Month: September 2021

I have overcome many learning challenges. When I first learned English, I overcame the challenge of memorizing many English words. This was a great challenge because the words that I need to memorize were numerous, and my time and memory were limited. I was required to memorize as many English words as possible in order to study abroad and better adapt to the new environment. This was very challenging because I had to take many other classes at the same time and achieved high academic scores. Therefore, I only had very limited time and energy to learn English. I overcame this challenge by using effective reinforcement, which is a key concept in behaviorism (West, 2020). More specifically, I gave myself rewards, such as watching a film, hanging out with friends, and so on, after memorizing a certain number of words.

Learning about the concepts of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism is very helpful for me to better understand learning. When a high school social study teacher is planning a class on climate change, a behaviorist would suggest the teacher ask students some questions as feedback so as to understand their learning efficiency. A cognitivist will guide the teacher to help the students relate the new knowledge to some previous knowledge that they have learned. A constructivist will suggest the teacher require the students to observe some changes brought by climate change in the real world. These concepts could be applied to understand my own learning experience. My parents taught me how to use chopsticks by giving me some candies if I used them correctly, and this is an example of behaviorism. I was taught about multiplication by relating it to my previous knowledge about addition, which is an example of cognitivism. I was taught about sexism by interpreting this concept and related theories based on my personal experience, which is an example of constructivism. I consider my current instruction style more cognitivist because the new skills or knowledge that I am learning are associated with my existing knowledge or skills, and I always made connections between them in the learning process.

Hi, this is Yixuan’s Blog, and I’m going to make a brief self introduction here today. As my title shows, my name is Yixuan Zhang, you can call me Yixuan or Gwen. I come from Shenzhen, which is a coastal city in the south of China, but in fact, I am not a native of Shenzhen, I was born in Harbin, an ice and snow city in the north of China, when I was two years old, I followed my parents to live in Shenzhen. This is my third year in UVic, and my major is economics. I’m extremely happy to meet you here, and hope we spend an enjoyable semester, thank you.