Constructivist learning theory applied to building trades education

¶ … Learning Theories

Behavioral Learning Theory

Information processing theory

Social cognitive theory

Constructivist learning theory

Postulate: Constructivist theory applies best to teaching for the construction trades

This paper covers four learning theories and the descriptors which are associated with each. The paper will discuss behavioral learning theory (operant conditioning), information processing theory, social cognitive theory, and constructivist learning theory. Each section will discuss the theory, identify its strengths and weaknesses, and give examples of how they are applied.

This author has chosen constructivist theory in a building trades teaching environment. After a review of the above theories, the author will advance the case that constructivist learning theory best fits the class and the author's personal teaching style.

Information processing theory

This has some similarities to the above BF Skinner approach: humans are logical beings, and like a computer, we can absorb and process information using logical strategies and rules. Information processing theory postulates that the brain changes in children over time, thus providing more-efficient processing of necessary functions as a child grows in cognitive abilities (Hetherington, 1999).

Another way in which information processing theory parallels operant conditioning is in the assumption that all stimuli -- what a person encodes, demonstrates and stores -- form the complete or nearly complete 'inputs' for brain stimuli. As children store more information, their 'hard wiring' changes to be able to generalize, form strategies and use encoded information (i.e. changed from input through thought) in order to generalize.

Unlike a computer, an individual can modify his/her brain in that they have the innate ability to process and change. Self-modification is incorporated into the growth of cognitive ability, much as postulated by Piaget, who felt that children carry 'hard wired' tools for learning which change over time.

Like operant conditioning, information processing is a system to explain thought from an input-output basis. It does less well in incorporating extraneous inputs which may not be captured through logic (e.g. sensual, hippocampus-modulated, emotions). Unlike operant conditioning, there are few specific teaching tools coming directly from information processing theory. The closest that one can come is the groundbreaking work done by Maria Montessori over a century ago, finding that children benefited when their learning was self-directed, and their environment was 'enriched' by presenting the appropriate learning tools that could be understood by children at various phases in their development.

Social cognitive theory

The best way to summarize SCT is 'monkey see, monkey do.' In essence, social cognitive theory, as advanced by Albert Bandura (Bandura, 1988), an individual can learn a behavior or a set of behaviors by observing society around him/her. This 'social' learning required not only external stimulus and information, as in the above two learning theories, but also knowledge accretion from observing role models. Modeling teaches individuals the accepted and correct strategies for dealing with their situations.

Social cognitive learning is affected through the disinhibitory and the inhibitory effects. The latter is a reduction in the undesired behavior due to punishment. The former is the encouragement of a person to foster more such behavior. It is not enough to directly punish the person for inhibitory or disinhibitory behavior -- one learns better by observing the model (another person) punished or praised for certain kinds of social behavior.

All modeling requires that the learning person feels an attachment or identification (real or imagined) with his/her role model. That is because the learner regards the other person as more advanced, more experienced and/or already having experienced the reaction of society due to certain behavior sets.

In the "real world," social cognitive theory is being put in practice all the time. Every time Rolex advertises a watch which is worn by a movie star or race car driver, they are encouraging the reader to engage in model-following behavior. Demographics can help to indicate areas where people, supposedly of similar minds due to social cognitive precepts, are more likely to act in a certain way, or respond to stimuli in a predictable manner. It therefore becomes possible to predict one's behavior in certain situations based on area, age, gender, ethnicity or other socially-relevant factors which define one's role within a societal group, and therefore what is learned and how one responds to certain stimuli.

Social cognitive theory can help to explain the deleterious effects that mass media can have on learning and an individual's feeling of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the amount of personal motivation, affect (ability to emote with and be affected by others), and actions. Those who exhibit little self-efficacy may either be suffering from a lack of social interaction, or may be modeling their opinions and responses to stimuli based on poor role-model selection. As an example, an anorexic teenage girl may think that she is too fat, despite her being severely underweight. She may cite the prevalence of models who are shown in the mass media who are also too thin, or unhealthy.

Constructivist learning theory

Jean Piaget is generally regarded as the founder of constructivist theory. His theory was in counteraction to behavioralism as postulated by BF Skinner and his followers, and harkens back to work done in previous centuries by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant (18th century) and John Dewey (19th and 20th century). As referred earlier in this paper, Piaget's thinking may have been influenced by teachers such as Dr. Montessori, who found that children have an innate ability to structure information as part of a 'construction' of knowledge.

