Wednesday, September 24, 2008

I'm a cogniconstructiviorist

Well, I had hoped to do an interpretive dance, but my chic diagram will have to suffice. I recently got one of those Wacom tablets. I'll be selling this beauty on eBay soon, so get your PayPal ready.

Anyway, the concept I had hoped to describe visually is this: the ironic thing about "theories" is that they automatically imply that we have holes in our knowledge. The purpose of theories is to try to help us account for observations and predict those things we haven't observed. If we didn't have any holes in our knowledge of a particular domain, that is to say, if we could account for 100% of our observations and predict events 100% accurately, then we wouldn't need theories.

Because theories are by nature incomplete, I'll bet you a dollar you can't find any single theory that can completely describe something as complex as how learning takes place in every conceivable learning situation.

That being said, let's look again at the diagram. From this diagram (if it is at all accurate), and from our discussions in class, it should be obvious that there is a certain amount of overlap between these three theories of learning. It is therefore possible to encounter a single learning situation which may be very well approached from any of these three perspectives. There may also be situations in which one of these theories is clearly more helpful in answering our questions than are the other two. Yet again, we may find ourselves in an area of the larger "Learning" circle that is colored white--uncovered by any of the three theories. This is simply the reality of theories--sometimes they work very well, sometimes they don't work quite as well. Even the really good ones don't work 100% of the time.

Knowing, then, that everything we call a theory has boundaries and limits, it seems slightly unwise to me that anyone would consider themselves as adherents of only one theory. These people are either pretending that their theory is somehow special, having no boundaries, or they are trying to get grant money.

It think that, to be a truly wise scholar, it is best to familiarize oneself with all the theories surrounding our particular domain, pick the best ones, and look through their respective lenses (to use Dr. Graham's analogy) when they are appropriate.

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