Learning Theories Explained University of the West Indies Jamaica

1. Michelle A McKoy
Perspectives on Learning
Theories

2. Theories of learning
How instructors view the role of media and
technology in the classroom depends very
much on their beliefs about how people learn.
Over the past half century, there have been
many outstanding theories of learning. Each
has implication for leaning in general and for
the use of technology specifically.

3. Behaviourist Perspective
 At the forefront of this movement was B.F
Skinner, a psychologist at Harvard
University.
 Skinner was a proponent of behaviourism
but with an important difference: he was
interested in voluntary behaviour, such as
learning new skills, rather than reflexive
behaviour, as illustrated by Pavlov's famous
salivating dog.

4. Behaviourist Perspective
 Skinner demonstrated that the behaviour of
an organism could be shaped by reinforcing
or rewarding, the desired responses to the
environment, he based his learning theory,
known as reinforcement theory, on a series of
experiments with pigeons, reasoning that the
same procedures could be used with humans.

5. Behaviourist Perspective
 Skinner’s experiment resulted in the emergence of
programmed instruction, a technique of leading a learner
through a series of instructional steps to a desired level of
performance.
 Behaviourists refuse to speculate on what goes on
internally when learning takes place. They rely solely on
observable behaviours. Because of this posture,
behaviourism has limited application in designing
instruction for higher-level skills.
 For example, behaviourists are reluctant to make inferences about how
learners process information, even when doing so can be helpful in
designing instruction that develops problem-solving ability

6. Cognitivist Perspective
Cognitivists, create models of how information is received,
processed, and manipulated by learners.
Cognivitism leads to a different way of looking at familiar
learning patterns. Behaviourists simply state that practice
strengthens the response to a stimulus, while Cognivitists
create a mental model of short-term and long-term memory.
New information is stored in short-term memory, where it is
“rehearsed” until ready to be stored in long-term memory. If
the information is not rehearsed, it fades from short-term
memory Learners then combine the information and skills in
long-term memory to develop cognitive strategies, or skills for
dealing with complex tasks.

7. Cognitivist Perspective
Cognitivists have a broader perception of
independent learning than that held by behaviourists:
students are less dependent on the guiding hand of
the program designer and rely more on their own
cognitive strategies in using available learning
resources.
A close look at the work of Swiss psychologist Jean
Piaget illustrates how a cognitive psychologist views
the mental processes individuals use in responding to
their environment. The three key concepts of mental
development in Piaget's work are schemata,
assimilation, and accommodation (Piaget, 1977).

8. Cognitivist Perspective
schemata, assimilation, and accommodation
Schemata.
 Schemata (singular, schema) are the mental structures by
which individuals organize their perceived environment.
Schemata are adapted or changed during mental development
and learning and are used to identify, process, and store
incoming information and can be thought of as the categories
individuals use to classify specific information and experiences.
 Very young children learn to distinguish between mother and
father. They soon separate dogs from cats and later become
aware of different varieties of dogs. These differentiations
based on experience lead to the development of schemata or
the ability to classify objects by their significant characteristics.
 These cognitive structures change by the processes of
assimilation and accommodation, which should be encouraged
during instruction.

9. Cognitivist Perspective
Assimilation
 This is the cognitive process by which a learner integrates
new information and experiences into existing schemata.
During learning, assimilation results from experiences. With
new experiences, the schema expands in size but does not
change its basic structure. Using the process of assimilation,
the individual attempts to place new concepts into existing
schemata.
 These learning experiences can be real-life experiences but
rather than waiting for experiences to happen naturally,
instructors cause experiences to happen through use of media
and methods.

10. Cognitivist Perspective
Accommodation
 Because schemata change with experience, adult learners
have a broader and more elaborate range of schemata than
do children. The process of modifying existing schemata or
creating new ones is called accommodation.
 When dealing with a new concept or experience, the learner
attempts to assimilate it into existing schemata. When it
does not fit there are two possible responses:
(1) The learner can create a new schema into which the new stimulus
is placed, or
(2) The existing schema can be modified so that the new stimulus will
fit. Both of these processes are forms of accommodation.

11. Constructivist Perspective
Constructivism is a movement that extends beyond the beliefs
of the cognitivist. It considers the engagement of students in
meaningful experiences as the essence of learning.
The shift is from passive transfer of information to active
problem solving.
Constructivists emphasize that learners create their own
interpretations of the world of information. They contrast their
perspective with those of the behaviourists or cognitivists who
believe that the mind can be “mapped’ by the instructor.

12. Constructivist Perspective
The constructivist will argue that the student situates the
learning experience within his or her own experience and that
the goal of instruction is not to teach information but to create
situations so that students can interpret information for their
own understanding. The role of instruction is not to dispense
facts but to provide students with ways to assemble knowledge.
The constructivist believes that learning occurs most effectively
when the student is engaged in authentic tasks that relate to
meaningful contexts. The ultimate measure of learning is
therefore based on the ability of the student to use knowledge
to facilitate thinking in real life.

13. Dale’s Cone of Experience
 Edgar Dale, an educator often cited as the
father of modern media in education,
developed from his experience in teaching
and his observations of learners the "cone of
experience" . The cone's utility in selecting
instructional resources and activities is as
practical today as when Dale created it.

14. Dale’s cone of experience
 Description.
 Dale’s Cone of Experience is a model that incorporates
several theories related to instructional design and learning
processes.
 During the 1960s, Edgar Dale theorized that learners retain
more information by what they “do” as opposed to what is
“heard”, “read” or “observed”. His research led to the
development of the “Cone of Experience”.
 Today, this “learning by doing” has become known as
“experiential learning” or “action learning”.

