In 1963 Hutchins developed that theory that education develops the intellect and the mind. The perennialist theory of education believes that truth is found in the great works of education and that education is for the development of pure intellect. Behaviorism follows two schools: Pavlov's classical behaviorism states that repeated stimuli will bring about a conditioned response. Skinner's operant behaviorism states that the consequence of an action (negative or position) is will dictate the response. Behaviorial objectives determine the conditions under which the learning process will occur, the expected performance of students following instruction, and the quantifiable consequence of the student's performance. By concentrating a school on learning simply to increase knowledge (perennialism), the best compliment to this type of learning would be a measurable means of instruction and assessment for mastery (behaviorism).
Essentialism was the retaliation to Dewey's progressive education and stressed emphasis on academic subject curriculum to develop well-rounded students that would become functioning members of society. It stressed discipline and hard work and was driven forward by the Industrial Revolution to create a literate society willing to conform to the norms given. Systems theory takes its cue from the nature and physical sciences, using an adaptation of chaos theory in an attempt to clearly develop a procedure for how real-world events interact by showing the role of each component individually and then explaining their impacts on the system as a whole. Schools that are designed to crank out students that would be well-educated and malleable enough to follow society's dictums would lend themselves to the idea that each student's actions would impact their own lives as well as society as a whole. In this case systems theory could be used to both summarize and predict social group behaviors of students educated using the essentialist method.
Progressivism is often considered the most pragmatic of all educational theories and developed out of the social reforms of the early 1900's. It stressed common-sense, applied, practical problem-solving through rote memorization of facts, and was developed in response to more traditional methods of education. Progressivist schools functioned as a source of data collection, believing that children should be allowed to develop naturally with the teacher functioning more as a facilitator of student-driven experiential learning. Socially, the schools function as the heart of society while student begin to learn from context. Constructivism is most often used by K-12 schools today and stresses students actively transforming & interpreting experiences by relating current or new experiences to previous experiences based on individual schema (based on Fosnot's work in 1992). In 1992 Bednar expanded this idea to show that meaning is developed through the active process of schema interpretation and building, and is most effective when student metacognition occurs during this process. In this area teachers function as facilitators and use authentic instruction and assessment of student progress. While the concept of rote memorization found in progressivism does not jive well with constructivism, the idea of an "anti-theory" to previous education theories shows how progressivist schools would apply the common-sense problem solving to the real-world problems and experiences found in the constructivist theory. Both share the idea of teacher as mentor or facilitator, focusing on the student as a learner and not the content to be covered.
Reconstructionism is related to progressivism but stresses education as the catalyst for social change. It emphasizes the use of technology to facilitate change, diminish learning gaps, and helping students determine their own destiny. The Wilbur Schram model of communication theory shows that communication occurs when the sender sends a message through a channel to be interpreted by the receiver. This model of communication can be affected by physical or psychological noise, but allows for extensive feedback to occur to help modify, maintain, and control the process. Integral to this process is the idea that both the sender and receiver need to have a field of experience that overlaps somewhere: language, cultural background, education, or previous schema or experience. Also necessary is the idea of compatible technologies for the message channel: the receiver must be able to decode the message into the same idea as the sender. Reconstructionist schools emphasize the idea of equalizing the playing field by encouraging students to expand their fields of experience. These schools also stress the importance of technologies as leveling the playing field for all students. The communication theory fits into both these areas by stressing the need for shared fields of experience and the use of technology to both expand those fields of experiences as well as communicate information effectively, efficiently, and with as little noise as possible.*all factual information summarized from WebCT video lectures and handouts for Ci 501 with Dr. Constance Hargrave
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