1. Edward Thorndike- First propose the connectionism.
He is popular in the 1st half of the
20th century, he said that learning is the responding to stimuli. 2. Connectionism- Thorndike main philosophy. It say that learning is a product of the relationship between stimulus and response. Stimulus- is something that causes a reaction for example think of what happen when a big pieces of gooey chocolate cake is put in front of you? The sight and smell of the cake are the stimulus and they are likely to produce a response and maybe even a growling stomach. - Stimulus and response are connected in a person minds, like associating in chocolate cake with drooling. This connection between stimulus and response is called Stimulus- response band or the S- R bond. The stronger the band the better the person has learned the lesson. What is the connection in education? If the student every time they study their lesson they got a good grade and every time they did not study they got a bad grade. - Where is the stimulus? – Study - Where is the response- good grade = S-R bond Strong The student believe that studying lead to good grade. 3. Law of Effect- the 1st law of connectionism - If the stimulus result in a positive outcome, it strengthen the S-R bond. - If the result is negative the S-R bond is weak. - Example: the student got a good grade after studying – strong S-R bond - The student think that the result of studying is a good grade. - On the other side, if the student don’t study they get a low grade, so the S-R bond weakend. The student learn that not studying result in low grade. Advantages in Law of effect: it could use as a reward effort to make the struggling students work hard to get his reward.