Article Review Educ 205

The article I chose to read this week is entitled “Creating the successful community college student: Using behaviorism to foster constructivism.” This article, written by Michael V. Miranda, is about the constructivist theory of education, and its success or fail with college students. Miranda explains that the reason constructivism does not work well within the college community is because of past unconstructive classroom experiences, feelings of underperformance, and negative mindsets about education. He goes on to explain the often, a behaviorist take on education is more effective in a college setting.
Many teachers prefer the techniques of constructivism, because building new information on a foundation of what has already been learned is an obvious, logical approach to teaching. On the other hand, behaviorism is conditioning students to learn with things like key words and, of course, behaviors. Miranda states that many college-aged students are turned off to the idea of four-year colleges and universities due to the expense of state colleges and big name universities, and the number of students enrolled in community colleges has increased dramatically in recent years. He goes on to explain that there are three areas in which a community college student is likely to be lacking. The first area is in their level of academic readiness. The second is their amount of academic skills needed in order to flourish in classes, and the third is academic confidence. Because students recognize that they are deficient in their academic readiness, they are most likely to be lacking the intrinsic motivation needed to succeed in any higher education. Additionally, many students do not have the necessary study habits, note-taking skills, test preparation, or even simple classroom conduct required at a college level. This level of unpreparedness would require a professor who gives extremely specific instructions and lectures on how to master the class and the tasks involved....