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Learning theory (education)
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Learning theory (education)
Learning theory attempts to describe how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.
Behaviorists look at learning as an aspect of conditioning and advocating a system of rewards and targets in education. Educators who embrace cognitive theory believe that the definition of learning as a change in behaviour is too narrow, and study the learner rather than their environment—and in particular the complexities of human memory. Those who advocate constructivism believe that a learner's ability to learn relies largely on what they already know and understand, and the acquisition of knowledge should be an individually tailored process of construction. Transformative learning theory focuses on the often-necessary change required in a learner's preconceptions and worldview. Geographical learning theory focuses on the ways that contexts and environments shape the learning process.
Outside the realm of educational psychology, techniques to directly observe the functioning of the brain during the learning process, such as event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging, are used in educational neuroscience. The theory of multiple intelligences, where learning is seen as the interaction between dozens of different functional areas in the brain each with their own individual strengths and weaknesses in any particular human learner, has also been proposed, but empirical research has found the theory to be unsupported by evidence.
Plato (428 BC–347 BC) proposed the question: "How does an individual learn something new when the topic is brand new to that person?", This question may seem trivial; however, think of a human-like a computer. The question would then become: How does a computer take in any factual information without previous programming? Plato answered his own question by stating that knowledge is present at birth and all information learned by a person is merely a recollection of something the soul has already learned previously, which is called the Theory of Recollection or Platonic epistemology. This answer could be further justified by a paradox: If a person knows something, they don't need to question it, and if a person does not know something, they don't know to question it. Plato says that if one did not previously know something, then they cannot learn it. He describes learning as a passive process, where information and knowledge are ironed into the soul over time. However, Plato's theory elicits even more questions about knowledge: If we can only learn something when we already had the knowledge impressed onto our souls, then how did our souls gain that knowledge in the first place? Plato's theory can seem convoluted; however, his classical theory can still help us understand knowledge today.
John Locke (1632–1704) offered an answer to Plato's question as well. Locke offered the "blank slate" theory where humans are born into the world with no innate knowledge and are ready to be written on and influenced by the environment. The thinker maintained that knowledge and ideas originate from two sources, which are sensation and reflection. The former provides insights regarding external objects (including their properties) while the latter provides the ideas about one's mental faculties (volition and understanding). In the theory of empiricism, these sources are direct experience and observation. Locke, like David Hume, is considered an empiricist because he locates the source of human knowledge in the empirical world.
Locke recognized that something had to be present, however. This something, to Locke, seemed to be "mental powers". Locke viewed these powers as a biological ability the baby is born with, similar to how a baby knows how to biologically function when born. So as soon as the baby enters the world, it immediately has experiences with its surroundings and all of those experiences are being transcribed to the baby's "slate". All of the experiences then eventually culminate into complex and abstract ideas. This theory can still help teachers understand their students' learning today.
The term "behaviorism" was coined by American psychologist John Watson (1878–1959). Watson believed the behaviorist view is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science with a goal to predict and control behavior. In an article in the Psychological Review, he stated that, "Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness."
Methodological behaviorism is based on the theory of only explaining public events, or observable behavior. B.F. Skinner introduced another type of behaviorism called radical behaviorism, or the conceptual analysis of behavior, which is based on the theory of also explaining private events; particularly, thinking and feelings. Radical behaviorism forms the conceptual piece of behavior analysis.
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Learning theory (education)
Learning theory attempts to describe how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.
Behaviorists look at learning as an aspect of conditioning and advocating a system of rewards and targets in education. Educators who embrace cognitive theory believe that the definition of learning as a change in behaviour is too narrow, and study the learner rather than their environment—and in particular the complexities of human memory. Those who advocate constructivism believe that a learner's ability to learn relies largely on what they already know and understand, and the acquisition of knowledge should be an individually tailored process of construction. Transformative learning theory focuses on the often-necessary change required in a learner's preconceptions and worldview. Geographical learning theory focuses on the ways that contexts and environments shape the learning process.
Outside the realm of educational psychology, techniques to directly observe the functioning of the brain during the learning process, such as event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging, are used in educational neuroscience. The theory of multiple intelligences, where learning is seen as the interaction between dozens of different functional areas in the brain each with their own individual strengths and weaknesses in any particular human learner, has also been proposed, but empirical research has found the theory to be unsupported by evidence.
Plato (428 BC–347 BC) proposed the question: "How does an individual learn something new when the topic is brand new to that person?", This question may seem trivial; however, think of a human-like a computer. The question would then become: How does a computer take in any factual information without previous programming? Plato answered his own question by stating that knowledge is present at birth and all information learned by a person is merely a recollection of something the soul has already learned previously, which is called the Theory of Recollection or Platonic epistemology. This answer could be further justified by a paradox: If a person knows something, they don't need to question it, and if a person does not know something, they don't know to question it. Plato says that if one did not previously know something, then they cannot learn it. He describes learning as a passive process, where information and knowledge are ironed into the soul over time. However, Plato's theory elicits even more questions about knowledge: If we can only learn something when we already had the knowledge impressed onto our souls, then how did our souls gain that knowledge in the first place? Plato's theory can seem convoluted; however, his classical theory can still help us understand knowledge today.
John Locke (1632–1704) offered an answer to Plato's question as well. Locke offered the "blank slate" theory where humans are born into the world with no innate knowledge and are ready to be written on and influenced by the environment. The thinker maintained that knowledge and ideas originate from two sources, which are sensation and reflection. The former provides insights regarding external objects (including their properties) while the latter provides the ideas about one's mental faculties (volition and understanding). In the theory of empiricism, these sources are direct experience and observation. Locke, like David Hume, is considered an empiricist because he locates the source of human knowledge in the empirical world.
Locke recognized that something had to be present, however. This something, to Locke, seemed to be "mental powers". Locke viewed these powers as a biological ability the baby is born with, similar to how a baby knows how to biologically function when born. So as soon as the baby enters the world, it immediately has experiences with its surroundings and all of those experiences are being transcribed to the baby's "slate". All of the experiences then eventually culminate into complex and abstract ideas. This theory can still help teachers understand their students' learning today.
The term "behaviorism" was coined by American psychologist John Watson (1878–1959). Watson believed the behaviorist view is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science with a goal to predict and control behavior. In an article in the Psychological Review, he stated that, "Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness."
Methodological behaviorism is based on the theory of only explaining public events, or observable behavior. B.F. Skinner introduced another type of behaviorism called radical behaviorism, or the conceptual analysis of behavior, which is based on the theory of also explaining private events; particularly, thinking and feelings. Radical behaviorism forms the conceptual piece of behavior analysis.