operant conditioning chamber
Influences Charles Darwin, Ivan Pavlov,
Sigmund Freud, Ernst Mach, Jacques Loeb

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 August 18, 1990), Ph.D. was a highly
influential American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform [1][2][3]
and poet.[4] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University
from 1958 until retirement in 1974.[5] He invented the operant conditioning chamber,
innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism,[6] and founded his
own school of experimental research psychology the experimental analysis of
behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which
has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings.[7]
He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological
research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his
highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.[8] [9] In a recent survey, Skinner
was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[10] He was a prolific
author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles.[11] [12]Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Theory
3 Operant Conditioning Chamber
4 Radical Behaviorism
5 Verbal Behavior
6 Influence on Education
7 Walden Two and Beyond Freedom & Dignity
8 Schedules of Reinforcement
9 Political Views
10 Air crib
11 Superstition in the Pigeon
12 Critics & Criticisms
12.1 J.E.R. Staddon
12.2 Awards
12.3 Noam Chomsky
12.4 Others
13 Written Works
14 See also
15 Authors On Skinner
16 References
16.1 External links
16.2 Articles by B.F. Skinner

[edit]
Biography

20
Skinner was born on March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to Grace and
William Skinner. His father was a lawyer. His brother Edward, two and a half years his
junior, died at age sixteen of a cerebral aneurysm.

He attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer.
While attending, he joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He also wrote for the school
paper but saw himself as an outsider, being an atheist in a religious school, and often
criticized the school and its beliefs. He received his B.A in English literature in 1926.
After graduation, he spent a year at his parents' home in Scranton, attempting to become a
writer of fiction. But he soon became disillusioned with his literary skills and concluded
that he had little world experience, and no strong personal perspective from which to
write. During this time, which Skinner later called "the dark year," he chanced upon a
copy of Bertrand Russell's recently published book An Outline of Philosophy, in which
Russell discusses the behaviorist philosophy of psychologist John B. Watson. At the time,
Skinner had begun to take more interest in the actions and behaviors of those around him,
and some of his short stories had taken a "psychological" slant. He decided to abandon
literature and seek admission as a graduate student in psychology at Harvard University.
While a graduate student, he invented the operant conditioning chamber and cumulative
recorder, developed the rate of response as a critical dependent variable in psychological
research, and developed a powerful, inductive, data-driven method of experimental
research.

Skinner received a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard in 1931 and remained at that
institution as a researcher until 1936. He then taught at the University of Minnesota at
Minneapolis and later at Indiana University, where he was chair of the Psychology
Department from 1946-1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948.
He remained there for the rest of his career.

In 1936 Skinner married Yvonne Blue (1911-1997); the couple had two daughters, Julie
(m. Vargas) and Deborah (m. Buzan). He died of leukemia and is buried in Mount
Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[edit]
Theory

He conducted pioneering work in psychology and innovated his own school of Radical
Behaviorism, which seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories
of reinforcing consequences. He is known as the inventor of the operant conditioning
chamber (or Skinner box), a research tool used to examine the orderly relations of the
behavior of organisms (such as rats, pigeons and humans) to their environment. He is the
author of Walden Two, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Verbal Behavior and numerous
other books and articles. He discovered what is now called operant conditioning and
articulated the now widely accepted term reinforcement as a scientific principle of
behavior. His position reflects the extension of the influence of physicist Ernst Mach's
The Science of Mechanics to the subject of psychology.[13] Skinner's pioneering research

21
reflected the dual influence of whole organism research in Ivan Pavlov and Jacques Loeb.
[14]

[edit]
Operant Conditioning Chamber

While at Harvard, B. F. Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber to measure

organic responses and their orderly interactions with the environment. This device was an
example of his lifelong ability to invent useful devices, which included whimsical
devices in his childhood [15] to the cumulative recorder to measure the rate of response
of organisms in an operant chamber. Even in old age, Skinner invented a Thinking Aid to
assist in writing.[16]

[edit]
Radical Behaviorism

Finding the Behaviorism of his time to be problematic, Skinner branched off his own
version he called Radical Behaviorism which unlike methodological behaviorism did not
require truth by consensus so it could accept private events such as thinking, perception
and emotion in its account. Also, unlike all of the other Behaviorisms - Tolman, Hull,
Clark and others - Skinner's version radically rejected mediating constructs and the
hypothetico-deductive method, [17][13] instead offering a strongly inductive, data driven
approach that has proven to be successful in dozens of areas from behavioral
pharmacology to language therapy in the developmentally delayed.

