Philosophies

Recently, I had the opportunity to take a philosophy quiz which would determine my views and categorize my educational philosophy. Upon receiving the results for the test it showed that I am more lenient towards both the constructivism approach as well as the progressivism approach. Understanding the basics of both of these learning theories, I believe that I do have similar beliefs that would classify my philosophies. Those results were followed closely by the reconstruction learning theory.
The constructivist educator believes that people generate knowledge and meaning form their own experiences. Basically taking form that knowledge cannot be handed down from one person to another but is constructed by each person separately. Both Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are the most pivotal influences in constructivism. In a constructivist classroom, the teacher might use scaffolding which consists of questions, clues, and or suggestions that may help like a student’s prior knowledge to the new information that they are being taught. Challenges often found in a constructivist classroom usually entail trying to find a new way to solve a math problem or even reframing their ideas on a certain ethnic group. The constructivism learning approach is primarily focused on critical thinking and authentic learning which often leads to its popularity amongst reform circles. Constructivism is often associated with active learning. The educators who follow the constructivism approach are moreover thought of as facilitators opposed to teachers. This is the idea because they are thought to assist pupils with their own understanding of the content being taught and not imposing their (the facilitators) own understanding of the content being taught. I believe that the results for my philosophies being linked to the constructivism approach does hold some weight to itself. I do believe that you can’t always impose your knowledge on someone else because they may not understand the information the same way that you understand it.
The progressivism approach is based on the assumption that humans and even social animals learn by experiencing real life activities with other people. The educators of this approach believe that their students learn in a way similar to scientist by identifying the problem and then creating an assumption (hypothesis) and then experimenting to see if this is actually true. This learning model is similar to John Dewey’s learning model. John Dewey taught that people learned best through social interaction in the real world. Progressive educators believe that you cannot train a person’s mind by making them read historical novels but you are able to train the person’s mind to analyze and information they have to come up with the best and most likely conclusion. Progressivism is basically pragmatism in education. Pragmatism stresses that the way to see if an idea has merit or truth to it is to test it. That way if the idea works in the real world ten it has truth because it wasn’t only practiced with programmed situations but also with real life experiences. I believe that this is true as well because when any scenarios are played out in a controlled setting there are ninety-nine chances that it will have the desired outcome which will be in favor to the idea that is being put to the test. Students in a progressivism learning environment are often seen in little groups discussing multiple topics opposed to a teacher standing at the head of a room giving a lecture. These students often have field trips that will allow them to utilize their multiple intelligences. But if we can also get the same results in any possible situation whether they re controlled or not, then we can prove that the idea really works in the real world with real life interactions.
Finally, the result that followed both the constructivism and progressivism learning approaches is reconstruction. Many progressive educators believe that the way the schools were organized had a great impact on the way that the students learned and were affected. They also believed that because the schools were isolated from the society they weren’t consistent with real world situations.
Overall, the philosophies that were determined based on the results from the philosophy survey were more accurate than I expected. After taking a brief but in depth look at the three philosophies, I believe that I would be an educator who would incorporate all of these learning theories in my own classroom. The ideas displayed by these learning outcomes are very insightful and hopefully are helpful to my future students. Of course, I also believe that changes take place as well. So though these results may suit me during my introduction to education, I feel that if I were to take this survey at the completion of my education I would have somewhat of a different philosophy on education.



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