Mohammad Abu HanifLecturer,Govt.TTC,Faridpur

Theories of learning

Theories of learningBehaviorist theories of learningCognitivismSocial constuctivism

I Believe that...

1. Learners need grades, gold stars, and other incentives as motivation to learn and to accomplish school requirements.

2. Learners can be trusted to find their own goals and should have some options or choices in what they learn at school.

3. Teachers need to determine what students are thinking about while solving math problems.

4. Students should be graded according to uniform standards of achievement which the teacher sets for the class.

5. Students should set their own individual standards and should evaluate their own work.

6. Curriculum should be organized along subject matter lines that are carefully sequenced.

7. The teacher should help students to monitor and control their own learning behavior.

8. The school experience should help students to develop positive relations with their peers.

Behaviorist theories of learningThe following are valuable:RepetitionSmall, concrete, progressively sequenced

tasksPositive and negative reinforcementConsistency in the use of reinforcers during

the teaching-learning process

Habits and other undesirable responses can be broken by removing the positive reinforcers connected with them.

Immediate, consistent, and positive reinforcement increases the speed of learning.

Once an item is learned, intermittent reinforcement will promote retention.

Principles that B.F. Skinner identified Pleasant experiences (such as rewards or praise) are

positive reinforcers. They cause learners to make desired connections between stimuli and responses.

Unpleasant experiences (such as punishment) are negative reinforcers. They cause learners to avoid undesirable responses to stimuli.

Continuous reinforcement increases the rate of learning. Intermittent reinforcement contributes to longer

retention of what is learned. Both positive and negative reinforcement can shape

behavior. A lack of any reinforcement can also shape behavior. If

people receive no acknowledgement of their behavior, they will likely change that behavior until they receive some kind of reinforcement.

Cognitivism Cognitivism or cognitive

psychology, took into consider “mind” as opposed to behaviorists, and studied on the internal mental processes (such as how a new information kept in memory and called back, to help clarify some complexities of learning, especially human language-based learning for the verbal learning theorists.

What is learning, according to cognitivism?learning is relatively permanent change in

“mental representations” due to experience that occurs by embedding new information into existing scheme in mind. This happens in two ways: by assimilation, or accommodation.

First, the individual’s mind matches the new information and existing scheme, mental representations of previously learned information consisting of concepts and procedures and their connection structures, then tries to digest the new information into their scheme (assimilation). If it can’t do that, the individual tries to adapt existing scheme to the new information (accommodation), or creates a new scheme covering new information as well. When there is no way found to match, the new information is just gets internalized.

 How does learning process occur?Many Cognitivists explain the process by

using “information processing theory.” Basically it talks about how the processes of storage, and retrieval occurs. (See Figure2 below)

However, many saw learning more than just receiving information from outside but personalizing that information by restructuring it in mind, in other words, “constructing” knowledge from information received. This perspective is called “constructivism.”

Major assumptions of cognitivismLearning can occur in the absence of

behavioral changeLearning doesn’t have to be observable but

most learning is registered through behaviorCognitive processes are the focus of studyIndividuals are actively involved in the learning

processKnowledge is organized and stored in schemas

or scriptsSome learning skills are unique to human

beings, e.g. language learning

A response to behaviorism, people are not “programmed animals” that merely respond to environmental stimuli; 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.

Behaviorist Vs Constructivist Learning Models

What is constructivism?constructivism states that learning is an active,

contextualized process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it.

People actively construct or create their own subjective representations of objective reality.

New information is linked to prior knowledge, thus mental representations are subjective.

In any case, we are active creators of our own knowledge.

To do this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know.

Constructivism: Classroom Practices• encouraging students to use active

techniques (experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing.

• The teacher makes sure she understands the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then build on them.

Constructivism: Classroom Practices Encourage students to constantly

assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding.

By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become "expert learners."

This gives them ever-broadening tools to keep learning. With a well-planned classroom environment, the students learn HOW TO LEARN

Constructivism is also often misconstrued as a learning theory that compels students to "reinvent the wheel." In fact, constructivism taps into and triggers the student's innate curiosity about the world and how things work. Students do not reinvent the wheel but, rather, attempt to understand how it turns, how it functions. They become engaged by applying their existing knowledge and real-world experience, learning to hypothesize, testing their theories, and ultimately drawing conclusions from their findings.

In a constructivist classroom, learning is . . .

Constructed Active Reflective Collaborative Inquiry based Evolving

The evolution of constructivism.The concept of constructivism has roots in

classical antiquity, going back to Socrates's dialogues with his followers, in which he asked directed questions that led his students to realize for themselves the weaknesses in their thinking. The Socratic dialogue is still an important tool in the way constructivist educators assess their students' learning and plan new learning experiences.

In this century, Jean Piaget and John Dewey developed theories of childhood development and education, what we now call Progressive Education, that led to the evolution of constructivism.

JEAN PIAGET

Swiss-born professor of psychology and sociology, devoted his life to the question, How does knowledge grow? Piaget concluded that humans learn through the construction of progressively complex logical structures, from infancy through to adulthood. Constructivist education is based on this premise of successive knowledge-building that increases in depth and complexity from stage to stage.

JOHN DEWEY

John Dewey (1859-1952), an American philosopher and educator, believed that curriculum should be flexible and tailored to the needs and interests of each student. The Curriculum should also be taught as integrated topics, rather than isolated skills. Education is a process of growth  and a way of helping individuals through social experiences.

LEV VYGOTSKY A prominent scholar in several disciplines, Lev

Vygotsky was born in Russia in 1896. Vygotsky proposed a theory of cognitive

development that emphasized the underlying process rather than the ultimate stage of development. He examined the relationship between the cognitive process and the subject's social activities, and is well known for his sociocultural theory of development that focuses on the "zone of proximal development." According to this theory, learning takes place when students solve problems beyond their actual developmental level (but within their level of potential development) under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.

What are some critical perspectives? It's elitist. Critics say that constructivism

and other "progressive" educational theories have been most successful with children from privileged backgrounds who are fortunate in having outstanding teachers, committed parents, and rich home environments. They argue that disadvantaged children, lacking such resources, benefit more from more explicit instruction

Critical perspectivesSocial constructivism leads to "group

think." Critics say the collaborative aspects of constructivist classrooms tend to produce a "tyranny of the majority," in which a few students' voices or interpretations dominate the group's conclusions, and dissenting students are forced to conform to the emerging consensus.

Thank You