DRESSAGE

http://coe.ksu.edu/jecdol/Vol_3/articles/Viner.htm


Contributions by von Glaserfeld (1995), indicates that traditional learning and teaching models were developed based upon the perceived scientific laws of cause and effect. B.F. Skinner’s behavioral experiments on rats and pigeons were used to develop relationships and connections on the belief that learning could test for a true reality. For example, a type of empirical testing for knowledge would be a behavioral approach to teaching and learning such as B. F. Skinner’s stimuli-response reactions where reinforcement fosters repetition. Training by repetition may modify behavior but according to von Glaserfeld, it does little for knowledge acquisition and thinking. von Glaserfeld suggests knowledge is not a series of stimuli-response reactions. It is “real” and connected to an experimental world that looks for “… a viable model of how we manage to construct a relatively stable, orderly picture from the flow of our experience” (p. 57).



Constructivists’ perspectives encourage the building of meaning and knowledge by changing the very nature of the questions we ask about reality. Constructivism promotes the development of learning theories for understanding by concerning itself with ways of knowing how someone makes a claim of knowledge. It does not concern itself with external truths. Constructivist educational settings would incorporate knowledge building. They would have students explain their reasoning by the means of developing a viable “fit” or explanation (Staver, 2000). The notion of truth in education becomes replaced by the concept of viability. Conceptual models and scientific theories are viable if they prove competent in the contexts in which they were created. They become relative to the goal or problem presented. Viability is a matter of constructing a model of a coherent world which eliminates the ultimate truth because there is always more than one way of knowing and doing (Steffe & Gale 1995).