Paradigms of educational psychology

The controversy surrounding many psychological problems is fundamentally based on the different ways in which different psychologists view the very nature of human beings.

Introduction

Many of these controversies were born in the early days of psychology with the appearance, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, of a series of Schools or groups of psychologists with a common orientation. The flourishing of these schools and therefore their decline wrote the history of psychology.

If we talk about 2006 with respect to education in Mexico we can realize that today most people have access to an education starting from preschool to a professional education, however this education that is received has a degree of If we relate it to the great need of our country to have a creative and entrepreneurial population, we are very far from a first-level education, which requires people capable of modifying their environment and using the great diversity of resources that are available. In our country.

Learning has become one of the greatest challenges in our society. It is important to emphasize that we cannot limit ourselves to working with a paradigm, since rather it is about rescuing valid experiences of scientific knowledge using different postulates and principles that allow us to achieve a better teaching-learning process with greater advantages and possibilities for the student..

For this purpose, it is important to consider education as a social phenomenon, influenced and influencing other phenomena such as political, economic, cultural, etc.

The present work corresponds to the subject of Paradigms of Educational Psychology, to explain the orientation of this bibliography review, it can be said that it is enriched with the following models of psychological paradigms: Behaviorism, Humanism, Constructivism, and Sociocultural. The aspects that were taken up from each of the mentioned paradigms to structure this work are detailed below.

The behaviorist paradigm has been characterized by the fact that its application proposals focus on the so-called "behavioral analysis applied to education".

Humanism establishes an education centered on values, reflection, interpersonal relationships and the exchange of knowledge in a group; believes in individualized and socializing education.

The constructivist paradigm is centered on the student, the distinction between the types of knowledge that the subject can elaborate; Its importance lies in the fact that logical-mathematical knowledge allows to form structures and schemes.

The reflection on the role of the teacher, from the different paradigms studied so far, opens up the possibility and obligation to enroll in a politics and philosophy of life, within our actions in the classroom as educators with a very clear direction and perspective, in our daily work.

The objective of the work is to analyze contemporary psychological paradigms in order to acquire skills and attitudes appropriate to the demands of the educational environment through educational research and thus identify the role that we must play.

Behavioral paradigm

Behaviorism seems to be in the middle of (1910-1920), as a reaction to the psychology of introspection and is consolidated in 1930. This paradigm originated in the first decades of the 20th century and its founder was JB Watson,

According to JB Watson, in the behaviorist paradigm, he had to forget the study of consciousness and mental processes (unobservable processes) and, name behavior (observable processes) his object of study. Using objective methods such as observation and experimentation for its study.

ER Guthrie (1938) mentions that it is necessary to develop a specific instruction instead of a general instruction, that is, it is necessary to specify the objectives, fragment the task into its smallest components and make precise and punctual corrections.

EL Skinner (1970), expresses “teaching is expanding knowledge, whoever is taught learns faster than one who is not taught”. The teacher's job, then, is to arrange sets of stimuli and reinforcement conditions, particularly those of a positive nature, and to avoid negative ones (punishments).

For EL Thorndike, learning is a gradual process of trial and error from which he formulates his law of effect; affirms that when an act is followed by a reward it tends to be repeated, while if it is accompanied by a punishment the probability of its repetition decreases, repetition or training in a task facilitates that it can be carried out with less effort.

Bandura Albert (1969, 1977) talks about learning by modeling, he comments that if you are going to learn something, you need to be paying attention, but even with all this, we still will not do anything unless we are motivated to imitate, that is, unless that we have good reasons to do so.

Teaching is a way of "training-conditioning" in order to "learn - store", ignoring the deepest aspects of learning and reinforcing a pedagogy focused on observable behaviors. Programming is the facilitating instrument of this training. They give little importance to feelings and values in the process of human learning.

According to (Pozo J. I, 1989) the behaviorist point of view defends that any behavior can be learned, because the influence of the psychological level and individual differences is minimal; The basic thing is to properly identify the determinants of the behaviors to be taught, the effective use of techniques and programs that make it possible to reach the goals set.

For behaviorists in the education-learning-development relationship, these three concepts are synonymous; they are equalized: Development is quantitative, depending on external stimuli; the individual is a passive, reactive, reproductive being, who does not elaborate significantly, does not transform what he learns, but simply reflects it (modeling).

The student is seen as a subject whose performance and school learning can be fixed or rearranged from the outside (the instructional situation, methods, contents, etc.), it is enough to properly program the educational inputs, so that the learning of desirable academic behaviors.

The teacher is seen as a behavioral engineer who makes contingency arrangements to increase desirable behaviors and decrease undesirable ones. The teacher's job is to develop an adequate series of contingency reinforcement and stimulus control arrangements for teaching.

The evaluation focuses on the products of learning and not on the processes, what is interesting to know is what the student has achieved at the end of an exercise, a sequence or a certain program without going further in search of cognitive, affective, etc. that intervene during learning.

