Category Archives: Learning

My training/learning philosophy is based on the constructivist and pragmatic theories with a humanistic approach to it. To explain my philosophy I want to start by citing Eduard Lindenman, 1926 (from Knowles, 1998), “Experience is the adult learner’s living textbook. Based on this statement, I like to provide the adult learner with a common background knowledge using a constructivist approach. In this way I am not lecturing information but instead the learner is creating its own mental squema through a concrete experience. This active experience could be anything from reading a book to interacting with objects to building book shelves. This combines the constructivist approaches that the learner constructs its own knowledge, (based on Piagets’ theory of assimilation and accommodation) and the Deweys’ “learning by doing” pragmatic approach to acquiring knowledge through experiences. The pragmatic philosophy placed the students and their needs and interest on center stage as oppose to putting the subject matter in the center of the educational focus (Knight, 1989)

In addition, the humanistic approach provides a sense of self actualization, personal involvement, self initiation, pervasiveness, evaluation by the learner and its essence is meaning (Knowles, 1998). This humanistic approach is based on Carl Roger and Maslow elements of humanistic psychology.