LEARNING

THEORIES
▪ There is no definitive definition of learning. Many psychologist, such as
behaviourists, cognitivists, and constructivists have their own definition of learning
(Houston, 1985; Ormrod, 2008).
▪ Psychologists prefer learning to be defined as a change in behaviour as a
consequence of practice.
▪ Kimble (as cited in Houston, 1985) defined learning as ‘a relatively permanent
change in behaviour potentiality that occurs as a result of reinforced practice’.
Learning has occurred when behaviour is changed.
▪ Ormrod (2008) cognitively defined learning as ‘a long-term change in mental
representations or associations as a result of reinforced practice’. The learning
occurs when there is a change in the mental representations or associations due to
experience.
▪ Driscoll (as cited in Robinson, Molenda & Rezabek, 2008) has defined learning as ‘a
persisting change in human performance or performance potential … as a result of
the learner’s experience and interaction with the world’, which means that learning
is believed to occur when people are socially communicating and working
collaboratively with others.
▪ While there are more than 100 theories that may be used to describe learning
(Jonassen, 2006), and each of these theories has it own elements and vocabularies
to describe the processes that are believed to be occuring within the learner
(Robinson et al., 2008), three learning theories that are often being applied to the
creation of instructional environments are behaviourism, cognitivism, and
constructivism (Siemens, 2005).
▪ According to Wild et al. (as cited in Deubel, 2003), incorporating a variety of
learning theories is necessary when trying to integrate technology into teaching
and learning.
▪ Behaviorism
▪ Cognitivism
▪ Constructivism
▪ B. F. Skinner
▪ Observable behavior
▪ Reinforcement or rewards
▪ Foundation for computer assisted instruction
▪ Does not reinforce higher-level skills
▪ Basic knowledge or skills
▪ Teaching machines and Programmed instruction
▪ Programmed tutoring
▪ Direct instruction
▪ Personalised System of Instruction (PSI)
▪ Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI)
▪ The behaviours that are taught and learned may combine cognitive, affective,
motor dimensions.
▪ Jean Piaget
▪ How learners receive, process, and manipulate information
▪ Cognitive strategies
▪ Independent learners
▪ Focus more on the presentation side of the learning – the organisation of content so
that it makes sense to the learner and is easy to remember. The goal is to activate
the learner’s thought processes so that new material can be processed in a way
that it expands the learner’s mental schemata.
▪ Audiovisual media
▪ Visual learning
▪ Auditory learning
▪ Digital multimedia
▪ It is meant to apply to learning in the cognitive domain – knowledge,
understanding, application, evaluation, and metacognition. It has much less to say
about motor skills or attitudes except as regards the cognitive elements of those
skills.
▪ Cognitivism’s emphasis on careful arrangement of the content to make it
meaningful, comprehensible, memorable, and appealing draws attention to
message design issues.
▪ Cognitivist prescriptions include showing learners how the new knowledge is
structured (e.g., advanced organisers), calling their attention to the salient features
by stating objectives, chunking the material into digestible units, laying out text for
easy comprehension, and complementing the text with helpful visuals (Silber, K. H.,
& Foshay, 2006).
▪ Both information-processing theory and schema theory suggest that the sequence
of mental steps is an important part of facilitating learning, so instructional
theorists have proposed a number of lesson frameworks or templates for arranging
the steps of a learning event (Molenda & Russell, 2006). An example of such a
lesson framework is Gagne’s (Gagne & Medsker, 1999) Events of Instruction, which
recommends a specific sequence of events for a successful lesson.
a. Gain the learners’ attention by telling them the reason for mastering this skill;
b. Tell them clearly what they are expected to be able to do after the learning
session;
c. Remind them of what they already know and how the current lesson builds on
that;
d. Demonstrate the new skill or present the new information;
e. Guide the learners in mastering the content by suggesting mnemonic devices,
asking questions, or giving hints;
f. Provide opportunities to practice the new knowledge or skill;
g. During the practice, confirm correct responses or desired performance and give
feedback to help learners overcome errors;
h. Test the learners’ mastery, preferably by having them use the knowledge, skills,
and attitudes in real or simulated problem situations;
i. Help the learners transfer their new skills by giving them on-the-job practice or
simulated practice involving varied problems.
▪ Engagement of students in meaningful experiences
▪ Active problem solving and discovery
▪ Interpret information for their own understanding
▪ Use of knowledge to facilitate thinking in real life
▪ The engaged learning principles as promoted by the North Central Regional
Educational Laboratory (NCREL) (Tinzmann, Rasmussen, & Foertsch, 1999) include
many of the components of constructivism and the use of educational technology
as a tool for achieving learning.
Students are explorers, teachers, cognitive apprentices, producers of knowledge, and
directors and managers of their own learning. Teachers are facilitators, guides, and
colearners; they seek professional growth, design curriculum, and conduct research.
Learning tasks are authentic, based on performance, seamless and ongoing, and
generates new learning.
▪ Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)
▪ Social negotiation – derived from Vygotsky’s theories of the sociocultural nature of
knowledge, is represented in collaborative learning which is incorporated in most of the
constructivist instructional strategies. And CSCL is currently the most prominent format
for this sociocultural theory.
▪ Anchored instruction
▪ Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
▪ Collaborative learning
▪ In reaction to software that forced students to learn as isolated individuals
▪ In reaction to the availability of the Internet
▪ To enhance the CSCL activity
Teacher-Centered
▪ Presentation
▪ Demonstration
▪ Drill-and-Practice
▪ Tutorials
Student-Centered
▪ Discussion
▪ Cooperative Learning
▪ Games
▪ Simulations
▪ Discovery
▪ Problem Solving
Cooperation
▪ Partners split the work
▪ Solve sub-tasks individually
▪ Assemble the individual results as group product
Collaboration
▪ Learning occurs socially as the collaborative construction of knowledge
▪ Partners do the work together
▪ Individuals negotiate and share meanings relevant to the problem-solving task at
hand
▪ Is a coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to
construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem
▪ Stresses collaboration among students - through interactions among students
▪ "students learn by expressing their questions, pursuing lines of inquiry together, teaching each
other, seeing how others are learning"
▪ Is about two or more people learning something together
▪ It is an environment which learners engage in a common task where each
individual depends on, and is accountable to, each other
▪ Teaches social skills, facilitates retention, improves experience, and enhance
creativity