LU 2 Theme 2

TIMA5111
Learning Outcomes

LO4: Apply
different theories LO5: Articulate a
of learning to personal theory of
explain provided Mathematics
mathematical learning.
learning scenarios.
Learning theories

There are 3 main schemas of learning theories; Behaviorism, Cognitivism and

Constructivism. In this article you will find a breakdown of each one and an
explanation of the 15 most influential learning theories; from Vygotsky to Piaget
and Bloom to Maslow and Bruner.
Swimming through treacle!
That’swhat it feels like when you are trying to sort through and make sense of the
vast amount of learning theories we have at our disposal.
Way back in ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, first pondered the question
“How does an individual learn something new if the subject itself is new to them”
(ok, so I’m paraphrasing, my ancient Greek isn’t very good!).
Since Plato, many theorists have emerged, all with their different take on how
students learn. Learning theories are a set of principles that explain how best a
student can acquire, retain and recall new information.
Inthis complete summary, we will look at the work of the following learning
theorists.
Despite the fact there are so many educational theorists, there are three labels
that they all fall under. Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism.
 Behaviourism is based on the idea that knowledge is
independent and on the exterior of the learner. In a
behaviourist's mind, the learner is a blank slate that
should be provided with the information to be learnt.
 Through this interaction, new associations are made
and thus learning occurs. Learning is achieved when
the provided stimulus changes behaviour. A non-
educational example of this is the work done by Pavlov.
 Through his famous “salivating dog” experiment,
Pavlov showed that a stimulus (in this case ringing a
bell every time he fed the dog) caused the dog to
eventually start salivating when he heard a bell ring.
Behaviourism  The dog associated the bell ring with being provided
with food so any time a bell was rung the dog started
salivating, it had learnt that the noise was a precursor
to being fed.
 A similar approach can be used for classroom
management:
 To adapt body language. You may teach your learners
that if you stand in a specific place in the classroom
with your arms folded, they know that you are getting
frustrated with the level of noise and they start to
quieten down or if you sit cross-legged on my desk,
you are about to say something important, supportive
and they should listen because it affects them directly.
 Constructivism is based on the premise that we
construct learning new ideas based on our own
prior knowledge and experiences. Learning,
therefore, is unique to the individual learner.
Students adapt their models of understanding
either by reflecting on prior theories or resolving
misconceptions.

Constructivis  Students need to have a prior base of knowledge

for constructivist approaches to be effective.
Bruner’s spiral curriculum is a great example of
m constructivism in action.
 As students are constructing their own knowledge
base, outcomes cannot always be anticipated,
therefore, the teacher should check and challenge
misconceptions that may have arisen. When
consistent outcomes are required, a constructivist
approach may not be the ideal theory to use.
 Examples of constructivism in the classroom
include problem-based learning, research and
creative projects and group collaborations.
 In contrast to behaviourism, cognitivism focuses on the
idea that students process information they receive
rather than just responding to a stimulus, as with
behaviourism.
 There is still a behaviour change evident, but this is in
response to thinking and processing information.
 Cognitive theories were developed in the early 1900s
in Germany from Gestalt psychology by Wolfgang
Kohler. In English, Gestalt roughly translates to the
organization of something, that is viewed as more than
the sum of its individual parts.
 Cognitivism has given rise to many evidence-based
Cognitivism education theories, including cognitive load theory,
schema theory and dual coding theory as well as being
the basis for retrieval practice.
 In cognitivism theory, learning occurs when the
student reorganises information, either by finding new
explanations or adapting old ones.
 This is viewed as a change in knowledge and is stored
in the memory rather than just being viewed as a
change in behaviour. Cognitive learning theories are
mainly attributed to Jean Piaget.
 Examples of how teachers can include cognitivism in
their classroom include linking concepts together,
linking concepts to real-world examples, discussions
and problem-solving.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

 Piaget is an interesting character in Psychology. His theory of learning differs from many others in some
important ways:
 First, he focuses exclusively on children; Second, he talks about development (not learning per se) and
Third, it’s a stage theory, not a linear progression theory. OK, so what’s he on about?
 Well, there are some basic ideas to get your head around and some stages to understand too. The basic
ideas are:
 Schemas: The building blocks of knowledge.
 Adaptation processes: These allow the transition from one stage to another. He called these: Equilibrium,
Assimilation and Accommodation.
 Stages of Cognitive development: Sensorimotor; Preoperational; Concrete Operational; Formal
Operational.
 So here’s how it goes. Children develop Schemas of knowledge about the world. These are clusters of
connected ideas about things in the real world that allow the child to respond accordingly.
 When the child has developed a working Schema that can explain what they perceive in the world, that
Schema is in a state of Equilibrium.
 When the child uses the schema to deal with a new thing or situation, that Schema is in Assimilation and
Accommodation happens when the existing Schema isn’t up to the job of explaining what’s going on and
needs to be changed.
Vygotsky’s Theory of Learning

