Learning Theories

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Learning Theories

• Behaviourism, cognitivism, social constructivism.

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Relevance of Learning Theories

• Exploring these topics has relevance for
• A) You
• your personal learning style and study
• B) Your work
• problem solving and design solutions

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Learning

• Psychologists refer to learning as
• a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a
  result of experience
• Learning - not just for the classroom
• Fundamental process in all animals
• the higher up the evolutionary scale, the more
  important is the ability to learn
• Animals adapt their behaviour to fit in with
  their environment and to changing circumstances
• Why? In order to survive!

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Theories on how people learn

• Behaviorism
• Cognitivism
• Social Constructivism
• Piagets Developmental Theory
• Neuroscience
• Brain-Based Learning
• Learning Styles
• Multiple Intelligences
• Right Brain/Left Brain Thinking
• Communities of Practice
• Control Theory
• Observational Learning

http//www.funderstanding.com/content/about-learni
ng
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We are concerned with

• Behaviourism
• actions based on stimuli
• Cognitivism
• learner processes strategies
• Social Constructivism
• knowledge is constructed through
• social interaction

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Behaviourism

• Carrot stick

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Behaviourism

• Overview
• Behaviourism a school of thought that assumes a
  learner is essentially passive, responding to
  environmental stimuli.
• The learner starts off as a clean slate (i.e.
  tabula rasa)
• Much of our behaviour consists of learned
  responses to simple signals
• behaviour is the sum of many simple
  stimulus-response connections
• Basis of the theory
• Reinforcement shapes behaviour
• Positive - increases the probability the behavior
  will happen again
• Negative - decreases the likelihood the behavior
  will happen again
• Positive - indicates the application of a
  stimulus
• Negative - indicates the withholding of a
  stimulus

http//www.learning-theories.com/behaviorism.html
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Focus - scientific objective

• Behaviourists try to explain the causes of
  behaviour by studying only those behaviours that
  can be observed and measured
• Prior to behaviourism unscientific techniques
  such as introspection, dealing with unmeasurable
  aspects of behaviour such as the role of the
  unconscious mind
• Behaviourists focus their efforts on two types of
  learning processes
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning

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BehaviouristsPsychologists who focus on
stimulus-response connections

• Notable behaviourists
• Ivan Pavlov
• (18491936) a Russian physiologist, psychologist,
  and physician
• John Broadus Watson
• (18781958) an American psychologist, established
  the psychological school of behaviorism, after
  doing research on animal behavior
• B. F. Skinner
• (19041990) an American psychologist, author,
  inventor, advocate for social reform, and poet

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Classical Conditioning(Pavlov)

• Learning by association.
• Salivation in dogs as part of research programme
• dogs had started to salivate when they saw the
  people that usually fed them (also responded to
  the sound of the dishes being used for their
  meals)
• Pavlov set up an experiment to find out if the
  dogs could be trained to salivate at other
  stimuli, e.g. a bell or a light
• At feeding times, Pavlov would ring a bell and
  the amount of saliva produced by the dog was
  measured.
• After several 'trials' Pavlov rang the bell
  without presenting the food and found that the
  dogs salivated in the same way as if food was
  being presented.
• Note
• conditional response is the same as unconditioned
  response
• difference response was evoked by a different
  stimulus

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Pavlovs Dog
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Operant Conditioning (Skinner)

• Operant conditioning reinforces the response to a
  stimulus making the response more probable in the
  future.
• Positive reinforcement is when a particular
  behavior is strengthened by the consequence of
  experiencing a positive condition. For example
• A hungry rat presses a bar in its cage and
  receives food. The food is a positive condition
  for the hungry rat. The rat presses the bar
  again, and again receives food. The rat's
  behavior of pressing the bar is strengthened by
  the consequence of receiving food.
• Negative reinforcement is when a particular
  behavior is strengthened by the consequence of
  stopping or avoiding a negative condition. For
  example
• A rat is placed in a cage and immediately
  receives a mild electrical shock on its feet. The
  shock is a negative condition for the rat. The
  rat presses a bar and the shock stops. The rat
  receives another shock, presses the bar again,
  and again the shock stops. The rat's behavior of
  pressing the bar is strengthened by the
  consequence of stopping the shock.
• Punishment a particular behavior is weakened by
  the consequence of experiencing a negative
  condition.
• A rat presses a bar in its cage and receives a
  mild electrical shock on its feet. The shock is a
  negative condition for the rat. The rat presses
  the bar again and again receives a shock. The
  rat's behavior of pressing the bar is weakened by
  the consequence of receiving a shock.
• Extinction a particular behavior is weakened by
  the consequence of not experiencing a positive
  condition or stopping a negative condition. For
  example
• A rat presses a bar in its cage and nothing
  happens. Neither a positive or a negative
  condition exists for the rat. The rat presses the
  bar again and again nothing happens. The rat's
  behavior of pressing the bar is weakened by the
  consequence of not experiencing anything positive
  or stopping anything negative.

