外语自主学习

来源  旺旺英语论坛

外语自主学习

外语自主学习兴起于上个世纪九十年代初，它是在终身教育的需求下发展起来的。自主学习包括两层含义，首先是学习者应该对自己的学习负责，其次是学习者部分或者完全有权决定那些传统上由教师决定的事项，比如制订教学目标、选择学习方法以及评估学习进程等。

外语自主学习实在教育心理学的三大主要流派——

• 人本主义
• 认知主义
• 建构主义

的基础上发展起来的。

1 人本主义学习理论

人本主义的主要代表人物为Maslow和Rogers等。Maslow对心理学的最重大贡献之一是他的基本需要理论，两次提出人的需要等级表，指出人有

• 基本生理需要(Basic physiological need)、
• 安全需要(Need for safety and security)、
• 归属和爱的需要(Need for interpersonal closeness)、
• 尊重需要(Need for self-esteem)、
• 认知需要(Cognitive needs)、
• 对美的需要(Aesthetic needs)和
• 自我实现的需要(Self-actualization，

前四种需要属于基本需要(Maintenance needs／Deficiency need8)，
后三种需要属发展需要( needs／Being Deeds)。
同时他还指出，如果某一等级的需要得不到满足，或因为某种原因不能实现，那么高于该等级的下一级需要就很难甚至不可能被实现。人本主义者认为，学习是具有独特的品质的人的学习；学习者的情感、意愿、需要必须得到充分的重视和满足。

2 认知学习理论

加工理论是现代认识心理学最重要的理论。国内甚至有学者把它当作现代认知心理学的代名词。它是在二十世纪五、六十年代，受西方传统哲学和邻近科学如信息论、控制论、系统论、计算机科学以及语言学的影响而发展起来的新兴理论。信息加工理论认为学习是—个学习者吸收信息、加工信息、处理信息的过程。

美国著名信息加工心理学家Simon认为，一个完善的信息加工系统应该具有下列六种功能：
(1)输入符号、
(2)输出符号、
(3)存储符号、
(4)复制符号、
(5)建立符号结构、
(6)条件性迁移。可见，信息加工理论的研究重点是注意、感知和记忆。

3 构建主义学习理论

当今建构主义者认为虽然世界是客观存在的，但是对于世界的理解和赋予意义是由每个人自己决定的。人们是以自己的经验为基础构建、解释现实；由于个人的经验、信念不同，对外部世界的理解也有差异。他们更加关注如何以原有的经验、心理结构和信念为基础构建知识。 Williams 和 Burden吸取人本主义、认知主义以及社会互动理论思想精华提出的社会建构主义理论可能是迄今为止最完善的建构主义理论。她们提出的社会建构主义的教学模式包含四个关键因素：教师、学生、任务和环境，其中任何一个因素都不可能孤立于其它因素而存在，它们之间的交互是一个动态的、发展的过程。在这一过程中。教师设置体现自己教学理念的教学任务；学生作为个人理解这些任务的意义和个人相关性；任务则成为教师和学生的连接界面。教师与学生之间也有互动。教师的行为反映他们的价值观念。学生对教师的反应方式与他们的个人特征有关。这样教师、学生、任务三者处于一种动态的平衡之中。此外，对学习过程起重要作用的还有环境—— 从课堂的情感环境、整个学校的风气，到大的社会环境，可用若干个同心圆来表示，处在中心的当然是教学过程的参与者。



关于Constructionist learning
参见wikipedia

Constructionism (learning theory)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Constructionist learning is inspired by constructivist theories of learning that propose that learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism holds that learning can happen felicitously when people are actively making things in the real world. Constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on some of the ideas of Jean Piaget.

Seymour Papert defined constructionism in a proposal to the National Science Foundation entitled Constructionism: A New Opportunity for Elementary Science Education as follows: "The word constructionism is a mnemonic for two aspects of the theory of science education underlying this project. From constructivist theories of psychology we take a view of learning as a reconstruction rather than as a transmission of knowledge. Then we extend the idea of manipulative materials to the idea that learning is most effective when part of an activity the learner experiences as constructing a meaningful product."

As Papert and Idit Harel say at the start of Situating Constructionism, "It is easy enough to formulate simple catchy versions of the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as 'learning-by-making'. One purpose of this introductory chapter is to orient the reader toward using the diversity in the volume to elaborate—to construct—a sense of constructionism much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications, than could be conveyed by any such formula."

Papert's ideas became well-known through the publication of his seminal book, "Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas" (Basic Books, 1980). Papert described children creating programs in the Logo language. He likened their learning to a living in a "mathland," where learning mathematical ideas is as natural as learning French while living in France.

Papert has been a huge proponent of bringing IT to classrooms, as in his early uses of the Logo language to teach mathematics to children. Constructionist learning involves students drawing their own conclusions through creative experimentation and the making of social objects. The constructionist teacher takes on a mediational role rather than adopting an instructionist position. Teaching "at" students is replaced by assisting them to understand—and help one another to understand—problems in a hands-on way.

While constructionism has, due to its impetus, been primarily used in science and mathematics teaching (in the form of inquiry-based science), it is arguable that it developed in a differerent form in the field of media studies in which students often engage with media theory and practice simultaneously, in a complementary praxis. More recently it has gained a foot hold in Applied linguistics, in the field of second language acquisition (or SLA). One such application has been the use of the popular game SimCity as a means of teaching English using constructionist techniques (Gromik:2004).

Begininning in the 1980s, The Lego Group funded research in Papert's research group at the MIT Media Laboratory, which at the time was known as the "Epistemology and Learning Group." When Lego launched its Mindstorms Robotics Invention System in 1998, which was based on work in his group, they received permission to use the moniker "Mindstorms" from Seymour's 1980 book title. In Lego's Serious Play project, business people learn to express corporate issues and identity through the medium of plastic bricks -- another form of constructionist learning.

In 2005, Papert, together with Nicholas Negroponte and Alan Kay launched the One Laptop Per Child initiative to put constructionist learning into practice in the developing world. The aim is to provide $100 laptops to every child in the developing world.