[edit]
Verbal Behavior

Challenged by Alfred North Whitehead during a casual discussion while at Harvard to

provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal behavior[18] Skinner set
about attempting to extend his then-new functional, inductive, approach to the
complexity of human verbal behavior. Developed over two decades, his work appeared as
the culmination of the William James lectures in the book, Verbal Behavior. Although
Noam Chomsky was highly critical of Verbal Behavior, he conceded that it was the "most
careful and thoroughgoing presentation of such speculations" [19] as a reason for giving
it "a review." After a slow reception, perhaps due to its lack of experimental evidence
unlike Skinner's previous work [20] Skinner's functional analysis of verbal behavior has
seen a resurgence of interest in applied settings.

See Verbal Behavior for a more detailed discussion of this work.

[edit]
Influence on Education This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's
quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can (December 2007).
This section does not cite any references or sources.

22
Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material
may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)

Skinner influenced education as well as psychology. He was quoted as saying, "Teachers

must learn how to teach... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching."
Skinner asserted that positive reinforcement is more effective at changing and
establishing behaviour than punishment, with obvious implications for the then
widespread practice of rote learning and punitive discipline in education. Skinner also
suggests that the main thing people learn from being punished is how to avoid getting
punished the next time.

Skinner says that there are 5 main obstacles in learning:

People have a fear of failure
There is a lack of directions
There is also a lack of clarity in the direction
Positive reinforcement is not used enough
The task is not broken down into small enough steps

Skinner suggests that with all of the obstacles out of the way any age appropriate skill can
be taught using his 5 principles: 1) Have small steps 2) Work from most simple to most
complex tasks 3) Repeat the directions as many times as possible 4) Give immediate
feedback 5) Give positive reinforcement

The one problem with Skinner's ideas is that teachers wouldn't follow these simple
principles. Therefore, the principles worked in a lab testing but not in the actual
classroom.

[edit]
Walden Two and Beyond Freedom & Dignity

Skinner is popularly known mainly for his books Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and
Dignity. Walden Two describes a visit to an imaginary utopian commune in the 1940s
United States, where the productivity and happiness of the citizens is far in advance of
that in the outside world due to their practice of scientific social planning and the use of
operant conditioning in the raising of children.

Walden Two, like Thoreau's Walden, champions a lifestyle that does not support war,
foster competition or social strife. It encourages a lifestyle of minimal consumption, rich
social relationships, personal happiness, satisfying work and leisure.[21]

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity Skinner suggests that a technology of behavior could
help make a better society. However, we would have to accept that an autonomous agent
was not the driving force for our actions. Skinner offered alternatives to punishment and
challenged his readers to use modern technology for more than just war. Instead science
might be used to build a better society.

23
[edit]
Schedules of Reinforcement

Part of Skinner's analysis of behavior involved not only the power of a single instance of
reinforcement, but the effects of particular schedules of reinforcement over time.

Skinner's types of schedules of reinforcement involved: continuous, interval (fixed or

variable), and ratio (fixed or variable).
Continuous reinforcement constant delivery of reinforcement for an action; every time
a specific action was performed the subject instantly and always received a
reinforcement. This method is prone to extinction and is very hard to enforce.
Interval (fixed/variable) reinforcement (Fixed) reinforcement is set for certain times.
(Variable) times between reinforcement are not set, and often differ.
Ratio (fixed or variable) reinforcement (Fixed) deals with a set amount of work
needed to be completed before there is reinforcement. (Variable) amount of work
needed for the reinforcement differs from the last.

[edit]
Political Views

Skinner's political writings emphasized his hopes that an effective and humane science of
behavioral control - a technology of human behavior- could help problems unsolved by
earlier approaches or aggravated by advances in technology such as the atomic bomb.
One of Skinner's stated goals was to prevent humanity from destroying itself [22]

Skinner saw the problems of political control not as a battle of domination versus
freedom, but as choices of what kinds of control were used for what purposes.[2] Skinner
opposed the use of coercion, punishment and fear and supported the use of positive
reinforcement.[1]--> He opposed spanking in the school and wrote a letter to the
California Senate that helped lead it to banning spanking.

"When Milton's Satan falls from heaven, he ends in hell. And what does he say to
reassure himself? 'Here, at least, we shall be free.' And that, I think, is the fate of the old-
fashioned liberal. He's going to be free, but he's going to find himself in hell." B. F.
Skinner (William F. Buckley Jr, "On the Firing Line," 87.)

