Title: The teaching-learning dynamic from behaviourism to social constructionism: a communication-centred narrative

Authors: Salaheddine Mnasri; Stavros Papakonstantinidis

Addresses: American University of the Middle East, 250 St, Kuwait ' Central College, Iowa, USA

Abstract: The paper explores the teacher-learner relationship and the perceived role of communication by comparing the five dominant learning theories: behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism, humanism, and social constructionism. Prior studies argue that learning is a matter of conditioning, occurs through transmission, is brain-governed and is separable from communication. In contrast to past research, we adopt a social constructionist perspective to argue that communicating and knowing are interdependent activities. The paper offers a novel communication-centred narrative to highlight the relationship between communicating and learning. The study proposes a new model representing the teaching-learning dynamic and offers direct implications on the teacher-learner relationship, calling for a new taxonomy of learning.

Keywords: teacher-learner relationship; learning theories; communication; social constructionism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLC.2023.130629

International Journal of Learning and Change, 2023 Vol.15 No.3, pp.312 - 327

Received: 18 Nov 2020
Accepted: 11 May 2021
Published online: 02 May 2023 *

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