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Operant Conditioning
http//www.innovativelearning.com/educational_psyc
hology/behaviorism/Reinforce_Punish.jpg
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Behaviorism Learning

• Learning for behaviourism is defined as a
  permanent change in behavior in the learner.
• This theory is relatively simple to understand
  because it relies only on observable behavior and
  describes several universal laws of behavior.
• Behaviorism often is used by teachers, who reward
  or punish student behaviours.
• Not all students respond to this type of
  motivation...

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Criticisms of Behaviorism

• Too simplistic
• Even simple responses to stimuli require the
  processing of a vast amount of information
• Gaps in science
• Does not explain some learning for for which
  there is no reinforcement mechanism, e.g.
  recognition of new language patterns by young
  children
• Moral implications
• If behavior can be explained without the need to
  consider internal mental states or consciousness,
  what about responsibility?

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Cognativism
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Cognitivism

• The cognitivist paradigm essentially argues that
  the black box of the mind should be opened and
  understood. The learner is viewed as an
  information processor (like a computer).
• Originators and important contributors
• Merrill -Component Display Theory (CDT),
• Reigeluth (Elaboration Theory),
• Gagne,
• Briggs,
• Wager,
• Bruner (moving toward cognitive constructivism),
• Schank (scripts),
• Scandura (structural learning)

http//www.learning-theories.com/cognitivism.html
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Cognitivism - Origins

• 1960s - cognitivist revolution replaced
  behaviorism in as the dominant paradigm.
• Mental processes such as thinking, memory,
  knowing, and problem-solving need to be explored
  (Snelbecker, 1983).
• Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic
  mental constructions.
• Learning is defined as change in a learners
  schemata.

• A response to behaviorism, people are not
  programmed animals that merely respond to
  environmental stimuli people are rational beings
  that require active participation in order to
  learn, and whose actions are a consequence of
  thinking. Changes in behavior are observed, but
  only as an indication of what is occurring in the
  learners head. Cognitivism uses the metaphor of
  the mind as computer information comes in, is
  being processed, and leads to certain outcomes.

http//www.learning-theories.com/cognitivism.html
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Focus - inner mental activities

• Ulric Neisser coined the term 'cognitive
  psychology' in his book, Cognitive Psychology,
  published in 1967
• The term cognition refers to all processes by
  which the sensory input is transformed, reduced,
  elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is
  concerned with these processes even when they
  operate in the absence of relevant stimulation,
  as in images and hallucinations...
• The main issues that interest cognitive
  psychologists are the inner mechanisms of human
  thought and the processes of knowing. Cognitive
  psychologists have attempted to throw light on
  the alleged mental structures that stand in a
  causal relationship to our physical actions.
• Cognitivism investigates the internal mental
  processes of thought, such as
• Visual processing
• Memory
• Problem solving
• Language
• Opening the black box of the human mind is
  valuable and necessary for understanding how
  people learn.

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How does learning occur?

• Learning is equated with discrete changes between
  states of knowledge, rather than with changes in
  the probability of response
• Cognitive theories stress the acquisition of
  knowledge and mental structures
• Focus on students conceptualization of learning
  processes
• Address the issues of how information is
  received, organized stored and is retrieved by
  the mind
• Concerned not so much with what learners do, but
  with what they know and how they come to acquire
  it
• Knowledge acquisition is described as a mental
  activity that requires internal coding and
  structuring by the learning. The learner is a
  very active participant in the learning process.

