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Before diving into discussion on how educators can use paradigms to help students comprehend course material more easily and readily, it helps to first define what exactly a paradigm is. A paradigm is something that serves as a model. When someone uses a paradigm, it shifts one’s way of thinking to another. For example, we can think about the paradigm-shift moving scientific theory from the Ptolemaic system (the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe) to the Copernican system (the idea that the sun is at the center of the universe), and the move from Newtonian physics to Relativity and Quantum Physics. As old beliefs became replaced by new paradigms, there was a change in the world view. For millions of years, the world has been continually evolving, and there is no sign of this stopping.
While humans often try to resist difficult and inevitable change, there are ways in which society can learn through experience. Kuhn states that “awareness is prerequisite to all acceptable changes of theory.”[1] In order to keep up in society, we must change our mental perspectives and allow our consciousness to transform and transcend. We must become awakened as our consciousness grows more aware of inevitable change. The human mind is not something that is entirely restricted; it too can change as things in society change. It is for this reason that paradigms become an important concept to understand and embrace in teaching.
In the educational institution, teaching children how to construct paradigms allows for them to expand their understanding of certain everyday world issues. It is possible for educators to shape children’s behavior by having children role play to model good behavior. This idea relates to the traditional behavioral paradigm psychologist John Watson established, known as conditioning. Learning is believed to occur through a process of conditioning in the exercise of repetition, which leads to memorization. Based on the assumption that learning is a function of conditioning, it is believed to be possible to shape human behavior to any desired form. It is this assumption that leads educators to place aim on the mechanics of learning and learning strategies such as competition, fragmentation of content, learning for content, cultural uniformity, technologies of learning, behavioral outcomes, and so on.[2]
[1] Kuhn, Thomas, S., “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Second Edition, Enlarged, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970(1962) Further reference to this source in parentheses (Kuhn, p#).
Metaphor: Making the Abstract Concrete and Visual 