When thinking about learning theory within my teaching context I think the strongest connections are with cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism. 

Let’s start with the basics of what I mean when referring to these theories

Cognitivism: Is identifying the mental processes that are essential for students to be able to learn, you are teaching students how to learn (Bates, 2019). Often talked about through Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives.

Bloom’s Taxonomy | Center for Teaching | Vanderbilt University

Constructivism: Emphasizes consciousness, free will and social influence on learning, as having a high importance. A student’s understanding of concepts develops over time, and puts value on student reflections for learning. (Bates, 2019).

Principles of Connectivism: 

  • Learning and knowledge rest in diversity of opinions
  • Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill 
  • Decision making is a learning process – choosing what to learn (Siemens, 2005).

My teaching experience with these theories

When I think about the structures of our school system I think cognitivism, and constructivism fit best. During my Bachelor of Education we learned about Bloom’s Taxonomy and cognitivist thinking. At the time, did I really understand what it meant, or how to apply the theory? Definitely not, but as I have grown as a teacher so has my understanding of the theories. Quite honestly, I haven’t actively thought about the theories when designing learning activities until recently, and even now I don’t actively think about it within the context of the theory, I think about it as what is best practice and go with what I inherently know as being best practice.

Let’s break my practice down into the theories

Cognitivism:

When creating formative and summative tasks for students, I always am asking them to do something within one of the higher levels of analyze, evaluate, or create within Bloom’s Taxonomy. I do this because if they are able to do a task that is at one of these higher levels they should also be able to demonstrate all of the levels below it within that task. 

Constructivism:

When planning units I chose to focus on teaching students concepts and skills. They practice these skills to help them understand concepts throughout the unit, before they are ever summatively assessed on them. Once an assessment happens, we continue to use those skills throughout the year, and revisit them in future units to be assessed again. This second assessment allows students to reflect on what they have learned in previous units, as well as the current unit and use that knowledge to further demonstrate their learning. 

Principles of Connectivism:

I actively work to incorporate a wide range of opinions and perspectives for anything that we do in class. Part of this includes teaching students how to use google effectively to find academic sources on a topic written from non-western perspectives. Actively encouraging students to dig deeper and challenge themselves and their own thinking, and to be open-minded while questioning the opinions of others. We are constantly making connections between current units and past units, and between subjects. 

I truly believe that the best learning takes place when you encompass different aspects of multiple theories.

There is a time and place for each theory.

If I had to choose one theory that best describes my belief about how learning takes place it would be cognitivism. 

The reason for this, is that I think within cognitivism there is flexibility in its ability to encompass the aspects of constructivism and connectivism that I have come to appreciate.   

References

Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy | Center for Teaching | Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt Center for Teaching. Retrieved March 19, 2024, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

Bates, A.W. (2019). Cognitivism. In Teaching in a Digital Age (Second Edition ed.). https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/3-3-cognitivism/

Bates, A.W. (2019). Constructivism. In Teaching in a Digital Age (Second Edition ed.). https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/section-3-4-constructivism/

Siemens, G. (2005, January). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. 9. https://jotamac.typepad.com/jotamacs_weblog/files/Connectivism.pdf