16. DALE’S CONE OF EXPERIENCE

17. Arguments & Tensions
Features of direct
instruction (behaviourism):
 Learning is transmitting
knowledge.
 Teaching should be teacher
directed, systematic and
structured.
 Constructivist approaches
are insufficient. Discovery
learning is too unstructured
and unsystematic.
Features of child-centred
Instruction (Constructivism)
 Learning is constructed
knowledge.
 Teaching should let students
participate in activities that
are meaningful so they can
generate their own
knowledge.
 Directed instruction is too
rigid and teacher centered

18. Methodological Features of
Constructivist Instructions
 Teacher roles — Guide and facilitate as students generate
their own knowledge; collaborative resource and assistant as
students explore topics.
 Student roles – Collaborate with others; develop
competence; students may learn different material.
 Curriculum characteristics – Based on projects that foster
both higher and lower level skills concurrently.

19. Methodological Features of
Directed Instructions
 Learner goals – Learning is stated in terms of
growth from where students began and increased
ability to work independently and with others.
 Types of activities – Group projects, hands-on
explorations, product development.
 Assessment strategies – Performance tests and
products such as portfolios; quality measured by
rubrics and check lists; measures may differ
among students.

20. Contributors to Behavioural Theories
 Pavlov—Classical conditioning
 Behaviour is largely controlled by involuntary
physical responses to outside stimuli such as a
dog salivating at the sight o a can of dog food.

21. Contributors to Behavioural Theorists
B.F. Skinner– Operant Conditioning
 people can have mental controls over their responses
for example a child believes that he or she will get
praise if he or she behaves well in school.
 He believed that behaviour is more controlled by the
consequences of actions than events preceding the
action.
 Three types of events can shape behaviour:
 Positive reinforcement;
 Negative reinforcement
 Punishment

22. Contributors to Information Processing
Theorists
Atkins and Shifferin (1968)— the brain contains certain
structures that process
information much like a
computer.
The human brain has thee kinds of memory:
 Sensory registers: receives all information that the brain
senses.
 Short-term memory (STM)—the part of memory
where new information is
held temporarily until it is
either loss or placed into
long-term memory.
 Long-term memory (LTM)– The part of memory that has
an unlimited capacity and can hold
information indefinitely.

23. Contributors to Information Processing
Theorists
Ormrod (2000) - Information is sensed through receptors: eyes,
ears, nose, mouth, and or hands. This information
is held in the sensory registers for a very short time
(perhaps a second), after which it either enters STM
or is lost.
Any information that the learner pays attention to
goes into working memory, where it can stay for up
to 5 to 20 seconds.
After this time if the information is not processed or
practiced in a way that causes it to transfer to LTM,
then it is lost.
For new information to be transferred to long-term
memory it must be linked in some way to prior
knowledge already in LTM.

24. Behaviourist—Information
Theorists
 Gagne (1992)—Events of instruction:
 Gaining attention
 Informing the learner of the objective
 Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning
 Presenting new material
 Providing learning guidance
 Eliciting performance
 Providing feedback about correctness
 Assessing performance enhancing retention and recall.

25. Behaviourist—Information
Theorists
 Gagne (1992)—Known for three ideas, events of instruction,
types of learning and learning hierarchies.
Types of Learning:--
 Intellectual skills
 Problem solving
 Higher order rules
 Defined concepts
 Concrete concepts
 Discriminations
 Cognitive strategies
 Verbal Information
 Motor skills
 Attitudes

26. Behaviourist—Information
Theorists
 Gagne (1992)—Learning Hierarchies:
 Lower level skills provide a necessary
foundation for higher level ones.
 To teach a skill the teacher must first identify
its prerequisite skills and make the student
possess them.

27. Social Activism
 John Dewey (1902, 1910,1916) opines that:-
 Curriculum should arise from student’s interests.
 Curriculum topics should be integrated, rather than isolated from each
other.
 Education is growth rather than an end in itself.
 Education occurs through its connection with life rather than through
participation in curriculum.
 Learning should be hands-on and experience based, rather than
abstract.

28. Scaffold to Learning
 Lev Vygotsky :-
Cognitive development is directly linked to and
based on social development. What children learn
and how they think are derived directly from the
culture around them. Children begin learning from
the world around them, their social world, which is
the source of all their, ideas, facts, skills, and
attitudes.

29. Scaffolding
 Vygotsky’s Definition :- Process in which teachers
provide instruction by first finding out where each
child is in his or her development and build on the
child’s experiences. The building process is called
scaffolding.
 When a teacher scaffolds he or she should promote
the students’ cognitive development by presenting
some classroom tasks that “they can complete only
with assistance, that is within each student’s zone of
proximal development” (Ormrod, 2001, p. 59).

30. Constructivism: Problems Raised
 It is difficult for teachers to certify individual’s
skill learning.
 Prerequisite skills may be lacking
 Students may not choose the most effective
instruction.
 Not all topics suit constructivist methods.
 Skills may not transfer to practical situations.

31. Constructivism: Problems Addressed
 Students engage in problem solving and product
development.
 The use of alternative assessments such as portfolios and
group projects rather than standardized testing.
 The integration of technology in teaching is being considered.
 Teaching involves a combination of problem-oriented
activities, cooperative group works, tasks related to students’
interest and background, and the use of highly visible
formats provided by technology resources.