Top Ten Learning Theories for Digital and Collaborative Learning

The Mind Lab by Unitec | Top 10 Learning Theories | 20151
Top 10 Learning Theories for Digital and
Collaborative Learning
Dr David Parsons, National Postgraduate Director
The Mind Lab by Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand

What is a Learning Theory?
★ A theory about changes in observable behaviour
★ Addresses:
○ How such changes become relatively
permanent
○ Whether the change is immediate, or potential
○ What role experience plays
○ What aspects of reinforcement are present
(Olsen & Hergenhahn, 2013)

10 Learning Theories
1. Conditioning
2. Connectionism and the Law of Effect
3. Progressive Education
4. Constructivism: Social Development Theory
5. Constructivism: Equilibration
6. Social Cognitive Theory
7. Situated Learning / Cognition
8. Community of Practice
9. Constructionism
10.Connectivism

Conditioning
★ Classical Conditioning - Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936)
○ Stimulus leads to response
○ Incidental rather than deliberate in the classroom
★ Instrumental conditioning - Burrhus Skinner (1904 - 1990)
○ Behaviour leads to reinforcement
○ Learners need rapid feedback and to work at their own
pace
○ Programmed learning and the teaching machine

Skinner on Behaviourism
“The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply
controls by changing the environment in such a way as to
reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone.”

Connectionism and the Law of Effect
➔ Edward Thorndike (1874 – 1949)
➔ Connectionism is the neural bond between stimulus
and response
➔ Learning is incremental rather than insightful
➔ Law of Effect: reinforcement increases the strength
of a connection, punishment does not change it

Thorndike on Lecturing
“The lecture and demonstration methods represent an
approach… in which the teacher lets the pupil find out
nothing which he could possibly be told or
shown...They try to give him an educational fortune as
one bequeaths property by will.”

Progressive Education
➢ John Dewey (1859 - 1952)
➢ Self-governing learners, teachers as guides
➢ Outdoor education
➢ Scientific study of individual development
➢ Cooperation between school and home
➢ Hands-on learning / experiential education
➢ Among other things, Dewey headed the commission
that cleared Trotsky of allegations from the Moscow
trials

Dewey on Learning
“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn;
and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking;
learning naturally results.”

Constructivism: Social Development Theory
➔ Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)
➔ Social learning precedes development
➔ Zone of Proximal Development: The area
between what the learner can do independently,
and what they can do with help from others
➔ More Knowledgeable Other: someone/thing who
knows more than the learner. Could be teacher,
peer, computer...

Vygotsky on Teaching
“The teacher must adopt the role of facilitator, not
content provider.”

Constructivism: Equilibration
★ Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980)
★ Intelligence is dynamic, in interaction with its environment
★ Equilibration is the continuous drive towards balance with
the environment
★ 4 stages of development: sensorimotor (0-2 years),
preoperational (2-7 years), concrete operations (7-11
years), formal operations (11-15 years)
★ Educational environments should provide the opportunity
for discovery by the student

Piaget on Education
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be
creating men and women who are capable of doing new
things, not simply repeating what other generations have
done.”

Social Cognitive Theory
➔ Albert Bandura (born 1925)
➔ Anything that can be learned from direct
experience can be learned from observation /
modelling
➔ Reciprocal determinism: a dynamic interplay of
person, environment and behaviour
➔ Teachers act as models
➔ Media affects behaviour (e.g. violence)

Bandura on Observation
“Coping with the demands of everyday life would be
exceedingly trying if one could arrive at solutions to
problems only by actually performing possible options
and suffering the consequences.”

Situated Cognition/Learning
★ John Seely-Brown (born 1940), Allan Collins, Paul
Duguid
★ Learning is embedded in the activity, context and
culture in which it was learned
★ Learning while interacting with others through shared
activities and language
★ Learning is about performance in situations rather than
an accumulation of knowledge

John-Seely Brown on Knowledge
“Instead of pouring knowledge into people's heads, you
need to help them grind anew a set of eyeglasses so they
can see the world in a new way.”

Constructionism
➔ Seymour Papert (born 1928)
➔ Worked with Piaget
➔ Based on learning by doing, constructionism utilises
physical materials to creatively develop abstract
learning
➔ Papert involved with Logo Turtles, One Laptop per
Child, Lego Mindstorms, Dynabook

Papert on Digital Teaching and Learning
“Nothing could be more absurd than an experiment
in which computers are placed in a classroom
where nothing else is changed.”

Community of Practice
❏ Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger (born 1950s)
❏ A community of practice has three components:
domain, community and practice.
❏ Learning is unintentional and situated within authentic
activity, context and culture
❏ Learning based on social relationships; co-participation

Wenger on Communities of Practice
“Communities of practice are formed by people who
engage in a process of collective learning in a shared
domain of human endeavour...who share a concern or a
passion for something they do and learn how to do it better
as they interact regularly.”

Connectivism
★ George Siemens (born 1960s)
★ ‘A learning theory for the digital age’
★ Internet technologies have created new opportunities for
people to learn and share information
★ Learning across online peer networks
★ Siemens launched the first MOOC in 2008

Siemens on Technology and Learning
“We always seem to think about how does technology
influence learning. Sometimes these roles actually have
to be reversed. We have to think about how learning
influences technology because there are greater changes
occurring in our society and not just within technology.”

References
Olsen, M. & Hergenhahn, B. (2013). An Introduction to Theories of Learning
(9th ed.) Boston, Mass: Pearson.
Papert, S. and Harel, I. 1991. Constructionism. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
Simply Psychology. (2015). Psychology Articles for Students. Retrieved from:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/
Smith, M. K. (2009). Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger and communities of practice.
The encyclopedia of informal education. Retrieved from:
http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm

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