Ertmer, P. Newby, T. (1993)
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Information processing model

• Explanations for how cognitive processes work are
  known as information processing theories or
  models.
• The three-component model of information
  processing is taught in Educational Psychology.

http//www.innovativelearning.com/educational_psyc
hology/cognitivism/index.htm
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Which factors influence learning?

• Environmental conditions play a role (like in
  Behaviourism)
• Teacher
• Instructional explanations
• Demonstrations
• Illustrative examples
• Practice
• Corrective feedback
• Student (mental activities of the learner)
• Mental planning
• Goal-setting
• Organisational strategies
• The way learners attend to, code, transform,
  rehearse, store and retrieve information
• Learners thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and values
  are influential in learning process
• Focus of cognitive approach is on changing the
  learner by encouraging him/her to use the
  appropriate learning strategies (to cope with
  unstructured domains)

Ertmer, P. Newby, T. (1993)
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Constructivism

• Social Constructivism

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Constructivism

• Constructivism is a theory on how people learn
• It holds that learning is an active, constructive
  process
• Constructivism in education
• the curriculum should be learner-centered rather
  than teacher-centered.
• learners arrive in the educational setting with
  prior knowledge that they can use as a building
  block for acquiring new knowledge.
• learners construct meaning and understanding
  based on prior knowledge. (http//design.test.olt.
  ubc.ca/Cognitive-Construction)
• The learner is an information constructor. People
  actively construct or create their own subjective
  representations of objective reality. New
  information is linked to to prior knowledge.
• The learner is not a blank slate (tabula rasa)
  but brings past experiences and cultural factors
  to a situation.

http//www.learning-theories.com/constructivism.ht
ml
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Some of the guiding principles of constructivism
in education

• Learning is a search for meaning. Therefore,
  learning must start with the issues around which
  students are actively trying to construct
  meaning.
• Meaning requires understanding wholes as well as
  parts. And parts must be understood in the
  context of wholes. Therefore, the learning
  process focuses on primary concepts, not isolated
  facts.
• The purpose of learning is for an individual to
  construct his or her own meaning, not just
  memorize the right answers and regurgitate
  someone elses meaning.

http//www.funderstanding.com/content/constructivi
sm Jacqueline and Martin Brooks, The Case for
Constructivist Classrooms.
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Parts must be understood in the context of
wholes.
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Originators and important contributors

• Originators and important contributors
• Vygotsky, Piaget, Dewey, Vico, Rorty, Bruner
• Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky
• (18961934) a Russian-Belarusian psychologist,
  developed a social constructivism view of
  learning (zone of proximal development). Work
  was largely unkown to the West until it was
  published in 1962.
• Jean Piaget
• (18961980) a Swiss psychologist and philosopher,
  well known for his pedagogical studies.

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Vygotsky social constructivism

• Vygotsky believed that learning is a social
  process, hence his theory is referred to as
  social constructivism
• Vygotskys social development theory is one of
  the foundations for constructivism.
• He believed that language, particularly self-talk
  and inner speech, plays a major role in learning.
  
• Major applications of Vygotsky's theory to
  education include
• Zone of Proximal Development
• Scaffolding
• Guided participation
• Apprenticeship
• Peer interaction

http//www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-
learning-theory.html
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Vygotskys focus

• Vygotsky focused on the connections between
  people and the sociocultural context in which
  they act and interact in shared experiences
  (Crawford, 1996).
• According to Vygotsky, humans use tools that
  develop from a culture, such as speech and
  writing, to mediate their social environments.
  Initially children develop these tools to serve
  solely as social functions, ways to communicate
  needs.
• Vygotsky believed that the internalization of
  these tools led to higher thinking skills.

http//www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-
learning-theory.html
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Social Development Theory

• Vygotskys social development theory asserts
  three major themes
• Social interaction plays a fundamental role in
  cognitive development.
• Vygotsky felt social learning precedes
  development
• Every function in the childs cultural
  development appears twice first, on the social
  level, and later, on the individual level first,
  between people (interpsychological) and then
  inside the child (intrapsychological).
  (Vygotsky, 1978).
• The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO).
• The MKO refers to anyone who has a better
  understanding or a higher ability level than the
  learner, with respect to a particular task,
  process, or concept. The MKO is normally thought
  of as being a teacher, coach, or older adult, but
  the MKO could also be peers, a younger person, or
  even computers.
• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
• The ZPD is the distance between a students
  ability to perform a task under adult guidance
  and/or with peer collaboration and the students
  ability solving the problem independently.
  According to Vygotsky, learning occurred in this
  zone.