[edit]
Air crib

In an effort to help his wife cope with the day to day tasks of child rearing, Skinner - a
consummate inventor - thought he might be able to improve upon the standard crib. He
invented the 'air-crib' to meet this challenge. An 'air-crib' [23] [24](also known as a 'baby
tender' or humorously as an 'heir conditioner') is an easily-cleaned, temperature and
humidity-controlled box Skinner designed to assist in the raising of babies.

24
It was one of his more controversial inventions, and was popularly mischaracterized as
cruel and experimental.[25] It was designed to make the early childcare more simple (by
greatly reducing laundry, diaper rash, cradle cap, etc.), while encouraging the baby to be
more confident, mobile, comfortable, healthy and therefore less prone to cry. Reportedly
it had some success in these goals.[25] Air-cribs were later commercially manufactured
by several companies. Air-cribs of some fashion are still used to this day, and
publications continue to dispel myths about, and tout the progressive advantages of
Skinner's original.[citation needed]

A 2004 book by Lauren Slater [26] caused much controversy by claiming that Skinner
had used his baby daughter in some of his experiments. These claims have been
vehemently and publicly denied by Deborah Skinner Buzan herself. [27]

[edit]
Superstition in the Pigeon

One of Skinner's experiments examined the formation of superstition in one of his

favorite experimental animals, the pigeon. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a
cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular
intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the
pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been
performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these
same actions.
One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three
turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper
corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath
an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the
head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with
a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.

B.F. Skinner, "'Superstition' in the Pigeon," Journal of Experimental Psychology #38,

1947 [9]

Skinner suggested that the pigeons believed that they were influencing the automatic
mechanism with their "rituals" and that this experiment shed light on human behavior:
The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if
there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although
such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for
changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between
a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of
many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but
continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and
shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon
one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food

25
would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing -- or, more strictly speaking, did
something else.

Ibid

Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for

the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (for instance, by Staddon and Simmelhag
in 1971) while finding similar behavior failed to find support for Skinner's "adventitious
reinforcement" explanation for it. By looking at the timing of different behaviors within
the interval, Staddon and Simmelhag were able to distinguish two classes of behavior: the
terminal response, which occurred in anticipation of food, and interim responses, that
occurred earlier in the interfood interval and were rarely contiguous with food. Terminal
responses seem to reflect classical (rather than operant) conditioning, rather than
adventitious reinforcement, guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and
Jenkins in their "autoshaping" procedures. The causation of interim activities (such as the
schedule-induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats) also cannot be traced to
adventitious reinforcement and its details are still obscure (Staddon, 1977).

see also Timberlake & Lucas 1985 [28]

Benjamin Bloom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Contents [hide]
1 Bloom's theories
2 Decade of dedication
3 See also
4 Works cited
5 Further references

Benjamin S. Bloom (born 21 February 1913 - died September 13, 1999), an American
educational psychologist, made contributions to the classification of educational
objectives and to the theory of mastery-learning.

[edit]
Bloom's theories

Bloom exercised considerable influence in academic educational psychology. His main

contributions to the area of education involved mastery-learning, his model of talent-
development, and his Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in the cognitive domain.

He focused much of his research on the study of educational objectives and, ultimately,
proposed that any given task favours one of three psychological domains: cognitive,
affective, or psychomotor. The cognitive domain deals with a person's ability to process
and utilize (as a measure) information in a meaningful way. The affective domain relates

26
to the attitudes and feelings that result from the learning process. Lastly, the psychomotor
domain involves manipulative or physical skills.

Benjamin Bloom headed a group of cognitive psychologists at the University of Chicago

who developed a taxonomic hierarchy of cognitive-driven behavior deemed important to
learning and to measurable capability. (For example, one can measure an objective that
begins with the verb "describe" , unlike one that begins with the verb "understand".)

Bloom's classification of educational objectives, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives,

Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain (Bloom et al., 1956), addresses the cognitive domain (as
opposed to the psychomotor and affective domains) of knowledge. Blooms taxonomy
provides a structure in which to categorize instructional objectives and instructional
assessment. He designed the taxonomy in order to help teachers and instructional
designers to classify instructional objectives and goals. The taxonomy relies on the idea
that not all learning objectives and outcomes have equal merit. For example,
memorization of facts, while important, does not equate to the learned ability to analyze
or to evaluate. In the absence of a classification-system (a taxonomy), teachers and
instructional designers may choose, for example, to emphasize memorization of facts
(which makes for easier testing) rather than emphasizing other (and likely more
important) learned capabilities.