Humanist paradigm

Humanistic psychology is a school that highlights non-verbal experience and altered states of consciousness as a means of realizing our full human potential. It was born as part of a more general cultural movement that emerged in the United States in 1960 and that involves approaches in areas such as politics, the arts and the social movement called Counterculture.

Its main representatives are AH Maslow, C. Rogers and G. Allport, they take the person as the center, based on belief, in their freedom of choice, to decide their own plans, goals, among other aspects.

The Humanist Psychology movement understands the Human Being as partially free, which has a margin of freedom of choice for which it is responsible and contributes jointly with the above in shaping the individual as a unique and unrepeatable Person.

According to (B. Castellanos, 1995), man and woman from the humanist perspective are first of all total people, endowed with a unique potential for development; they are singular, active, complex, integral subjects, creative units in permanent dynamics.

This paradigm came to fill a void regarding the socio-affective domain and interpersonal relationships.

The central thesis of this educational model is the maximum learning of each student based on their integral development, as a human person different from others, as a professional in the area of their specialty, and as a constructive member of a society of men, of the which benefits and which it serves with the responsible exercise of its freedom (J. Lafarga 1981).

Meaningful learning occurs when it is self-initiated and on the condition that the student can visualize the objectives, content and activities as something important for their personal development and enrichment.

Students are considered as: individual, unique entities, different from others; people with initiative, with personal needs to grow, with the potential to develop activities and solve problems creatively. Students are people with particular affections, interests and values, who must be considered in their total personality (Hernández Rojas Gerardo, 1998).

Therefore, in order to achieve student learning, it must be involved as a whole (affective and cognitive processes), according to the perception of C. Rogers (1957) he adds that learning should not be imposed by the teacher, but rather that the student be active, decide, move your own resources, develop your potential, take responsibility for your own learning.

The traits that the humanist educator must assume: he must be a teacher interested in the student as a whole person, tries to maintain a receptive attitude towards new forms of teaching, fosters a cooperative spirit in his environment, shows empathy and rejects authoritarian and egocentric positions, makes its knowledge and experience available to students (García Fabela Jorge Luis, 2006).

Humanism defends self-evaluation as a resource that encourages creativity, self-criticism and self-confidence in students; point out that the approach to the individual development of each student is not achieved within an evaluation with external criteria. This reveals the character of facilitator given to the teacher who expresses himself even in the evaluation.

Its application in education refers to the integral development of the person, seeking the self-realization of each one, the realization of their needs and aspirations, for which the teacher can create necessary conditions as a facilitator of the learning process, focusing his methodology on the meaningful experiential learning and self-evaluation that enables self-criticism and self-confidence.

Constructivist paradigm

In the third decade of the 20th century, constructivism appeared, with the first works carried out by Jean Piaget on the logic and verbal thinking of children. There are the theories of Jean Piaget (1952), Jerome Bruner (1960) and D. Ausubel (1963).

According to Jean Piaget the objective of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, while at the same time forming minds that can criticize, verify and not accept everything that is offered. It places great value on the development of the school's autonomy both morally and intellectually.

J. Bruner, argues that discovery learning favors mental development, and is concerned with inducing the learner to an active participation in the learning process, but for this, the contents must be perceived as a set of problems and gaps that are have to solve.

For David Ausubel, the role of the teacher was to create the appropriate conditions through their teaching, so that the knowledge schemes that students build in the course of their school experiences are as precise, complex and correct as possible, in order to achieve meaningful learning.

Constructivism is a theory that explains that human beings construct schemes of cognitive, social and affective aspects every day as a result of their relationship with the environment that surrounds them.

In this process, the teacher reduces his authority so that the student is not subject only to what he says, when he tries to learn or know some school content and does not encourage dependency in him, he must learn to respect the mistakes of the students and the own strategies that elaborate and not atomize a single correct answer.

The student is considered as an active constructor of his own knowledge, favoring self-initiated activities in the classroom, which may be self-structuring in nature.

It should not be overlooked that before planning or programming curricular activities, the student's prior knowledge must be known and taken into account, at what level of intellectual development he is and the social context in which the learning process will take place. teaching-learning.

It is suggested that an ideal learning environment should consider planning, control and learning strategies, to offer students the opportunity to acquire knowledge and practice it in a context of use that is as realistic as possible.

Because it is the student himself who will have to achieve the transfer of the theoretical to practical areas, located in real contexts.

That is why you must have a constructivist perspective, to integrate the importance of emotion and affections, give varied opportunities to develop creativity in students and not memory ability.

The teacher must shed his role as a wise man, contextualize the contents, consider the previous experiences of his students, respect their learning rhythms, etc. and you must learn to build tools that adjust to the new requirements.