http//www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-
learning-theory.html
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Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
"What a child can do with assistance today, she
will be able to do by herself tomorrow"
(Vygotsky, p. 81, 1978).
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Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - definition

• Within this definition, all three themes of
  Vygotskys writings are apparent.
• There is a social aspect, consisting of someone
  with expertise providing guidance
• The social connections in conjunction with
  various cultural mediators, like symbols or even
  technology, allow for...
• internalization of these processes to be applied
  in the future by the learners themselves

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Social Development in Education

• Many schools have traditionally held a
  transmissionist or instructionist model in which
  a teacher or lecturer transmits information to
  students.
• In contrast, Vygotskys theory promotes learning
  contexts in which students play an active role in
  learning.
• Roles of the teacher and student are therefore
  shifted, as a teacher should collaborate with his
  or her students in order to help facilitate
  meaning construction in students. Learning
  becomes a reciprocal experience for the students
  and teacher.
• In a constructivist classroom the teacher must
  function not as the "knower of all things", but
  as a facilitator of learning.
• Constructivism is a highly progressive model of
  education because it transfers control of
  learning from the teacher to the learner.
• No longer an instructor, the term coach may be
  a better application in educational settings.
• The learner constructs and validates his/her own
  set of knowledge with the prodding and
  instructions of his/her coach. Knowledge is
  negotiated and achieved through collaborative
  work (Mishra, 2002).

http//design.test.olt.ubc.ca/Vygotsky27s_Zone_of
_Proximal_Development
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Constructivist Learning Goals

• Constructivist Learning Goals
• Emphasizes learning in context through
• meaningful activities
• Focus on high-level thinking activities to
  develop cognitive flexibility
• Constructivists are interested in having learners
  identify and pursue their own learning goals
• Problem solving, reasoning, critical thinking and
  reflection constitute the goals of constructivist
  instruction

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Constructivist Assumptions about Learning

• Constructivism is a view in which knowledge is
  believed to be constructed rather than acquired.
  It is not one theory but a multitude of
  approaches.
• Only the active learner is a successful learner.
  Learning by doing enables learners to achieve
  deep levels of understanding.
• Knowledge is constructed by learners as they
  attempt to make sense of their experiences.
• Learners are actively seeking meaning because
  learning with understanding is desired, as
  opposed to rote learning.
• Many constructivist theorists agree that there is
  a social component to learning, as learners test
  their own understandings against those of others,
  such as those of teachers or more advanced peers.
  Therefore, the social structure of a learning
  environment is important

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Constructivist Conditions for Learning -
conclusion

• Process not products
• Focus on the process of learning, rather than the
  products of learning. This can be accomplished by
  embedding learning in complex, realistic and
  relevant environments.
• Minimal hand-holding
• Simplifying tasks for learners will prevent them
  from learning how to solve the complex problems
  they will solve in real life by providing for
  social negotiation as an essential part of
  learning.
• Academic / social development
• Higher mental processes develop through social
  interaction. Students develop and defend
  individual perspectives while recognizing those
  of others and teachers support multiple
  perspectives and the use of multiple modes of
  representation.
• Mulit-sensory experience
• Viewing the same content through different
  sensory modes (such as visual, auditory, or
  tactile) enables different aspects of it to be
  seen and encourages ownership in learning.
• Self-direction
• Students are actively involved in determining
  what their own learning needs are and how those
  needs can be satisfied, rather than being passive
  recipients of instruction that has been designed
  for them. Teachers share in the learning process
  rather than controlling it.

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Recap on Learning Theories

• Behaviourism, cognativism, social constructivism

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Learning Theories
Adapted from Siemens' (2006) response to
Verhagen, Connectivisim Learning theory or
pastime for the self-amused? http//design.test.o
lt.ubc.ca/Situating_Connectivism based on Ertmer,
P. Newby, T. (1993) 'Behaviorism, cognitivism,
constructivism comparing critical features from
an instructional design perspective', Performance
Improvement Quarterly, 6(4) 50-72
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Learning Theories

• Behaviourism
• stimulus-response
• Cognativism
• mind is an operating system
• Social Constructivism
• knowledge is constructed in a social context