The Bloom's Wheel, according to Bloom's verbs and matching assessment types, and
including only feasible and measurable verbs.

Blooms taxonomy in theory helps teachers better prepare objectives and, from there,
derive appropriate measures of learned capability and Higher order thinking skills.
Curriculum-design, usually a State (governmental) practice, did not reflect the intent of
such a taxonomy until the late 1990s. Note that Bloom, as an American academic, lacks
universal approval of his constructs.

The curriculum of the Canadian Province of Ontario offers a good example of the
application of a taxonomy of educational objectives: it provides for its teachers an
integrated adaptation of Bloom's taxonomy. Ontario's Ministry of Education specifies as
its taxonomic categories: Knowledge and Understanding; Thinking; Communication;
Application. Teachers can classify every 'specific' learning objective, in any given course,
according to the Ministry's taxonomy. However, Ontario's Ministry of Education has not
provided teachers with a reliable and systematic means for classifying the prescribed
educational objectives.[citation needed] If the Ministry had classified the objectives in
advance it would have avoided confusion, given the non-intuitive nature of taxonomic
classification.[citation needed] Hence, while Bloom's taxonomy remains valid in theory,
implementation can render it meaningless[citation needed].

[edit]
Decade of dedication

27
In 1985 Bloom conducted a study suggesting that one requires at least 10 years of hard
work (a "decade of dedication"), regardless of genius or natural prodigy status, in order to
achieve recognition in any respected field.

Jean Piaget
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jean Piaget

Born August 9, 1896

Neuchtel, Switzerland
Died September 16, 1980 (aged 84)
Residence Switzerland
Nationality Swiss
Field Psychology, Philosophy
Known for Theory of cognitive development, Constructivism, Constructivist
epistemology

Jean Piaget [ pja] (August 9, 1896 September 16, 1980) was a Swiss philosopher,
natural scientist and developmental psychologist, well known for his work studying
children, his theory of cognitive development and for his epistemological view called
"genetic epistemology". He created in 1955 the International Centre for Genetic
Epistemology in Geneva and directed it until 1980. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld,
Jean Piaget is "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing"[1].Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
2 Scientific and philosophical development
2.1 The stages of cognitive development
2.2 The developmental process
2.3 Genetic epistemology
3 Influence
3.1 Developmental psychology
3.2 Education and development of morality
3.3 Historical studies of thought and cognition
3.4 Evolution
3.5 Primatology
3.6 Philosophy
3.7 Artificial intelligence
4 Major works and achievements
4.1 Major works
4.2 Other works
4.3 Appointments
5 Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage theories
6 Quotations
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References

28
10 External links

[edit]
Biography

Piaget was born in 1896 in Neuchtel in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. He died
in 1980. His father, Arthur Piaget, was a professor of medieval literature at the University
of Neuchtel. Piaget was a precocious child who developed an interest in biology and the
natural world, particularly mollusks, and even published a number of papers before he
graduated from high school. In fact, his long career of scientific research began when he
was just ten, with the 1907 publication of a short paper on the albino sparrow. Over the
course of his career, Piaget wrote more than sixty books and several hundred articles.
Piaget received a Ph.D. in natural science from the University of Neuchtel, and also
studied briefly at the University of Zrich. During this time, he published two
philosophical papers which showed the direction of his thinking at the time, but which he
later dismissed as adolescent work. His interest in psychoanalysis, a strain of
psychological thought burgeoning at that time, can also be dated to this period.

He then moved from Switzerland to Paris, France, where he taught at the Grange-Aux-
Belles street school for boys run by Alfred Binet, the developer of the Binet intelligence
test. It was while he was helping to mark some instances of these intelligence tests that
Piaget noticed that young children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions.
Piaget did not focus so much on the fact of the children's answers being wrong, but that
young children kept making the same pattern of mistakes that older children and adults
did not. This led him to the theory that young children's thought or cognitive processes
are inherently different from those of adults. (Ultimately, he was to propose a global
theory of developmental stages stating that individuals exhibit certain distinctive common
patterns of cognition in each period in their development.) In 1921, Piaget returned to
Switzerland as director of the Rousseau Institute in Geneva.

In 1923, he married Valentine Chtenay, one of his students; together, the couple had
three children, whom Piaget studied from infancy. In 1929, Jean Piaget accepted the post
of Director of the International Bureau of Education and remained the head of this
international organization until 1968. Every year, he drafted his Director's Speeches for
the IBE Council and for the International Conference on Public Education in which he
explicitly expressed his educational credo.

