Personal model

The model that I prefer is the constructivism which mean that the type of learner is self-directed, creative, and innovative. The purpose in education is to become creative and innovative through analysis, conceptualizations, and synthesis of prior experience to create new knowledge. The educator’s role is to mentor the learner during heuristic problem solving of ill-defined problems by enabling quested learning that may modify existing knowledge and allow for creation of new knowledge. The learning goal is the highest order of learning: heuristic problem solving, metacognitive knowledge, creativity, and originality.

Teaching models

1. Identify the most important teaching models, which are:

Traditional education or back-to-basics refers to long-established customs found in schools that society has traditionally deemed appropriate. Some forms of education reform promote the adoption of progressive education practices, a more holistic approach which focuses on individual students' needs and self-expression. In the eyes of reformers, traditional teacher-centered methods focused on rote learning and memorization must be abandoned in favor of student-centered and task-based approaches to learning. However, many parents and conservative citizens are concerned with the maintenance of objective educational standards based on testing, which favors a more traditional approach.

Behaviorism, also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do including acting, thinking, and feeling can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior patterns or modifying the environment. According to behaviorism, individuals' response to different environmental stimuli shapes our behaviors.

Constructivism is the way people create meaning of the world through a series of individual constructs. Constructs are the different types of filters we choose to place over our realities to change our reality from chaos to order. Von Glasersfeld describes constructivism as, “a theory of knowledge with roots in philosophy, psychology, and cybernetics”. Simply stated, it is a learning process which allows a student to experience an environment first-hand, thereby, giving the student reliable, trust-worthy knowledge. The student is required to act upon the environment to both acquire and test new knowledge.

2. Mention 3 precursors for each model:

Traditional education: John Dewey - George Santayana - Horace Mann

Behaviorism: Edward Lee Thorndike - John B. Watson - B.F Skinner

Constructivism: María Montesori - Ernst Von Glasersfeld - Humberto Maturana

3 What do they have in common?

They think that the student is a very important element in the teaching-learning process, and that the teacher's role is only a secondary one to help and guide the pupils to adquire more knowledge.

4. What are the main differences among them?

The main differences among these Social Pedagogics, Traditionalists, and Experimentalists are the main thought the give to didactics in general, such as methods, motivational objectives, etc.

The most sifnificant difference is the role the teacher and the student have in each model.

The student has e very passive and secondary role in the traditional model. This changes during the behaviorism towards a more active and even "critical" role. The final model sees the student as the main character of the teaching-learning process and puts the teacher behind the main scene.