Teaching –Learning Theories

Behaviorism, Cognitive, Communicative, Constructive theories are Teaching- Learning theories that are going to be thrown shed on

in this lecture .

Behaviorism learning Theory

Behaviorism is a world view that operates on a principle of “stimulus-response.” All behavior caused by external stimuli (operant Allconditioning). Behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness.

Behaviorism is more concerned with behavior than with thinking, feeling, or knowing. It focuses on the objective and observable components of behavior.

Behaviorism is a world view that assumes a responding to environmental stimuli. The learner starts off as a clean slate and behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or

negative reinforcement .

Both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement increase the probability that the antecedent behavior will happen again.

Positive indicates the application of a stimulus; Negative indicates the withholding of a stimulus.

Examples of Positive Reinforcement

Consider the following examples: After you execute a turn during a skiing

lesson, your instructor shouts out, "Great job!"

At work, you exceed this month's sales quota so your boss gives you a bonus.

Examples of Negative Reinforcement

Look at the following examples: Before heading out for a day at the beach, you

slather on sunscreen in order to avoid getting sunburned.

On Monday morning, you leave the house early in order to avoid getting stuck in traffic and being late for class.

In contrast, punishment (both positive and negative) decreases the likelihood that the

antecedent behavior will happen again .

The following is an example of punishment

Timmy is supposed to clean his room every Saturday morning. Last weekend, he went out to play with his friend without cleaning his room. As a result, his father made him spend the rest of the weekend doing other chores like cleaning out the garage, mowing the lawn and weeding the garden, in addition to cleaning his room.

The Positive punishment

The father assigned some chores for his son to do like cleaning out the garage, mowing the lawn and weeding the garden, in addition to cleaning his room.

Both positive and negative reinforcement increase the probability that the antecedent behavior will happen again.

In contrast, punishment (both positive and negative) decreases the likelihood that the antecedent behavior learner is essentially passive will happen again.

Three Basic Assumptions of the theory

1. Learning is manifested by a change in behavior.

2. The environment shapes the behavior.3. The principles of proximity and reinforcement

are central to explaining the learning process. Learning is the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning

Ivan Pavlov became famous for his behavioral experiments with dogs. He won the Nobel Prize in 1904. Pavlov’s Experiment. He provided dogs with a stimulus (food.) The dogs would produce his desired reflex(salivation.) He would ring a bell. Eventually the dogs associated the bell with food and they would begin to salivate when he rang the bell. This process is called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is the natural reflex that

occurs in response to a stimulus .

B.F. Skinner believed human behavior is based on stimulus-response theory. Found that

reinforcement is a powerful motivator .

Skinner developed the theory of "operant conditioning," the idea that we behave the way we do because this kind of behavior has

had certain consequences in the past .

Cognitive learning Theory

The cognitivist paradigm essentially argues that the “black box” of the mind should be opened and understood. The learner is viewed as an information processor (like a computer).

Cognitivism focuses on the inner mental activities – opening the “black box” of the human mind is valuable and necessary for understanding how people learn.

Mental processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problem-solving need to be

explored .

Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions. Learning is defined as change in a learner’s schemata.

people are rational beings that require active participation in order to learn, and whose actions are a consequence of thinking.

Cognitivism uses the metaphor of the mind as computer: information comes in, is being processed, and leads to certain outcomes.

Cognitive theory is concerned with the development of a person's thought processes. It also looks at how these thought processes influence how we understand and interact

with the world .

The foremost cognitive thinker was Jean Piaget, who proposed an idea that seems obvious now, but helped revolutionize how we think about child development: Children think differently than adults.

Constructive Learning Theory

Constructivism as a paradigm or worldview posits that learning is an active, constructive process. The learner is an information constructor.

Learning as experience, activity and dialogical process; Problem Based Learning (PBL); Anchored instruction

A reaction to didactic approaches such as behaviorism and programmed instruction, constructivism states that learning is an active, contextualized process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it.

Knowledge is constructed based on personal experiences and hypotheses of the environment. Learners continuously test these hypotheses through social negotiation.

Each person has a different interpretation and construction of knowledge process. The learner is not a blank slate but brings past experiences and cultural factors to a situation.

A common misunderstanding regarding constructivism is that instructors should never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for themselves.

Constructivism assumes that all knowledge is constructed from the learner’s previous knowledge, regardless of how one is taught. Thus, even listening to a lecture involves active attempts to construct new knowledge.

In constructivism, assimilation is learning that occurs when new information is absorbed into an existing framework. The person’s overall beliefs and understanding of the world do not change as a result of the new information. Instead, the information is incorporated into the beliefs that already exist.

Examples:

John has a basic understanding of physics. Therefore, it was easy for him to assimilate the things he learned in his graduate physics class.

Communicative Learning Theory

The full name of the Communicative Approach (CA) is "The Communicative-Adaptive approach." This highlights the two most distinctive features

of the CA : first, that it is a new way to understand human

emotionally-laden communications second, that it has shown that the primary

function of the emotion-processing mind is to cope with - adapt to - immediate emotionally-charged triggering events.

 It is a new theory or paradigm of emotional life and psychoanalysis that is centered on human adaptations to emotionally-charged events--with full appreciation that such adaptations take place both within awareness (consciously) and outside of awareness

(unconsciously) .

The origins of the Communicative Approach have arisen both in linguistics and in

language teaching as a “reaction against the view of language as a set of structures ”

(Brumfit and Johnson 3.)

The Communicative Approach places emphasis on developing the communicative

competence, viewed as “the overall underlying knowledge and ability for language use

which the speaker-listener possesses“ (Brumfit and Johnson 15).

Through the communicative teaching, learners are encouraged to “consider language not only in

terms of its structures (grammar and vocabulary), but also in terms of the communicative functions that it performs” ( Littewood x). By giving opportunities to use the language for real communicative purposes the teacher helps them to develop strategies for relating the structures of a language to the communicative

functions they can perform .

Communicative activities are divided into: functional communication activities social interaction ones.

Functional communication activities are designed for the learners to use “whatever

language they have at their disposal”Therefore, the success is measured primarily by their ability to cope with the given task, not by their grammatical accuracy andappropriateness of their choice of the language .

It is important to point out that theCommunicative Approach often places

the responsibility for fulfilling the tasks on the learners themselves. The teacher creates

a situation and sets an activity, but his role during the activity is not direct, he can serve

as a guide, advisor or observer, but the main responsibility for coming to a conclusion lies on his students .

Social interaction activities place emphasis also on choosing language which is acceptable

according to the particular situation. Consequently, the success is measured according to both the function effectiveness

and correct language choice .

Compare between the four Theories on the basis of:

The main Principle The role of the teacher The role of the learner

References

1 .Learning theories .com

Prepared by:

T. Maha Arafat