Associationist and Social Constructivist Theories and Their Implications in the Classroom - Term Paper Example

ASSOCIATIONIST AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORIES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS IN THE ROOM Associationism is a theory that suggests that our mentalprocesses are a series of mental states wherein one state is associated with the succeeding states, which helps the mental process operate. The associationist theory was first suggested by the eminent thinkers of the ancient world, Plato and Aristotle, who laid out the foundations for explaining the succession of memories. Many other thinkers and philosophers such as David Hume and John Stuart have ascertained that the theory holds ground for most of our mental processes. In fact, the associationist theory has been the basis for today’s organizations and associations and carefully outlines the way in which they carry out their daily processes (George L. Hersey, 1972). The associationists believe that the human mind is simply a concoction of vital elements that are governed by some automatic mechanisms. These automatic mechanisms are nothing but the associations that are being discussed in the present context. In fact, Hume had once said that “Associations are to mind what gravity is to objects” As such, the degree of association is pretty atomic as well as mechanical in nature. The theory of Associationism has a number of principles that have largely worked towards making it an effective theory despite differing opinions of individual intellectuals. The primary facet of Associationism is that the association between the mental elements is built up by the mind through constant learning from experience, wherein all such experiences are molded into a set of basic beliefs and ideas. All of these ideas are elementary in nature and are rather unstructured and independent from each other. In order to define complex ideas, subsets of these simple and unstructured ideas (which are now rules guiding the individual in decision making) are used to build up a solution for such a complex idea (George L. Hersey, 1972). As such, it can be seen that Associationism is plainly an attempt by the mind to reconstruct and develop the human mind based on experiences through the individual senses. As all such rules are constructed through experience, there is very little space for theoretical assumptions and such associations are therefore a concatenation of a number of individual ideas that have been built up over time. The solution built up by the resulting association is what projects a systematic picture of the mind and its beliefs. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM The Social Constructivism theory is a theory pertaining to the study of knowledge that details on how specific social phenomena evolve within different situations and social contexts. As such, a social construction is anything that appears obvious and seems to be a natural concept or a practice to those who accept its tenets. However, it is in fact, a technique or method devised by a specific culture or a society. These social constructs are therefore a result of a number of human choices and are therefore not governed by any laws as such. The outcomes of social constructs are also not governed by any unseen or unexplainable phenomenon and are based purely on human perception and decision. Another major area where social constructionism has been active is in situations where there is an effort to discover the pattenrs and driving forces behind individuals that guides them to participate in the creation of their believed social reality. One can thus see the ways in which social phenomena evolve into organized mechanisms that soon transform into tradition as a result of long continues practice of these social beliefs. Therefore, what we perceive as reality is in fact a time consuming process of dynamic reconstruction over existing traits. Reality is therefore a reproduction of people’s interpretations, which base such interpretations on their knowledge (Catherine F. Battaglia, Chandra J. Foote, Paul J. Vermette, 2005). Berger and Luckermann (1966) have argued in their book titled ‘The Social Reconstruction of Reality’ that all of what we perceive as the common sense knowledge and take things for granted are merely a product of social interactions. In fact, interactions among people take place on the common understanding that they share a common mapping of reality of some kind. As such interactions gain in terms of time, this mapping of respective social realities becomes more evident and leads to the creation of more reinforced realities. Therefore, reality is in fact, not what is perceived to be true, but something that is socially constructed over time. COMPARISON While Associationism has always believed that learning and knowledge have been products of products of associations of one experience with another or the association of a state with other subsequent states, constructivism has always professed that knowledge and learning are derived from and in fact, an evolution from knowledge gained previously. As such, Associationism is based upon thoughts and experiences, while social constructivism is built primarily upon learning. The process of reinventing using prior knowledge gained is a continuous and active one and is aimed at constantly evolving the process of learning and gaining knowledge. The associationist theory however entails that the decision made is based on the experiences at that particular moment and as such, it is a thing of the present (John Robert Anderson, Gordon H. Bower, 1980). The social constructive approach means that the people and other entities involved in the process must be actively engaged in using prior knowledge to arrive at possible and feasible learning cornerstones. As such, learners under social constructivism tend to correlate and merge all new information gained with past knowledge gained by them. The difference between the beliefs surrounding the Associationism and the social constructivism theories can be explained from a quote by Jean Piaget, which goes as: “Knowledge is actively constructed by the learner, not passively received from the environment” The above line is a statement that clearly states the shift in learning principles between modern and ancient thinkers on the foundations of knowledge and learning and suggests that in order to gain knowledge, it is not sufficient to be receptive from the environment alone, but it is also important to understand that the leaner himself has to process all the information that he/she receives from the environment and compare it using his past knowledge in order to determine the right manner in which the new information is to be stored. Savery and Duffy have said that learning is achieved through three major principles (Shirley R. Steinberg, Joe L. Kincheloe, Patricia H. Hinchey, 1999). The first principle says that understanding is a result of interactions with the environment. However, understanding must not be confused with either experience or learning as it intermediate to both. Understanding is a conclusion that one arrives at depending upon the experience one gets and unless this conclusion is compared against past learning and assimilated in a new form, it cannot be termed as learning. This point also projects the maturity of the social constructionist