2. What is learning?
Learning happens when an individual acquires a desired response to a certain stimulus. Anything that happens
in the mind is unseen and is therefore not a focus in learning. The motive for behaviour is always in the
individual’s environment.
The role of the educator
The educator is responsible for arranging the stimulus and providing feedback to elicit the desired behaviour.
There are predetermined “right” and “wrong” ways of approaching learning, and the educator must use cues to
guide a learner in their response.
Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, conducted experiments on his dogs to illustrate how behaviour can be
conditioned and reinforced. In order to understand how these experiments helped to shape the behaviourist
view of learning, read more about them here:
http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/pavlov/readmore.html
The role of the learner
The learner is largely passive. They are required to do little more than receive stimuli (a question, for example)
and feedback (praise or punishment) based on a demonstrable behaviour (their answer to a question, for
example).
Watch the following video of B.F. Skinner, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, discussing the latest
piece of educational technology in 1954, the Teaching Machine.
Video 1: B.F. Skinner talks about the Teaching Machine in 1954.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTH3ob1IRFo)
Behaviourism
Behaviourism emerged in the Industrial Age, a time of mass production and mechanisation, with its impact on
education first felt in the 1920s. The behaviourist approach to learning focuses on what can be observed and
measured. It began as an attempt to make psychology as objective and empirical as science.
3. What is learning?
Behaviour is an indicator of the intrinsic mental processes learners use when they learn. Learning happens
when there is a change in the knowledge stored in memory. Meaning and knowledge are acquired through
the development of an individual’s cognitive abilities. The educator’s instructional strategy should be directed
towards assisting the learner to develop their internal cognitive structure.
The role of the educator
The educator must develop the learner’s conceptual knowledge by arranging the content of learning activities.
The focus is on assisting learners to encode new information and on helping them to recall it.
You may be an educator that likes to explain complex concepts in terms of something that is easy to
understand. For example, a business pursuing its goals could be reimagined as a ship setting out on a voyage.
The CEO is like the captain steering the ship, the workers are the crew, the strategic plan is the map, and the sea
is the market in which the business operates. In this evocative way, educators use existing knowledge to help
their learners encode new information.
The role of the learner
The learner takes a participatory role in selecting, processing and storing information, and then retrieving this
information in order to apply it. To develop complex ideas, the learner requires support from the educator, who
is still at the centre of the learning situation.
Video 2: The evolution of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LZhid-STbo)
Cognitivism
The rise of cognitivism coincides roughly with the popularisation of computer technology in the 1950s and 60s. It
is a direct response to the behaviourist approach to learning. Cognitivism proposes that exploring the mind and
mental processes, rather than just the learning environment, is crucial for understanding how people learn.
Throughout this course, you will be engaging with one of the upshots of the cognitivist movement – learning
outcomes, more specifically, Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Watch the following video on Bloom’s Taxonomy to discover its evolution from the 1950s to the present day.
4. What is learning?
Learning happens when new knowledge is constructed from prior knowledge and experience, usually in
collaboration with other people. Individuals construct knowledge as they solve relevant problems and establish
meaning along the way.
Think about how these principles have been built into the structure of this course.
The role of the educator
The educator’s role is that of a guide or facilitator. The emphasis is not on transferal of knowledge, but rather
on creating a learning environment in which learners can collaborate and construct knowledge by engaging with
meaningful problems. The educator facilitates and serves as a guide in the knowledge construction process.
Think about how the Head Tutor on this course fulfils this role.
The role of the learner
The learner is active in using prior knowledge to create new knowledge and meaning. The learner should be
actively engaged at every point in the learning process.
Does this reflect your experience of the course so far? Reflect on the quality of your involvement in the
learning process.
Constructivism
Constructivism became prominent at the onset of the Information Age, a technology-driven period in which
knowledge is the most valued commodity. It asserts that individuals actively construct knowledge rather than
simply acquiring it. In a constructivist approach, an individual’s understanding of the world is continuously
moulded through experience and subsequent reflection on those experiences.
Watch the following video to find out about GetSmarter’s constructivist approach to learning.
Video 3: GetSmarter’s pedagogical approach.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTZu5t6sNnc&feature=youtu.be)
5. What is learning?
In the digital age, learning is no longer an internal, individual activity. It is the ability to tap into vast flows of
information made available through the internet, to identify those most important, and to draw connections
between these flows. It is essential to nurture and maintain these connections in order to facilitate continued
learning.
The role of the educator
The educator’s role, initially, is to arrange the learning environment or the educational context that
draws learners together. The educator should then help learners to establish their own personal learning
environments in order to connect to networks where new knowledge can be obtained.
The role of the learner
The learner is especially active and takes the lead in forming connections between nodes in a network of
knowledge, which often exists online, beyond the confines of formal institutions.
Video 4: An overview of connectivism.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx5VHpaW8sQ)
Connectivism
Connectivism is the latest pedagogical approach. It is often referred to as a learning theory for the digital
age. This is because it attempts to address the impact that digital technologies are having on the nature of
knowledge and what it means to learn. The extent to which it credibly addresses the effects of technology on
learning has been the basis of the critique against it.
