Section 2: Theories and Models of Learning and Instruction (due 11/11)

This section of the book presents various theories and models that form the foundations of instructional design and technology, including the evolution of approaches to instruction and learning over time. In your blog for this week, reflect on the following:

1. Epistemology (the study of what and how we come to know) is discussed in multiple chapters in this section. Distinguish epistemology from instructional methods or theories. What are the differences between theories, methods, or models of learning and epistemologies or underlying beliefs about ways of knowing?

2. Chapters in this section present two contrasting epistemic stances: positivist and relativist. However, a third stance, the contextualist or hermeneutical, is also widely recognized. This stance falls somewhere between the strictly objectivist/positivist beliefs about knowing and the purely subjectivist/relativist stance. While designers and educators with a positivist stance generally apply behaviorist principles to the design and development of instruction, those with either a contextualist or relativist epistemological framework employ constructivist theories and methods. However, relativists ascribe to radical constructivist approaches, while contextualists draw upon social constructivist theories and models. Based on what you’ve read about positivist and relativist epistemologies, as well as behaviorist and constructivist approaches, try to more fully describe a contextualist epistemology. How might it differ from either a relativist or positivist stance, and how might social constructivism differ from either behaviorist or radical constructivist approached to learning and instruction?

3. Differing epistemic stances lead to differing approaches to learning and instruction, and ultimately to problem-solving. Explain differences in problem-solving when approached from behaviorist and constructivist perspectives. How do the approaches differ in both the nature of the problem to be solved and in facilitating the problem solving process? Finally, what effect might these differences have on learner motivation?