[edit]
Scientific and philosophical development

[edit]
The stages of cognitive development
Main article: Theory of cognitive development***

29
Piaget studied non-human animals to begin with. He was a biologist, but specifically a
malacologist. Piaget served as professor of psychology at the University of Geneva from
1929 to 1975 and is best known for reorganizing cognitive development theory into a
series of stages, expanding on earlier work from James Mark Baldwin: four levels of
development corresponding roughly to (1) infancy, (2) pre-school, (3) childhood, and (4)
adolescence. Each stage is characterized by a general cognitive structure that affects all of
the child's thinking (a structuralist view influenced by philosopher Immanuel Kant)
[citation needed]. Each stage represents the child's understanding of reality during that
period, and each but the last is an inadequate approximation of reality. Development from
one stage to the next is thus caused by the accumulation of errors in the child's
understanding of the environment; this accumulation eventually causes such a degree of
cognitive disequilibrium that thought structures require reorganizing.

The four development stages are described in Piaget's theory as:

Sensorimotor stage: from birth to age 2 years (children experience the world through
movement and senses and learn object permanence)
Preoperational stage: from ages 2 to 7 (acquisition of motor skills)
Concrete operational stage: from ages 7 to 11 (children begin to think logically about
concrete events)
Formal operational stage: after age 11 (development of abstract reasoning).

[edit]
The developmental process

Piaget provided no concise description of the development process as a whole. Broadly

speaking it consisted of a cycle:
The child performs an action which has an effect on or organizes objects, and the child is
able to note the characteristics of the action and its effects.
Through repeated actions, perhaps with variations or in different contexts or on different
kinds of objects, the child is able to differentiate and integrate its elements and effects.
This is the process of reflecting abstraction (described in detail in Piaget 2001).
At the same time, the child is able to identify the properties of objects by the way
different kinds of action affect them. This is the process of empirical abstraction.
By repeating this process across a wide range of objects and actions, the child establishes
a new level of knowledge and insight. This is the process of forming a new cognitive
stage. This dual process allows the child to construct new ways of dealing with objects
and new knowledge about objects themselves.
However, once the child has constructed these new kinds of knowledge, he or she starts
to use them to create still more complex objects and to carry out still more complex
actions. As a result, the child starts to recognize still more complex patterns and to
construct still more complex objects. Thus a new stage begins, which will only be
completed when all the child's activity and experience have been re-organized on this still
higher level.

This process is not wholly gradual, however. Once a new level of organization,
knowledge and insight proves to be effective, it will quickly be generalized to other areas.

30
As a result, transitions between stages tend to be rapid and radical, and the bulk of the
time spent in a new stage consists of refining this new cognitive level. When the
knowledge that has been gained at one stage of study and experience leads rapidly and
radically to a new higher stage of insight, a "gestalt" is said to have occurred.

It is because this process takes this dialectical form, in which each new stage is created
through the further differentiation, integration, and synthesis of new structures out of the
old, that the sequence of cognitive stages are logically necessary rather than simply
empirically correct. Each new stage emerges only because the child can take for granted
the achievements of its predecessors, and yet there are still more sophisticated forms of
knowledge and action that are capable of being developed.

Because it covers both how we gain knowledge about objects and our reflections on our
own actions, Piaget's model of development explains a number of features of human
knowledge that had never previously been accounted for. For example, by showing how
children progressively enrich their understanding of things by acting on and reflecting on
the effects of their own previous knowledge, they are able to organize their knowledge in
increasingly complex structures. Thus, once a young child can consistently and accurately
recognize different kinds of animals, he or she then acquires the ability to organize the
different kinds into higher groupings such as birds, fish, and so on. This is significant
because they are now able to know things about a new animal simply on the basis of the
fact that it is a bird for example, that it will lay eggs.

At the same time, by reflecting on their own actions, the child develops an increasingly
sophisticated awareness of the rules that govern in various ways. For example, it is by
this route that Piaget explains this child's growing awareness of notions such as right,
valid, necessary, proper, and so on. In other words, it is through the process of
objectification, reflection and abstraction that the child constructs the principles on which
action is not only effective or correct but also justified.

