Tying Your Shoes

Directions: Imagine that you have been asked to teach a young child how to tie their shoes. How would you introduce and structure the learning activity as a:

Behaviorist

From the start, I would have the child tell me what they see when they look at a shoe. I would ask them to compare their shoe to something in their everyday life. After discussing that, I would then tell the child that to me a shoe is like a present that needs to be wrapped with ribbon. I would then slowly show them how to tie a shoe and tell them that after each time that they can successfully tie their shoe, I would give them some type of reward. I would then go through the process much slower, breaking it down into steps and compare each step to wrapping the ribbon around a present. After I did one step, I would have the child show me they knew how to do it and I would make them repeat it a few times to ensure that they fully knew how to do that step. After one step, I would have them combine the steps to ensure that they really knew each step. When all the steps were complete, I would have them show me how to tie a shoe. Whenever they would make a mistake, I would tell them everything was okay and I would have them walk me through the steps, correcting them when they would make mistakes. Whenever they would complete the task, I would give them a reward.

Cognitivist

At the beginning, I would ask the child to tell me what they already know about tying shoes. After they finished telling me, I would ask them to tell me how they think the process might be for tying a shoe. After that, I would show the child each step to tying their shoe and I would explain how and what I was doing. After each step, I would have the child think through that step, and show and tell me what they were doing. I would have them do each step this way, and when they were finished, I would ask them what their thoughts were about tying a shoe. I would also have them explain the process to me, to ensure that they paid close attention and to ensure that they recalled everything just taught to them.

Constructivist

For this theory, I would