Instructional paradigms and theory
A paradigm, as defined in Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, is an example serving as a model and/or a set of forms all of which contain a particular element…based on a single stem or theme.
Therefore in extrapolating and interpolating the term instructional paradigm we could state that the definition would be a set of forms or examples of educational theory and practice based upon particular elements.
Behaviorism was a term coined by the American psychologist John Broadus Watson in his paper, ‘Psychology as the Behaviorist Sees It.’ It is a theory of animal and human behavior holding that actions can be explained entirely as responses to stimuli, without accounting for the profound influences of interpretation an introspection.
Thus an educator who believed in behaviorism would tend to attribute learning as a reaction to an event or action that would stimulate the student, but would be provided by the teacher. To the behaviorist teaching is essentially a matter of arranging contingencies of reinforcement so as to produce and maintain prescribed behaviors.
Constructivism is quite an opposite paradigm of Behaviorism as described and defined above. The learner rather than the teacher develops or constructs knowledge and that opportunities created for such construction are more important than instruction that originates from the teacher.
Now that we are acutely mindful of three major paradigms, philosophies and/or theories of instruction lets determine whether a change or shift in these philosophies is required in instruction that is provided to students via the World Wide Web.