theory in comparison to the associationist theory. The second basic tenet according to Savery and Duffy pertains to cognitive conflict, which is believed to stimulate and motivate the process of learning. This conflict arises from what one experiences and what one believes the outcome of an experience should be. Whenever there is a mismatch between these two elements, the mind gets to work at deciding which one to take and which one to discard. In this respect, either of the two elements can be taken as the final outcome or the person can amalgamate these two elements to generate a new learning element, which is then accepted as the final outcome. Knowledge is an evolving process and this is built through social negotiation. This is the third principle and this means that experience alone does not count, but it is in fact important to ensure that we analyze the outcomes of these experiences and take the outcomes that are perceived as positive to the mind. As such, social constructivism emphasizes that the method of gaining has to be learning as a process and professes that there is no room for teaching. Teaching on the other hand, will make the learner passive, wherein the sole task of the learner will be to collect the individual pieces of teaching, pool them together and learn them to his/her benefit. This form of gaining knowledge on the lines of the associationist theory has not found favor with modern teaching methodologies, which have inclined in favor of the learning approach to knowledge(Thomas M. Duffy, David H. Jonassen, 1992). Social constructivist theories emphasize a great deal on nurturing the natural curiosity and this makes the learner experience real tasks within a meaningful and tangible context. Most of these tasks are usually connected to real life events and situations, which has been known to make the learning process more enjoyable and has proved to accelerate the learning process. The modern form of social constructivism is associated with noted Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. According to him, the teacher played a pivotal role in learning as he/she nurtures the learner to develop his/her knowledge through perception and discovery. This learning is a collaborative task and involves a large number of interactions between learners (Diane H. Tracey, Lesley Mandel Morrow, 2006). However, there have been numerous criticisms of constructivism. It says that the learning process if catered to the preferences of the learner rather than learning being a part of the regular curriculum. As the learning is more learner-centered, many thinkers and experts argue that it is opposed to progressivism as such flexibility is believed to lose in the wake of benchmarks and standards. However, these criticisms are not significant in comparison to the amount of success that such a learner-centered process has been able to generate. Evidence of this can be seen in the early years of schooling, where the child is taught depending on what they perceive as interesting and attractive, which not only helps speed up the learning process, but also makes the process more receptive and interactive. As such, social constructivism definitely scores over Associationism (Stephen W. Littlejohn, Karen A. Foss, 1999). The implication of the application of the two theories to learning within the classroom are varied and depend on a number of factors (most of which have been described in the previous paragraphs) and therefore result in a number of varying consequences. The associationist approach has always believed that learning is enhanced and propagated by way of building on similarities. This means that similarity has to be achieved between the teacher and the learner and the degree of success also depends on the similarity on the learning levels between the learners, both of which are difficult to reach optimum levels in most cases. Even though the associationist theory does provide space for learning through differences, it still emphasizes on learning through individual experiences and this may be different for different learners and they may end up learning something entirely different from what is desired to be taught by the teacher in the classroom. As such, the associationist theory slightly fades in comparison to the contrast to the constructivist theory as will be discussed shortly (Shirley R. Steinberg, Joe L. Kincheloe, Patricia H. Hinchey, 1999). The evolution of Associationism to include the concepts of irreducible elements such as the stimulus and the response suggest that in order to learn, the efficiency of learning is governed by the level to which a student responds. However, it is interesting to see that there has still been no clear connection between the tasks of the teacher and the tasks of the students and the manner in which their actions and responsibilities may be connected to each other. there is no call for an active role on the part of the teacher to involve the student in the learning process thereby ensuring that the students are a part of the progression of the teaching session and that they are made to think and participate within the different things going on in the classroom (George L. Hersey, 1972). The above aspect, as the preceding sections go on to show, has been clearly been satisfied by the constructionist theory that has clearly guided the teacher by asking them not to start the teaching session as a mere medium of information and knowledge exchange. Instead, the constructionist theory has advocated that the teacher being the session from the level of the students and work towards building the environment wherein the questions are raised by the learners themselves and the effort towards finding the solutions to those queries are done by the students themselves. In this scenario, the teacher’s role is largely reduced to a supervisory and moderating nature such that they may only oversee the progression of the class to different learning levels in a structured and guided manner. Thus, it can see seen that the constructionist theory has certain attributes and capabilities that have proved to work better in imparting knowledge to new students and as such, this can be said to have more positive implications on the learning process in comparison to the associationist approach, which is believed to achieve the target of teaching partially. REFERENCES 1) George L. Hersey (1972), High Victorian Gothic: A Study in Associationism. Johns Hopkins University. 2) John Robert Anderson, Gordon H. Bower (1980), Human Associative Memory: A Brief Edition. London: Lawrence Erlbraum Associates. 3) Diane H. Tracey, Lesley Mandel Morrow (2006), Lenses on Reading: An Introduction to Theories and Models. New York: Guilford Press. 4) Catherine F. Battaglia, Chandra J. Foote, Paul J. Vermette (2005), Constructivist Strategies: meeting standards and engaging adolescent minds. London: Eye on Education. 5) Shirley R. Steinberg, Joe L. Kincheloe, Patricia H. Hinchey (1999), The Post-formal Reader: Cognition and Education. London: Routledge. 6) Thomas M. Duffy, David H. Jonassen (1992), Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A Conversation. London: Lawrence Erlbraum Associates. 7) Berger and Luckermann (1966), The social reconstruction of reality. New York: McMillan. 8) Stephen W. Littlejohn, Karen A. Foss (1999), Theories of Human Communication. London: Thomson Wadsworth. Read More