One of Piaget's most famous studies focused purely on the discriminative abilities of
children between the ages of two and a half years old, and four and a half years old. He
began the study by taking children of different ages and placing two lines of M&M's, one
with the M&M's in a line spread further apart, and one with the same number of M&M's
in a line placed more closely together. He found that, Children between 2 years, 6
months old and 3 years, 2 months old correctly discriminate the relative number of
objects in two rows; between 3 years, 2 months and 4 years, 6 months they indicate a
longer row with fewer objects to have "more"; after 4 years, 6 months they again
discriminate correctly (Cognitive Capacity of Very Young Children, p. 141). Initially
younger children were not studied, because if at four years old a child couldnt conserve
quantity, how could a child that is younger? The results show however that children that
are younger than three years and two months have quantity conservation, but as they get
older they lose this quality, and dont recover it until four and a half years old. This
attribute may be lost due to a temporary inability to solve because of an overdependence
on perceptual strategies, which correlates more candy with a longer line of candy, or due
to the inability for a four year old to reverse situations.

31
By the end of this experiment several results were found. First, younger children have a
discriminative ability that shows the logical capacity for cognitive operations exists
earlier than acknowledged. This study also reveals that young children can be equipped
with certain qualities for cognitive operations, depending on how logical the structure of
the task is. Research also shows that children develop explicit understanding at age 5 and
as a result, the child will count the M&M's to decide which has more. Finally the study
found that overall quantity conservation is not a basic characteristic of man's native
inheritance.

[edit]
Genetic epistemology

According to Jean Piaget, genetic epistemology "attempts to explain knowledge, and in

particular scientific knowledge, on the basis of its history, its sociogenesis, and especially
the psychological origins of the notions and operations upon which it is based"[2].

Jean Piaget has become a reference for epistemology, and particularly for constructivist
epistemology.

[edit]
Influence

Despite ceasing to be a fashionable psychologist, the magnitude of Piaget's continuing

influence can be measured by the global scale and activity of the Jean Piaget Society,
which holds annual conferences and attracts very large numbers of participants. His
theory of cognitive development has proved influential in many different areas:
Developmental psychology
Education and Morality
Historical studies of thought and cognition
Evolution
Philosophy
Primatology
Artificial Intelligence (AI)

[edit]
Developmental psychology

Piaget is without doubt one of the most influential developmental psychologists,

influencing not only the work of Lev Vygotsky and of Lawrence Kohlberg but whole
generations of eminent academics. Although subjecting his ideas to massive scrutiny led
to innumerable improvements and qualifications of his original model and the emergence
of a plethora of neo-Piagetian and post-Piagetian variants, Piaget's original model has
proved to be remarkably robust (Loureno and Machado 1996).

[edit]

32
Education and development of morality

During the 1970s and 1980s, Piaget's works also inspired the transformation of European
and American education, including both theory and practice, leading to a more child-
centred approach. In Conversations with Jean Piaget, he says: "Education, for most
people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society . . . but
for me and no one else, education means making creators. . . . You have to make
inventors, innovatorsnot conformists" (Bringuier, 1980, p.132).

Mainly, Piaget influenced two parts of education: early education and moral education.

In early education, teachers use his theory of cognitive development as a tool in the
classroom. According to Piaget, children developed best in a classroom with interaction.
Using this idea, teachers in elementary schools or pre-school can make use of classroom
time better using peer interaction.

In moral education, Piaget believed in two basic principles. The first one is the fact that
children develop moral ideas in stages. The other is the children make their idea of the
world "The child is someone who constructs his own moral world view, who forms ideas
about right and wrong, and fair and unfair, that are not the direct product of adult
teaching and that are often maintained in the face of adult wishes to the contrary"
(Gallagher, 1978, p.26). The idea is that children observe the world, and then decide what
is morally correct. So in today's education, we have started to bring moral education into
education, such as talking about cheating and what is morally correct in today's society,
dealing with crime and morals in politics.

Piaget's theory of morality was radical in 1932, when his book, The Moral Judgment of
the Child, was published, due to his use of philosophical criteria to define morality (as
universalizable, generalizable, and obligatory), and his rejection of equating cultural
norms and moral norms. Piaget, drawing on Kantian theory, proposed that morality
developed out of peer interaction, and that it was autonomous from authority mandates.
Peers, not parents, were a key source of moral concepts, such as equality, reciprocity, and
justice.

[edit]
Historical studies of thought and cognition

Historical changes of thought have been modelled in Piagetian terms. Broadly speaking
these models have mapped changes in morality, intellectual life and cognitive levels
against historical changes (typically in the complexity of social systems). Robinson's
History of Human Reason (2004) also suggests that history itself is the expression of our
intelligence.

