Applying Learning Theories

Question of the day: Is it possible that I've been applying theories I never even knew existed? I suppose so, or perhaps I knew on a subconscious level, having absorbed the knowledge through years of teaching and physical proximity to teachers who actually took education courses in college and grad school.

I think it's been established, in any case, that I'm a humanist-constructivist-social learning pedagogue. Rather than a hyphenated name, I'd prefer to blend all three, but there's no way to do this gracefully. Huconsoc. Humasociaconst. That one has a certain ring to it. Sort of.

I still have a way to go before I  understand who Gagne, Bruner, Skinner, Bandura, Carroll, Vygotsky, and the rest of them actually were and what they thought. I mean, I get the basics at this point, and maybe that's enough, at least for now.

On a more concrete note, it was helpful to trace the use of a constructivist and social learning approach in a particular unit that I teach, namely listening and interpersonal communication skills in Applied Communication 2. I think that looking at teaching approaches and sequences closely can help me to be more deliberate about what I do, and more effective as a teacher as a result.