Pragmatism As A Paradigm In Education

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A paradigm may be thought of as pattern or model of how something is structured and how its parts function. Paradigm can be defined in different ways Harmon in Huit (2011) define it as the as "…the basic way of perceiving, thinking, valuing, and doing associated with a particular vision of reality..." while Baker defined a paradigm as "a set of rules and regulations that does two things firstly it establishes or defines boundaries and secondly it tells you how to behave inside those boundaries in order to be successful. All in all every individual have paradigm that cover many aspect of life even on Education. Education has its own paradigms which is what this paper will be focussing on. There are four that this paper it is entitled on which are Pragmatism, constructivism, Critical Theory and Behaviourism.
Pragmatism it is a paradigm in which knowledge is developed from practice or in a practical way in other words “what is true is what works”. All that can be known is dependent upon experience, and the experiencing of phenomena determines knowledge. Pragmatism it consist of nine principle which are changing nature of truth, truth is constructed from experience, problems as the motives of truth, emphasis on, social and democratic values, emphasis on the principle of utility, opposing to fixed ideals and values, importance of man power, importance of activity, faith in present and future, opposition to social customs and traditions, faith in pluralism and faith in flexibility.
In pragmatism the teacher develop a problematic experience to learners then leaners come up with solution and during that time they learn. The he introduce problem and then the learner is asked to find solution to that problem, so during the course of the so...

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...hat activity it will be weaken.
In reference to the school I went during practical teaching I observed my Life Science mentor apply this paradigm by creating a game like classwork in grade 12 class. The topic was about the process of protein synthesis. He took the manual that have paragraphs on it followed by about that paragraph and a blank space for learners to write the answers. If the learner answered the question correctly that learner was praised or rewarded by sticker and the one who got that question was punished by going back and read the paragraph until he got that question right. This was followed by another piece of paragraph and another question, this method continue until the end of the manual. In this method leaners were actively involved and they were also immediate reinforcement of correct answers to encourage the positive behaviour.

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