Notable examples include:

Michael Barnes' study of the co-evolution of religious and scientific thinking (Barnes
2000)

33
Peter Damerow's theory of prehistoric and archaic thought (Damerow 1995)
Kieran Egan's stages of understanding
James W. Fowler's stages of faith development
Suzy Gablik's stages of art history (Gablik 1977)
Christopher Hallpike's studies of changes in cognition and moral judgment in pre-
historical, archaic and classical periods (Hallpike 1979, 2004)
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development
Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama (LePan 1989)
Charles Radding's theory of the medieval intellectual development (Radding 1985)
R.J. Robinson's stages of history (Robinson 2004)
E. Turiel (1983), The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention.
Cambridge University Press.
E. Turiel (2002), The culture of morality. Cambridge University Press.
L.P. Nucci (2001), Education in the moral domain. Cambridge University Press.

[edit]
Evolution

Neo-Piagetian stages have been applied to the maximum stage attained by various
animals. For example spiders attain the circular sensory motor stage, coordinating actions
and perceptions. Pigeons attain the sensory motor stage, forming concepts.

The origins of human intelligence have also been studied in Piagetian terms. Wynn (1979,
1981) analysed Acheulian and Oldowan tools in terms of the insight into spatial
relationships required to create each kind. On a more general level, Robinson's Birth of
Reason (2005) suggests a large-scale model for the emergence of a Piagetian intelligence.

[edit]
Primatology

Piaget's models of cognition have also been applied outside the human sphere, and there
is a thriving community of primatologists assessing the development and abilities of
primates in terms of Piaget's model. Notable names include Sue Taylor Parker and
Francesco Antinucci. A summary of the very extensive literature can be found in Parker
and McKinney (1999). Neo-Piagetian stages have been describe by Commons and Miller
(2004)

[edit]
Philosophy

Some have taken account of Piaget's work. For example, the philosopher and social
theorist Jrgen Habermas has incorporated Piaget into his work, most notably in The
Theory of Communicative Action. The philosopher Thomas Kuhn credited Piaget's work
in helping him understand the transition between modes of thought which characterized
his theory of paradigm shifts. Shortly before his death (October 1975), Piaget was
involved in a debate about the relationships between innate and acquired features of

34
language, at the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme, where he discussed
his point of view with the linguist Noam Chomsky as well as Hilary Putnam and Stephen
Toulmin.

[edit]
Artificial intelligence

Piaget also had a considerable effect in the field of computer science and artificial
intelligence. Seymour Papert used Piaget's work while developing the Logo programming
language. Alan Kay used Piaget's theories as the basis for the Dynabook programming
system concept, which was first discussed within the confines of the Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center, or Xerox PARC. These discussions led to the development of the Alto
prototype, which explored for the first time all the elements of the graphical user
interface (GUI), and influenced the creation of user interfaces in the 1980s and beyond.

Robert M. Gagn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Mills Gagn (August 21, 1916 April 28, 2002) was an American educational
psychologist best known for his "Conditions of Learning". Gagn pioneered the science
of instruction during WWII for the air force with pilot training. Later he went on to
develop a series of studies and works that helped codify what is now considered to be
'good instruction.' He also was involved in applying concepts of instructional theory to
the design of computer based training and multimedia based learning.

A major contribution to the theory of instruction was the model "Nine Events of
Instruction".

Gain attention
Inform learner of objectives
Stimulate recall of prior learning
Present stimulus material
Provide learner guidance
Elicit performance
Provide feedback
Assess performance
Enhance retention transfer

Gagn's work is sometimes summarized as the Gagn Assumption. The assumption is

that different types of learning exist, and that different instructional conditions are most
likely to bring about these different types of learning.

Jerome Bruner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Jerome Seymour Bruner (born 1 October 1915) is an American psychologist who has
contributed to cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational
psychology and to the general philosophy of education. Bruner is currently a senior
research fellow at the New York University School of Law. Bruner's ideas are based on
categorization. "To perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is
to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize." Bruner maintains people interpret
the world in terms of its similarities and differences. Like Bloom's Taxonomy, Bruner
suggests a system of coding in which people form a hierarchical arrangement of related
categories. Each successively higher level of categories becomes more specific, echoing
Benjamin Bloom's understanding of knowledge acquisition as well as the related idea of
instructional scaffolding.

He has also suggested that there are two primary modes of thought: the narrative mode
and the paradigmatic mode. In narrative thinking, the mind engages in sequential, action-
oriented, detail-driven thought. In paradigmatic thinking, the mind transcends
particularities to achieve systematic, categorical cognition. In the former case, thinking
takes the form of stories and "gripping drama." In the latter, thinking is structured as
propositions linked by logical operators.

