Behaviorism, constructivism, and socratic pedagogy

Boghossian, P. (2006). Behaviorism, constructivism, and socratic pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 38(6). 713-722.

This article explores the similarities and differences in behavorism, constructivism, and most interesting, in my opinion, socratic pedagogy, which may straddle the two, those be different enough to prove more useful. Boghossian acknowledges that a shift to constructivism is consistent in education today, believing that the student will find themany different truths by being an active participant in their education, while there are still behavorists in the mix who believe that students learn the "one truth" by drills and behavior modification and conditioning.

Basically, Boghossian states that constuctivists allow students to conclude and believe in multiple realities, as long as the process is sound,  because everyone's experiences are different, whereas behaviorists expect everyone to come to the same answer based on objective observation and experimentation.

Soctratic pedagogy, however, maintains that there is, for the most part, an identifiable truth that is relevant for all involved (behaviorist), that invested students exploring the process and participating in dialogy will reach truth (constructivist), but through the act of discourse and discussion, any irrelevant or false assumptions will be discounted, using, almost, a collective consciousness methodology.

All in all, I would like to see the socratic pedagogy used more often, though, there are subjects in which I believe "reality" can be different for different learners, based on their experiences, such as criticism and interpretation of literature, poetry and art. However, science and mathematics will tend to have more rigid truths, though, those who are able to bend those absolute rules often come to breakthroughs

Posted by Kara Carter .