Share a story about your best learning experience (could be a formal course or something more personal). Why did you enjoy it?
The best learning experience was at a computer science course a while back because of the way it was taught. The professor would first teach the new concepts or terms while explaining it. Next he would do the example using a code editor in front of everything while not allowing us to follow along so we can understand and interpret the terms to the coding. Finally he will use a new but similar example on the code editor where he allows us to follow along so we can apply our new found knowledge. This was a very organized course that helped all the students absorb the information and to apply it all the very same lecture. He would leave us with a problem where the solution is provided the next lecture to have us try to gain a further understanding.
Based on your reading, would you consider your current instruction style more behaviouralist, cognitivist, or constructivist? Elaborate with your specific mindset and examples.
After reading about the 3 instruction styles, I believe I am more of a cognitivist learner. A cognitivist is defined as the theory that focuses on how we receive, organize, store, and recall information in our minds. I believe that how I receive my information is important so that I can properly organize what I have learned and to store it and to recall that information to be used in future applications. This however, also falls a little on the line of constructivist which is defined as the theory that says learners construct knowledge rather than just passively take in information. Because as I organize the information I store I like to apply it later on which is like constructing my knowledge and using it.
What a great example of good teaching! The instructor selected strategies that are best aligned with the subject matter! Constructivism is all about mental representations and structural knowledge, which is exactly what computer science requires.
From what you described, it seems like there were some Cognitive Constructivism strategies. According to Cognitive Constructivism new knowledge is developed in the learner’s mind through assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation means that new knowledge is connected to existing knowledge structures without changing those knowledge structures. Accommodation occurs when learner’s existing knowledge structures fail to explain their observations of the learning concept. In that case, they re-work and re-build their existing knowledge structures and develop new knowledge structures that better explain how the concept works.
In fact, if learning required collaboration with other students in your computer science course, it could be Social Constructivism as well.