Learning theories? A puzzling selection of cheese and chocolate.

So to start off ... what is learning anyway?

Guy Claxton, British psychologist, said, "Learning is what you do when you don't know what to do."

Right! How about learning theories?

There are multifarious ways of learning and various psychologist and educators have tried to categorise them. Benjamin Bloom and Robert Gagne have tried to categorise them into 3 domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Other ways of categorising learning are left hemisphere (linear and analytical thought) or right hemisphere (spatial and integrative thought) (Williams, 1983) or 8 intelligence centres (Lazeer, 1999) or three learning styles (Carbo, Dunn & Dunn 1991)

A quick look at four serious, non-cheesy quotes:

American educator John Holt wrote the book "Never too, Late" about his experience of learning to play the cello at 40 years of age. This book placed next to his earlier books "How children fail?" and "How children learn?" contrasts the learning process of adult and children and highlights the strength of both.

NZ educator Warwick Elley said, "learning does not proceed by the acquisition of "logical packages mastered in an all-or-nothing fashion (but rather) it expands in irregular spurts, sidetracks, inconsistencies and misconceptions." (Elley 1996, p12). The idea of the source (te pu) the taproots (te more) and the rootlet (te weru) shows learning to be a process of creation rather than a stepladder.

Jacques Delors said "education throughout life is based on 4 pillars: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, learning to be. (1996, p37)

Canadian Brent Davis said (2004, p184) "Teaching and learning are not about a convergence onto a predetermined truth but about divergence --about broadening what is knowable, doable and beable. The emphasis is not on what is, but what might be brought forth. Thus learning comes to be understood as a recursive, elaborative process of opening up new spaces of possibility by exploring current spaces."

--Taken for The Professional Practice of Teaching. Chapter 2 How People Learn? Understanding the Learning Process by Miles Barker

Now for the bars of chocolate-- The 5 main public theories of learning

Behavourist

Operant Conditioning takes place when we reward students for good behaviour and punish them for bad.

Classical Conditioning takes place when the students wait eagerly for the lunch bell to go.

Developmental

Cognitive Learning is seen in the way the curriculum is organised and structured (Piaget and Hartley).

Humanistic

Situational Theorists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers made for more student-centred teaching with the aim them to self-actualise. Howard Gardner proposed the idea of multiple intelligences

Social Situational/ Constructivist Theories include Albert Bandura's Theory, Lev Vygotsky, George Kelly, David Ausubel, Jerome Bruner. Learners actively construct their own individualised knowledge or 'meaning' as their experiences and interactions with others help develop the theories they hold ie. social interaction, zone of proximal development, cognitive conflict, observational learning, modelling and scaffolded support for learning.

Bruner 5 levels of support: 

general verbal encouragement.

specific verbal instruction.

assistance with pupil's choice of material or strategies

preparation of material for pupil assembly.

demonstration of task.

Social Cultural Theory- communities of practice. Lave & Wenger (1991), Rogoff (2003), Pierre Bourdieu (Webb, Schirato &Danaher 2002), Henry Giroux (1992), James Wertsch (1991)  Teachers help students mediate or negotiate and resolving cultural conflicts that arise from cross-cultural education- cultural brokers. Some key questions: Who are you? What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of world do you want to live in?

In NZ, Angus McFarlane The Educultural Wheel, the inclusive practice icon and the inclusive curriculum

follow a social cultural theory.

 

Then to make things even more puzzling are other approaches to learning and studying.

Here are just some big names and ideas.

Ways students learn Diane Burton 2009

IP theory, concept development, 

learning styles, 

learning strategy--Kolb 

(concrete experience--> reflective observation-->abstract conceptualisation --> active experimentation)

learning approaches--Entwistle different orientations to learning.

An Overview of Learning by Sue Dymoke

Reuven Feuerstein--Instrumental Enrichment Program

Matthew Lipman-- P4C

Edward De Bono-- 6 thinking hats

Benjamin Bloom--thinking skills, Bloom's taxonomy.

Whew and after this huge sampling of theories, I think it's time for some real chocolate!

Coming up next...

So this post is a quick look at the "surface" or spread of the topic.... The next blog will be a record of my attempts to use learning theories and styles in class to effectively instruct students, adapt the lessons to individual students’ needs. This is written with a long term view that these posts would lead to a high level of overall self-efficacy related to teaching now and in the future.