 Vygotsky takes a different approach to Piaget’s idea that

development precedes learning.
 Instead, he reckons that social learning is an integral part of
cognitive development, and it is culture, not developmental
Stage that underlies cognitive development. Because of
that, he argues that learning varies across cultures rather
than being a universal process driven by the kind of
structures and processes put forward by Piaget.
 Zone of Proximal Development
 He makes a big deal of the idea of the Zone of Proximal
Development in which children and those they are learning
from co-construct knowledge. Therefore, the social
environment in which children learn has a massive impact
on how they think and what they think about.
 What are crucial in this learning theory are the ideas of Scaffolding, the Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD) and the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO). Here is how
all that works:
 The MKO can be (but does not have to be) a person who literally knows more than the
child. Working collaboratively, the child and the MKO operate in the ZPD, which is the bit of
learning that the child can’t do on their own.
 As the child develops, the ZPD gets bigger because they can do more on their own and the
process of enlarging the ZPD is called Scaffolding.
 Knowing where that scaffold should be set is massively important and it is the MKO’s job to
do that so that the child can work independently AND learn collaboratively.
 For Vygotsky, language is at the heart of all this because a) it is the primary means by
which the MKO and the child communicate ideas and b) internalizing it is enormously
powerful in cementing understanding about the world.
 That internalisation of speech becomes Private Speech (the child’s “inner voice”) and is
distinct from Social Speech, which occurs between people.
 The bottom line here is that the richer the sociocultural environment, the more tools will be
available to the child in the ZPD and the more Social Speech they will internalize as Private
Speech. It doesn’t take a genius to work out, therefore, that the learning environment and
interactions are everything.
Gagné’s Conditions of
Learning
Robert Mills Gagné was an American educational
psychologist who, in 1965 published his book
“The Conditions of Learning”. In it, he discusses
the analysis of learning objectives and how the
different classes of objective require specific
teaching methods
 He called these his 5 conditions of learning, all of
which fall under the cognitive, affective and psycho-
motor domains discussed earlier.
Gagné’s 5 Conditions of Learning
 Verbal information (Cognitive domain)
 Intellectual skills (Cognitive domain)
 Cognitive strategies (Cognitive domain)
 Motor skills (Psycho-Motor domain)
 Attitudes (Affective domain)
Gagné’s 9 Levels of Learning
To achieve his five conditions of learning, Gagné believed that
learning would take place when students progress through nine
levels of learning and that any teaching session should include a
sequence of events through all nine levels. The idea was that the
nine levels of learning activate the five conditions of learning and
thus, learning will be achieved.
1. Gain attention.
2. Inform students of the objective.
3. Stimulate recall of prior learning.
4. Present the content.
5. Provide learning guidance.
6. Elicit performance (practice).
7. Provide feedback.
8. Assess performance.
9. Enhance retention and transfer to the job.
Skinner’s Behaviorist
Theory

Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is based on Thorndike’s “Law of Effect” (1898), in
which it is proposed that behaviors that are followed by positive
responses are likely to be repeated and those that are followed by
negative responses, not repeated.
Skinner refined the Law of Effect by introducing “reinforcement” into
the descriptions. Using Skinner’s new description, we end up with; those
behaviors that are reinforced are repeated (strengthened) and those not
reinforced tend to dissipate (are weakened).
Positive Reinforcement
From a classroom management perspective, positive reinforcement is
an essential strategy for teaching students how to act and conduct
themselves.
Positive reinforcement (e.g. praise) should be given for behaviors that
are desirable, for example, verbally answering questions in class.
Initially, this should be done for all answers given, regardless of whether
they are correct. This will build a culture of answering questions.
Social learning theory?
 Social learning theory is based on the premise that people learn not only
through direct experience, but also by observing others. Albert Bandura, a
Canadian psychologist, developed this theory in the 1960s, enriching it with
these key concepts: firstly, that in social settings, people learn best through
observation and imitation; secondly, that a person’s mental state can affect
this learning process; and lastly that even when something is learned in this
environment, it does not mean that there will necessarily be a permanent
change in behaviour in the learner.
 in his social learning theory Bandura states that, contrary to what was
previously believed, it would in fact be very dangerous if a person learned
only from their own experience. Instead, most humans learn to behave
observationally through a process called modelling, and in his book Social
Learning Theory, Bandura outlines his theory through four key principles:
Attention, Retention, Reproduction and Motivation
 Bandura’s social learning theory has undoubtedly had a great impact on
psychology, but especially on education. This has led to the creation of a
number of effective pedagogical practices, some of which we will take a
closer look at below:
 Behavioural modelling
 Self-efficacy
 Reinforcement and punishment
 Collaborative learning
 Self-regulation
Bloom’s Domains of Learning
(Bloom’s taxonomy)

In 1956, American educational psychologist, Benjamin Bloom, first proposed three
domains of learning; cognitive, affective and psycho-motor. Bloom worked in collaboration
with David Krathwohl and Anne Harrow throughout the 1950s-70s on the three domains.
The Cognitive Domain (Bloom’s Taxonomy)
This was the first domain to be proposed in 1956 and it focuses on the idea that
objectives that are related to cognition could be divided into subdivisions and ranked in
order of cognitive difficulty.
These ranked subdivisions are what we commonly refer to as Bloom’s taxonomy. The
original subdivisions are as follows (knowledge is the lowest with evaluation being the
most cognitively difficult):
Knowledge

Understanding

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

However, there was a major revision of the subdivisions in 2000-01 by Bloom’s original
partner, David Krathwohl and his colleague, Lorin Anderson (Anderson was a former
student of Bloom’s).
The highlights of this revision were switching names of the subdivisions from nouns to
verbs, thus making them easier to use when curriculum and lesson planning.
Amongst the discussed theories. Which ones
do you think will best suit your teaching style?
Discussion Why?
THANK
YOU