Learning Theories
Behaviorism
Cognitivism
Constructivism
Connectivism
Pavlov
Skinner
Learner is a BLACK BOX & nothing is known about what goes on inside
Stimulus-response
Bandura
Piaget
How we process & make sense of & make meaning
Info processing
Ebbinghaus
Downes
Siemens
"Focused on identifying mental processes - internal and conscious representations of the world - that they consider are essential for human learning" (Bates 2015)
Thinking domain (vs. Bloom's feeling, doing)
Mental structures - how info received, organized, stored, retrieved
(Spencer 2018)
Observational Learning
Watching others
Shaping, modeling, imitation & vicarious reinforcement
(Cherry 2018)
Punching Bobo doll experiment (model people who are warm & friendly, match age/gender/sex, authoritarian or rewards, lack confidence, situation confusing) (Cherry 2018)
Stages of learning - intelligence grows in stages
Schemas
Assimilation > new info into existing schemas
Mental & physical actions involved in learning
Accommodation - change/alter existing schemas
Equilibration - balance assimilation & accommodation
(Cherry 2019)
Memory = learning persisted over time
- Recall - retrieve info learned earlier
- Recognition - identified memory
- Relearning - refresh memory (CrashCourse 2014)
Working memory: Conscious, active processing
Spacing effect - spread out the study for better learning (distributed practice vs. massed practice)
Forgetting Curve - memory decays rapidly at first then levels off with time (How We Remember)
Encoding - placing experience into memory
Implications for ID
- Organize & chunk instruction
- Activate prior knowledge
- Extensive & variable practice
- Enhance self-control of info processing
- Manage & reduce cognitive load
- Help build mental models, advanced organizers
- Reflection
(Spencer 2018, Driscoll 2005, Hogue 2020)
Remembering & forgetting
Computer info processing model (learning as process of inputs, managed by short-term memory, coded for long-term recall) (Siemens)
3 assumptions
- Observable behavior more impt than internal activities
- Stimuli & responses
- Learning is about behavior change
(Gredler 2001)
Learners create knowledge in attempt to understand experiences
Select & pursue own learning
Understanding by meaning-making tasks
(Siemens)
Learning & knowledge can reside outside of us (in database, organization)
Connections are key to learning
Learning Is focused on connecting specialized info sets
Connections are more impt than actual knowing
(Siemens)
"In a networked world, learning is network-forming process & knowledge is a networked product" (Faraja 2018)
Knowledge - how we've connected concepts & ideas over time
We learn by forming connections - with each other, between concepts in our minds (Faraja 2018)
1st MOOC
PLN: Personal Learning Network
Core skill - ability to see connections between fields, ideas, concepts
Knowledge Mgmt in corporations: "Knowledge that resides in a database needs to be connected with the right people in the right context in order to be classified as learning." (Siemens)
MOOCs
cMOOC = Connectivist MOOC
open, participatory, distributed
xMOOC
presenting info, not connecting
Learn by connecting with others with shared interests, ideas, resources
Who influences you?
Who challenges you?
Situated Cognition
Cannot separate learning from the context in which it takes place
Learning is embedded in social interactions (Schweir 2017)
Learning realized through participation & communities of practice
Just Plain Folks shape community
Learning Trajectories
Spectator heading inbound
Participant heading outbound
(Schweir 2017)
Wenger & Lave
Implications for ID
- Blogging as a way to make connections (ideas, people) (Siemens)
- Help discern what is important vs. unimportant
- Apprenticeships (Driscoll 2005)
- Cross-cultural comparison
- Learning Communities. Ask who has a voice? Who is silent? How is some knowledge valued over other knowledge? (Schweir 2017)
Classical conditioning
Form associations to stimuli
Operant conditioning
- Behavior strengthened if followed by reinforcement
- Behavior diminished if followed by punishment
Implications for ID
- Measurable performance objectives (Mager)
- Feedback to reinforce desired behavior & weaken undesired behavior
- Systems approach to ID (Dick & Carey)
- Performance analysis & improvement
- Computer-assisted instruction to guide learners to master a set of skills (& past use of teaching machines)
- Gamification reinforcement (points, grades, leaderboards)
Pavlov's dogs - put a neutral signal in front of a naturally occurring reflex (sound matched to salivating to food)
Acquisition: Initial stage of learning
Extinction - conditioned response decreases or disappears
Behavior is taught (not automatic like saliva in classical conditioning)
Factors
- Positive/Negative reinforcers
- Positive/Negative punishment
- Reinforcement schedules (fixed, variable interval, partial, continuous)
Bruner
Vygotsky
How knowledge represented & organized through different modes of thinking (McLeod 2018)
Modes of representation
(ways in which info or knowledge stored & encoded in memory)
- Enactive representation (action-based)
- Ionic representation (image-based)
- Symbolic representation (language-based)
When faced with new material: enactive > iconic > symbolic
(McLeod 2018)
Language provides increased ability to deal with abstract concepts
Spiral curriculum
- subjects taught at levels of gradually increasing difficulty
- Complex ideas taught simplistically at first
Discovery learning
- Students construct own knowledge
- Teacher = facilitator
Scaffolding
(both Bruner & Vygotsky)
- Help learner
- Simplify task, give models
- Motivate & encourage
Social interaction needed for child to learn
Moves from seeing > jointly doing > independently doing
(Sochacki)
Zone of Proximal Development
- Difference between what the learner does without help & what can do with help
- Structure activities so in the zone
- Adult supports child when struggling, step back when doing well
(Sochacki)
Implications for ID
- Scaffold instruction in zone of proximal development. Design tasks that students can only do with assistance. Provide just enough assistance.
- Give learners problems to solve with social components (teams, groupwork).
- Hands-on project-based methods
- Provide exemplars & models
- Discussion groups
- Encourage reflection about possibilities, go beyond info given (Bruner)
Lived practice
- Sensory info (visual, auditory) (get attention, patterns)
- Short-term memory (working memory) (encode, retrieve from long-term)
- Long-term memory
Believed opposite of Piaget (egocentric speech replaced by social speech vs Vygotsky's social speech moves to inner egocentric)
Thought Piaget focused too much on internal
Social constructivism
Culture & context in learning
- Reality, knowledge, learning all socially constructed
- Language is essential
Cognitivism image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Connectivism image by kropekk_pl from Pixabay
Constructivism image by Zizitom from Pixabay
Behaviorism image from https://freesvg.org/vector-drawing-of-puppy12062
