Tag: paradigm

Pragmatism as an Episode of Constructivism

I am chatting with some colleagues right now, and explaining what I meant when earlier this week I referred to pragmatism as an episode of constructivism.

Pragmatism is a worldview or philosophy that is concerned with the application of what works in this or that context. If pragmatism is a paradigm that Creswell, in his Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, has separated out from the others (like positivism or critical theory), then it occurred to me that pragmatism is doing something based completely on the context. In other words, it is constructing a method or approach to an issue as needed. This sounds surprisingly like constructivism, just reconstructed in time as needed and when needed.

Thus, pragmatism is an episode of constructivism.

Personal Branding, or Rebranding

I was recently reading a college oriented document about having a “personal brand,” and while it was aimed at undergraduates who may have little real-world experience to point to and may benefit from a personal message upon which to focus and highlight their lives in a concise and engaging way, I was intrigued.

I did not read this as an elevator speech, but rather as the little phrase (or tagline, subtitle, or caption) that appears at the top of most blogs. It includes interests, perhaps a value proposition, an idea of what I am passionate about, interests, and such.

I did some brainstorming, and found these common words (and threads):

  • reflective practice
  • critical thinking
  • assumptions
  • paradigms
  • teaching
  • learning
  • postmodernism
  • constructivism
  • qualitative
  • online
  • community of practice

I wonder if it is time for me to revise mine?

Currently, I am using:

Reflective practice in organizational learning, educational technology, and postmodern society.

and I have been thinking about changing it to something more along the lines of:

Challenging assumptions to promote learning and teaching

or:

Challenging assumptions to construct postmodern learning

Now, it is time for some feedback and help with this. I am oftentimes surprised by who reads my blog, and invite some feedback and thoughts here. I have been tinkering with this idea for about four weeks, and now want to decide and have something new to live with and try out. Thoughts?

Learning Paradigms as Philosophies of Practice

In the online class I am teaching, Principles and Practices of Online Course Creation and Instructional Design, I introduced the class to various learning paradigms, which we (and our text) referred to as Philosophies of Practice. These include progressive, behaviorist, radical (critical theorist), constructivist, connectivist, and such. While Creswell speaks about four different “worldviews”–postpositivism, constructivism, advocacy / participatory, and pragmatism–and Guba speaks about–positivism, postpositisism, critical theory, and constructivism–I thought it would be helpful for my students, all of whom are involved in adult learning, to be introduced to this concept and then to wrestle with it.

I asked my students, within our course system, to comment on which one they embrace. I thought it may be too personal to do out here on the public Web, and am acutely concerned with privacy and the safety of a learning environment.

I wonder if they can determine my own preferred paradigm?