In his research on the development of children (1966), Bruner proposed three modes of
representation: enactive representation (action-based), iconic representation (image-
based), and symbolic representation (language-based). Rather than neatly delineated
stages, the modes of representation are integrated and only loosely sequential as they
"translate" into each other. Symbolic representation remains the ultimate mode, for it "is
clearly the most mysterious of the three." Bruner's theory suggests it is efficacious when
faced with new material to follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic
representation; this holds true even for adult learners. A true instructional designer,
Bruner's work also suggests that a learner (even of a very young age) is capable of
learning any material so long as the instruction is organized appropriately, in sharp
contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other stage theorists.Contents [hide]
1 The Narrative Construction of Reality
2 Quotations
3 See also
4 Bibliography
4.1 Books
4.2 Articles
5 Further reading
6 External links

[edit]
The Narrative Construction of Reality

In 1969, Brunner published an article in Critical Inquiry entitled "The Narrative

Construction of Reality." In this article, he argued that the mind structures its sense of
reality using mediation through "cultural products, like language and other symbolic

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systems" (3). He specifically focuses on the idea of narrative as one of these cultural
products. He defines narrative in terms of ten things:
Narrative diachronicity: The notion that narratives take place over some sense of time.
Particularity: The idea that narratives deal with particular events, although some events
may be left vague and general.
Intentional state entailment: The concept that characters within a narrative have "beliefs,
desires, theories, values, and so on" (7).
Hermeneutic composability: The theory that narratives are that which can be interpreted
in terms of their role as a selected series of events that constitute a "story." See also
Hermeneutics
Canonicity and breach: The claim that stories are about something unusual happening
that "breaches" the canonical (i.e. normal) state.
Referentiality: The principle that a story in some way references reality, although not in a
direct way that offers verisimilitude.
Genericness: The flipside to particularity, this is the characteristic of narrative whereby
the story can be classified as a genre.
Normativeness: The observation that narrative in some way supposes a claim about how
one ought to act. This follows from canonicity and breach.
Context sensitivity and negotiability: Related to hermeneutic composability, this is the
characteristic whereby narrative requires a negotiated role between author or text and
reader, including the assigning of a context to the narrative, and ideas like suspension of
disbelief.
Narrative accrual: Finally, the idea that stories are cumulative, that is, that new stories
follow from older ones.

Bruner observes that these ten characteristics at once describe narrative and the reality
constructed and posited by narrative, which in turn teaches us about the nature of reality
as constructed by the human mind via narrative.

[edit]
Quotations
Acts of Meaning (The Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures, 1990)
It was, we thought, an all-out effort to establish meaning as the central concept of
psychology - not stimuli and responses, not overtly observable behavior, not biological
drives and their transformation, but meaning. It was not a revolution against behaviorism
with the aim of transforming behaviorism into a better way of pursuing psychology by
adding a little mentalism to it. Edward Tolman had done that, to little avail. It was an
altogether more profound revolution than that. Its aim was to discover and to describe
formally the meanings that human beings created out of their encounters with the world,
and then to propose hypotheses about what meaning-making processes were implicated.
It focused on the symbolic activities that human beings employed in constructing and
making sense not only of the world, but of themselves. (p.2)
Very early on, ... emphasis began shifting from 'meaning' to 'information', from the
construction of meaning to the processing of information. These are profoundly different
matters. The key factor in the shift was the introduction of computation as the ruling

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metaphor and of computability as a necessary criterion of a good theoretical model.
Information is indifferent with respect to meaning... (p.4)
Given pre-established meaning categories well-formed enough within a domain to
provide a basis for an operating code, a properly programmed computer could perform
prodigies of information processing with a minimum set of operations, and that is
technological heaven. Very soon, computing became the model of the mind, and in place
of the concept of meaning there emerged the concept of computability. Cognitive
processes were equated with the programs that could be run on a computational device,
and the success of one's efforts to 'understand', say, memory or concept attainment, was
one's ability realistically to simulate such human conceptualizing or human memorizing
with a computer program. (p.6)
If the cognitive revolution erupted in 1956, the contextual revolution (at least in
psychology) is occurring today. (pp.105-6)
Jerome Bruner argues that the cognitive revolution, with its current fixation on mind as
"information processor;" has led psychology away from the deeper objective of
understanding mind as a creator of meanings. Only by breaking out of the limitations
imposed by a computational model of mind can we grasp the special interaction through
which mind both constitutes and is constituted by culture. (Review of Harvard University
Press)

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