Comparing Theoretical Perspectives
Learning     Motivation     Ind. Differences     Metaphors     Instruction     Management     Assessment     Theorists

	BEHAVIORISM	CONSTRUCTIVISM	SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
Student  Learning	Don't assume that students have learned anything unless you see a change in behavior.	Progresses from ability to deal with the concrete to the abstract in an orderly and predictable pattern. Depends on development, maturation levels, heredity, and environment. Rate of development, and therefore learning, will vary with individuals. Remember that not all children will be ready for concrete operations or capable of abstract thinking at the same time.	Vygotsky would say that children learn very little from performing task that they already do independently.  Instead they develop by attempting tasks in their ZPD - zone of proximal development. - which they can accomplish in collaboration with a more competent individual.
Student Motivation	All motivation is based on extrinsic rewards, rather than intrinsic goals.  reinforce and reward desired behaviors.  Desired behaviors should be reinforced immediately and can be shaped.  Using praise as a positive, secondary reinforcer will work with most children.  Concrete, social, and activity reinforcers will vary in effectiveness for different children.	Children are naturally motivated to explore their environment and to construct meaning from their experiences. Physical interaction with the physical and social environment are important for cognitive development. Teacher should provide challenges and hands-on time to explore many new situations. Think of children as “little scientists”	May need to work one-on-one with a more competent or knowledgeable peer or tutor who can focus support within student’s ZPD.  Find other ways to keep students motivated to complete tasks.  Provide sufficient support so that students can perform challenging tasks successfully, and then gradually withdraw support as they become more skilled. Verbal praise should focus on the task, the effort, and the process, and not the person.
Individual Differences	Theoretically this should not be an issue in classical conditioning but is accounted for in that different people will respond to different reinforcers in operant conditioning.	Key idea!  Even though Piaget said that all children go through four invariant stages, he acknowledges individual differences based on maturation, prior knowledge, and other environmental factors.  Ideally children should receive instruction appropriate to their developmental level. Remember about horizontal and vertical decalage within domains of thinking; e.g. conservation of number comes well before conservation of mass. This will vary in individuals.	Students with different ZPDs will need different tasks and different assignments, which leads to trying to personalize instruction as much as possible.  Readiness to learn is described in relation to a particular child's ZPD. Language is crucial to thought, so individual differences in language skills may impact learning.
Metaphors	The brain and the mind is a "Black box" and a "tabula rasa"	Piaget viewed the child as a ”young scientist” who wants to explore the world and make meaning from these explorations. The teacher would be the provider of multiple, hands-on experiences that promote development and the questioner who tries to challenge the child’s thinking.	Children are active constructors of their knowledge in social contexts.  A family would be a good metaphor.  The teacher would be like the parent helping the child learn to ride a bike or bake a cake.  The child would be a learner who needs support form others to continue learning.  The big brother or sister could also be the more competent individual at times helping the child to lean something new.  Much is learned around the dinner table where there is a lot of social interaction and where children can share   opinions, perspectives, and beliefs. .
Instructional Presentation	Direct instruction requires step-by-step presentation from part to whole.  If a particular task or the subject matter is anxiety arousing (e.g. test) then present it slowly and gradually.  Provide lots of opportunities for practice.	Capitalize on students’ natural curiosity. Provide hands-on experiences that help them construct increasingly more accurate and complete understandings.  Teach the whole, not just the parts. Help them discover relationships among concepts and ideas. Activate and then build on prior knowledge (assimilation) and encourage accommodations to their existing schemes by providing information or experiences that contradict existing beliefs and challenge them to think again. Provide opportunities for students to discuss and exchange ideas and perspectives.	Teach within the students’ ZPD  by providing supports as they learn in the form of hints, questions, rehearsal of procedures, modeling, or talking aloud about how you go about solving a problem or completing a task.  Provide some tasks that students can perform successfully only with assistance.  Divide complex tasks into several smaller, simpler tasks.  Demonstrate proper performance so students can imitate it.  Provide structure or guidelines about how the task should be accomplished.  Ask questions that focus students on the task.  Talk out loud about how to do something as you demonstrate.  Share your thinking and allow children to share their thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. The teacher’s role is to “scaffold” or support student learning by helping them do and learn things with help from an adult or more experienced or knowledgeable person that they wouldn’t be able to learn on their own. The ZPD is the range between a child’s actual developmental level and level of potential development with support.  The teacher should also challenge and stretch students to the limits of what they know and can do, but always providing support (scaffolding). Work with students to develop a plan for learning new tasks.  Remind students about what their goal is and what a solution to the task should look like.   As students increase their competence, slowly withdraw the scaffolds and push the ZPD further. Occasionally perform a difficult task in partnership with students and talk about how you think and mentally process challenging new tasks. Encourage students to talk themselves through difficult tasks but talk them through more difficult tasks out loud.
Class  Management	Create a pleasant, upbeat atmosphere because environment is very important and if school is associated with pleasant stimuli, then it is where students will want to be.  Group contingencies/rewards can be effective.	Piaget didn’t write specifically about this topic, but suggests that younger children need concrete rules and consequences because they do not always connect consequences with their actions - due to egocentric thought. Older children (about age 8 and up) understand that consequences should match the severity of the infraction - and the intent.  Older children should be able to help establish class rules and logical consequences.  Important to incorporate and promote self-regulation and self-government into classroom management plans.	Allow opportunities for students to work in heterogeneous pairs or small groups so that they can benefit from what others know.  Also, pair students with different grade levels or classmates with different abilities and let the more advanced learners help their partners, e.g. spelling buddies or  cross-grade reading buddies. Thought and language are closely connected, so allow children to process new material verbally.  Keep student attention focused on the relevant aspects of the task. Provide models and give examples
Assessment	Test small bits of information at a time.	Multiple methods of assessment seem logical based on this theoretical perspective. Include performance-based assessments when information was learned in a discovery manner and also assess knowledge base with more traditional assessments. Understanding of processes, vocabulary, and concepts are all important to assess	Vygotsky didn’t address assessment specifically but it seems that any assessment ought to test the full range of the ZPD so that the students starts with things they know and will be successfully with and ends with some challenging things that they may not know or know how to do.  Mastery learning would make no sense, because every child’s ZPD should be continually expanding as they learn and develop. If student is always getting 100% they are probably not learning anything new and need to be challenged in the ZPD.
Theorists	Pavlov-classical conditioning Skinner-operant conditioning	Jean Piaget, Swiss Psychologist.  Hard stage model.   Important points include resolving disequilibrium via assimilation of new experiences to current schemes or accommodation of previous schemes by restructuring them or developing new ones. Development by inclusion means that previous understandings are subsumed when thinking advances and new understandings become logical necessities. .	The work of Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, was translated to English in the 1960’s.  Vygotsky believes that learning precedes development, whereas Piaget believed that development precedes learning. Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of social interactions and language in learning.