I really enjoyed reading about your experience with your costume design class’s use of constructivist learning. With my Economics degree, I found that a lot of the course work and material was structured on eliciting responses through recognition of patterns and concepts. However, we were rarely encouraged to engage with the material using our creativity and previous experience. Therefore, I can only imagine how inspiring and motivating it must have been for you to have more scope and freedom to engage with your theatre design course in a way that you felt best fit your style and learning. You also mentioned that the teacher would provide constructive feedback on your work, and it got me wondering how she would do this given the range of freedom you had to engage with the material?
I agree with your conclusion that it is ok to integrate multiple learning styles within your teaching. I think there is often an emphasis on stimulating higher-order thinking and cognitive processing through constructivism’s application and reflection-based learning. However, this does not mean that every learning outcome can and should be achieved using that strategy. Math, as you noted, is a perfect example of how behaviourism can be highly effective in aiding students learning. For instance, math’s focus on pattern recognition coincides nicely with behaviourism’s goal of eliciting responses through recognition of a specific stimulus.
Leave a Reply