An “Aha!” Moment

One of my favorite parts of learning is when you churn something over again and again, but then seemingly out of nowhere you get one of those “Aha!” moments, where the ideas you were rearranging suddenly all seem to fit into place and work with each other, synthesizing into a sum that’s greater than the parts you’d been working with.

I had one of those in a small group seminar.  We were discussing Cohen’s book “Designing Groupwork” and relating it to Dewey’s “Experience and Education”.  We discussed for a while how a lot of Cohen’s philosophies and practices seem very constructivist, which we all approved of.

Last quarter we’d had our introduction into constructivism and behaviorism.  We studied theories about both, watched videos to identify differences when applied to teaching, and compared the effects of each on student learning.  My conclusion was that constructivism was better by far, as it facilitated a student creating meaning through their learning.  In a way I had a very negative reaction to behaviorism, which I dismissed as shallow, and more akin to programing than learning.

However, as we discussed some of Cohen’s proposed methods for “training” students to be able to handle collaborative heterogenous groupwork, we realized they sounded an awful lot like behaviorism.  The groupwork itself and a lot of her theories about education were very constructivist, so our discussion was a little thrown off by the emergence of this behaviorist view.  Which is Cohen, we asked ourselves, a behaviorist or a constructivist?

Enter Dewey.  One of Dewey’s points was about pedagogical theories themselves.  He noticed in his time that there was a trend in progressive education of defining itself based on what it was not- traditional education.  Rather than shaping progressive education towards something, those leading the way were defining it in reaction to traditional education, doing the opposite of what had been done simply to not be traditional.  Dewey cautioned against this approach, and suggested instead that best practices from any pedagogical theory should be retained if they have proven effective.

In discussing whether Cohen’s work was more constructivist (which I approved of) or behaviorist (which I didn’t like), Dewey’s cautions about dismissing pedagogical practices and his support for using a mixture of effective practices dawned as a new perspective in my mind.  It didn’t matter whether Cohen herself favored constructivist or behaviorist, she could use both if it created a workable teaching and learning situation.  Which is exactly what it did.

With this insight in mind, I took another look at Cohen’s proposed methods of training to foster groupwork.  It makes sense.  Students are not born with an innate ability to effectively collaborate in heterogenous groups, they need to learn skills and practices for doing so.  A behaviorist approach to creating such an environment allows a teacher to bring out behaviors that will pave the way for groupwork to succeed.  Groupwork that, by it’s nature, operates on a constructivist principle.

It’s not an either-or scenario, we don’t have to choose between pedagogical schools.  Rather, analyze practices for what they offer, and don’t be afraid to incorporate seemingly contrasting ideas.  They might add up to something unique.

Advertisement