Piaget posited that children have within them the tools, or structure, to be able to learn on their own. These frameworks appear at different times in a child's development, and form a structure around which knowledge can be accrued and related to other knowledge. Piaget rejected the behavioralist theory that stimulus/response and the environment were the only determinants of human mental development. Rather, he saw that children formed models of how the world should work, and incorporated their experiences into these frameworks.

As children grow, the number and complexity of these frameworks increases, to the point where children are able to reframe their frameworks on the basis of new, absorbed information.

There are advantages and disadvantages to the theory of constructivism. On the positive side, it means that children are ferocious learners because they have the innate neural tools in place to properly absorb and classify information. Piaget would argue that children need only be given the stimuli -- environment, information or other factors -- at the appropriate time when a child's brain is ready to absorb information.

Piaget suggested that learning takes place in stages. During one period, for example, a child might be fascinated by volumes, numbers and the relationship between them. The child may then want to focus on understanding everything that there is to do with size, volume, counting and other mathematical and geometric concepts. Once that child's framework has been 'filled,' his curiosity is sated and he/she moves to another framework waiting to be filled.

The disadvantage of using Piaget's theory is that it makes it difficult to regiment children. That is, the standard school structure which teaches an entire class in small increments of knowledge in many subjects may keep many children bored, with a few hungering for more. This is not a fault of Piaget's theory of constructivism -- it is more a concern about the structure of teaching at the elementary school level.

Postulate: Constructivist theory applies best to teaching for the construction trades

This author has reviewed the various theories of learning, and postulates that the constructivist theory works best for teaching construction trades. The primary benefits of using constructivism is that it enables the student to create meaningful structures in which to absorb information, then gives them the ability to fill those frameworks at their pace.

This author believes that Piaget's theory of how children learn can be extended to teenagers with equal success. While one can discuss differences according to age and type of mental constructs which are erected for learning, one can also observe that different individuals bring more or less concrete structures to different kinds of learning. The boy who has a clear liking for abstract numbers may make more elaborate learning constructs, and expect to learn more about that particular area. A girl may create elaborate mental frameworks for her study of English literature, for example, which would require her to learn a great deal more about that subject than others that are available.

Piaget would probably agree that learning involves all the senses, and that these frameworks can be physical as well as mental. One learns the craftsman's trade by mastering a series of areas. This may involve, for example, learning then perfecting abilities in carpentry, in flooring, coating, welding and a series of other skills, each of which has its own framework. Some children may naturally trend towards the construction trades because of how they learn -- many are manually dexterous and have curious minds when it comes to solving construction problems. Piaget would argue in his constructivist way that those children have learned from previous bouts of learning how to construct more elaborate 'physical constructs' in order to improve their manual dexterity and physical/construction problem solving skills.

The classic vision of teaching the construction trades to apprentices was that the kids were not smart enough to handle the 'abstract,' or 'higher-level' cognitive skills. This author believes that problem-solving in the construction trades requires a similar degree of complexity and learning as compared with most other professions. In "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, (Pirsig, 1974)," the author contests the 'dumb repairman' model of constructivist thinking as it applies to working with mechanical devices. He demonstrates that building or repairing mechanical equipment is more a process of thought than simple elbow grease.

Constructivist theory explains how children and teens learn by creating preferred frameworks. In this case, as a teacher, the author must recognize the learners' needs to create an understandable framework which will help them to understand not only the subject, but how to 'frame' the subject matter in a way that they can understand the whole. Once the student has formed this learning framework, they can then fill it with relevant information.

The more that a student builds these learning frameworks and satisfies his curiosity by 'populating' the frame with information, the more able the student is to generalize and solve problems that he/she may not have encountered in the past.

Conclusion

The four learning theories discussed in this paper are only a few examples of many ways to understand how we learn, and how to teach. This author can learn from each of these learning theories what works and what doesn't. In the author's opinion, the type of student being taught and the teacher's style of learning make a difference in conformity to one of these theories.

In the author's opinion, constructivist theory helps the teacher of children and teens for construction best. It offers concrete suggestions on how to help create knowledge frameworks for students, to give them the tools to fill those frameworks, and then with increasing knowledge to be able to generalize and use skills to solve unfamiliar problems.