December 1997 — Features
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Instructional Technology: Pedagogy for the Future
Behaviorism purports that learning is evidenced by a change in behavior: the teaching role is one of presentation of facts and skills; learning takes the form of drill and practice. The classroom is primarily teacher-centered.
Cognitivism views learning as the continued development of schemata; teaching provides the structure for constructing individual knowledge. Teacher and student share responsibility for active learning.
For the Humanist, learning is a two-step process involving the acquisition of knowledge followed by individual personalization. The teacher must ensure a classroom free of threat, provide an abundant resource of materials from which the student can choose, and teach the process of learning (metacognition) to their charges.
As seen in Figure 4, certain implementations of IT provide the best match of focused teaching to theoretical learning.
IT Applications. Computers, education and behaviorism form a natural partnership. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has its roots in the behavioristic principles of repetition, sequencing and reinforcement. And it is enhanced with such technologies as computer-managed instruction (CMI) and computer-based training (CBT), depending on whether the instruction is teacher-centered or student-centered.
Schema development for the cognitivist is augmented by a series of tools ranging from teacher-centered applications of Email and computer-directed instruction (CDI) to audio and video material and exposure to the Internet. Each of these IT tools is instrumental in helping students develop their metacognitive skills with all but CDI falling into the optimum range of effectiveness for the cognitive teacher.
On a humanistic level, interpersonal skills are encouraged by audio and video conferencing, with computer-aided conferencing and the Internet sitting at the highest level of humanistic effectiveness.
IT Misapplications. Violations of these tenants are common and Figure 4 readily demonstrates the inherent problems. Use of the Internet, for example, in a behavioristic, teacher-centered classroom violates the strengths of this technology as an instructional tool. The Internet is much too hands-on, much too dependent on prior student knowledge to be effective as a "facts and skills, drill and practice" media. Another example would serve to explain the frustration of some humanistic classrooms and their student-centered emphasis with the structure of an audio-only presentation.