For the construction of knowledge to be carried out in school, it is necessary to consider the interactive triangle formed by the constructive mental activity of the student, the learning contents that represent the socially constructed cultural knowledge and the role of the teacher aimed at linking the student's learning with culturally established knowledge.

Sociocultural paradigm

The historical-social paradigm, also called the sociocultural or historical-cultural paradigm, was developed by LS Vygotsky from the 1920s. Even though Vygostky developed these ideas several years ago, it is only until a few decades ago that they really are given to know. It is currently in full development.

For the followers of the historical-social paradigm: «the individual, although important, is not the only variable in learning. His personal history, his social class and consequently his social opportunities, his historical period, the tools he has at his disposal, are variables that not only support learning but are an integral part of it ”.

For Vygotsky the relationship between subject and object of knowledge is not a bipolar relationship as in other paradigms, for him it becomes an open triangle in which the three vertices are represented by subject, object of knowledge and sociocultural artifacts or instruments. And it is open to the influence of its cultural context. In this way, the influence of the cultural context begins to play an essential and determining role in the development of the subject who does not passively receive the influence but actively rebuilds it.

Analyzes the classroom context as influenced by other contexts and in permanent interdependence, attends to the interaction between people and between them and their environment, deepening the reciprocity of their actions, assuming the teaching-learning process as an interactive process.

The objective of the historical-cultural approach; it is to elaborate an explanation of the mind that recognizes the essential relationship between human mental functioning and the cultural, historical and institutional settings from which this functioning is nourished (Wertsch, 1991; Álvarez and Del Río, 1995).

The student must be understood as a social being, product and protagonist of the multiple social interactions in which he is involved throughout his school and extracurricular life, thanks to the socializing processes of interactivity he manages to cultivate and socialize and at the same time he individualizes and self-realizes.

The teacher must be understood as a cultural agent who teaches in a context of socioculturally determined practices and media, and as an essential mediator between sociocultural knowledge and the students' appropriation processes.

The teacher should try in his teaching, the joint creation and construction of a zone of proximal development with the students, through the structure of flexible and strategic scaffolding systems.

The influence of society on the individual does not operate directly, but through certain mediating agents that carry this influence. An example of these are the «group spaces», to which the individual and society are incorporated, which allows to approach the link mechanism; It is in the group where the concrete web of social relations is created through communicative and interactive processes of a certain social activity.

It is through joint activity between students and teachers, and among the students themselves, that an adequate pedagogical communication and affective climate are developed, uniting the cognitive with the affective, respecting individuality, developing knowledge, skills, interests, personality qualities, affection and desired forms of behaviors.

Therefore, the student is considered as an object and subject of their learning, there is an active and responsible participation in their own training process.

The control of the teaching-learning process will be to evaluate how the process is going, take the necessary measures to face the difficulties that arise, using systematic observation, questionnaires and group work as techniques.

conclusion

Contemporary pedagogical perspectives have been characterized, to show teachers and readers the possibilities and alternatives of teaching and evaluation. Each pedagogical model has its advantages, although none is perfect or fully applicable. They are alternatives that the teacher can select according to their coexistence, according to the subject matter, the level of the group of students, and the confidence they gain as they risk trying new ways of teaching.

The behaviorist paradigm is applied: in the modification of behavior in special education, in immediate feedback from the student, respect for individual differences and in the acquisition of rote knowledge. He proposes a basically adaptive and passive model of man, not very creative, denying him the possibility of developing an autonomous intellectual activity and does not recognize the existence of internal processes, since they are not observable and does not facilitate interaction between students.

In the humanist paradigm, it creates students with initiative and self-determination, who realize themselves in all facets of their personality (intellectual, affective and interpersonal), but it also seeks to eliminate from the educational context any factor that may be perceived as threatening, therefore that respect, understanding and support for students is important. It has application in solidarity, flexibility and empathy on the part of the teacher and in the practice of social and individual values.

The Constructivist Paradigm provides varied opportunities to develop creativity in students and not memory ability. The teacher must structure knowledge hierarchically, respect the learning pace of his students and learn to build tools that adjust to new requirements.

It is applicable when carrying out daily planning of learning activities, starting from the general to the particular, but for this, at the beginning of a cycle, a diagnostic test is carried out to determine the knowledge that he masters and to know what his difficulties are for said learning.

The sociocultural paradigm investigates the situations of the scenario of school and social behavior. Students build their own learning and knowledge of their culture which depend on observation and imitation. In the case of the language they occupy (technological language), a student will have appropriated the use of ICT when this new cultural instrument is constitutive of their own identity, which means that they will now think through the new tool.

What is the interactive blackboard also comes in here, this paradigm is influenced by technological advances that arise in changing societies or in some cases it is the opposite as in rural areas other means are sought that are within the reach of the community. This example illustrates the importance of the students' sociocultural context as a rich source of experiences that can be harnessed to activate, order, and signify thinking and learning.