Share a story about your best learning experience (could be a formal course or something more personal) Why did you enjoy it?
Throughout my educational career, I have experienced a variety of classes and have noted many different learning styles provided by my instructors. The learning theory that I have noticed the most in classrooms seems to be behaviourism due to teacher-centred instruction and repetitive reinforcement. While this can be effective, I find that I learn best through a more constructivist approach that incorporates both aspects of behaviourism and cognitivism. One class in particular that I found fell under constructivism was my entrepreneurship class.
At the beginning of the semester, my professor paved the way for which the course will be set up by highlighting that each student will be creating a product individually and that she would act as a guide to ensure success with a more hands-on approach. Within the first two classes, we were taught some fundamental strategies of entrepreneurship along with being encouraged to participate in our personal hobbies on our own time to spark creativity when figuring out what product idea we wanted to create. By the third class, we had to hand in a relatively large assignment with a product idea we created. I remember being quite intimidated and nervous heading into this assignment as I didn’t expect to be able to conceptualize a product so early in the course, however with the professor’s advice to engage in our personal hobbies and interests, I was able to come up with many ideas. For instance, I have prior knowledge and interest in houseplant care, so I was able to use that to create a product idea. Following this assignment, we were provided feedback from the professor along with engaging with other students to share ideas and opinions to enhance our ideas. Throughout the course, the professor instructed our lessons in a way that had us actively working on our product ideas and applying the course material to our personal projects.
I really enjoyed this course due to the hands-on approach to learning and found that the professor made the class very learner-centred as she encouraged us to incorporate our previous knowledge and experiences. Overall I feel as though I have learned so much information from this course that will stick with me in both my educational and professional career.
Anastassiya
Hi Michelle! Thank you very much for sharing your experience! It’s a great one to learn from! Project-based learning is one of the strategies that motivate students to collaborate and construct their knowledge. Interestingly, the father of the Project Method, William Kilpatrick (1929), argued that the project ties students’ interests with their worthy acts. As a result, they understand the concept better, enrich their experience, and, most importantly, alter life for the better.
You mentioned that the constructivist approach incorporates both aspects of behaviourism and cognitivism. It’s a completely different theory; I would be hesitant to say that it incorporates aspects of other theories. When we design learning experiences, however, we can mix various strategies from different theories for more effective outcomes.