Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua

Licenciatura en Lengua Inglesa

Subject: Learning Theories Applied to Teaching English to

Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

3rd. semester

Handbook

Name of the student: _________________________________

Instructor: Laura Luevano, M. E. S.

Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 2

SYLLABUS

Learning Theories
Throughout time experts of the field of Education have attempted to explain how individuals learn. Thus, they have studied the
behavior of human beings (e.g., Behaviorism), mental processes (e.g., memory, reasoning, retrieval of knowledge, info
organization, etc.), (e.g., Cognitive Theory or Cognitivism), as well as how social interaction influences learning (Constructivism).
As a result of the study of mental processes, social interaction, and changes in behavior, learning theories have been originated.

In this respect, there are THREE main PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORKS under which learning theories fall: Behaviorism,
Cognitivism, and Constructivism. In this course we will discuss the characteristics of these philosophical frameworks, their
origins, their main contributors; as well as ELEVEN LEARNING THEORIES that are supported by these philosophical
frameworks.

Course Objectives:
At the end of this course, you should be able to:
1. Recognize concepts and key figures from learning theories.
2. Apply the concepts of the learning theories to personal and other life situations, particularly those related to education.
3. Compare and contrast different theories that explain how people perceive, process, remember information, solve problems,
change their behavior and learn.
4. Recognize situations in which cognitive/behaviorist/constructivist concepts are likely to occur.
5. Effectively communicate ideas in written/oral reports.

The topics that will be covered in this course are:

TOPIC: NAME OF THE STUDENT:
Overview of three main paradigms: Behaviorism, Cognitivism,
Constructivism.
Unit 1 Behaviorist Theory
1) Skinner´s Behaviorist theory

Cognitivist Theories
2) Bandura's Social Learning Theory (Learning Through
Observation)
3) Atkinson & Shiffrin´s Cognitive Information Processing Theory
4) Wertheimer´s Gestalt Psychology
Unit 2
5) Ausubel´s Assimilation theory
6) Piaget´s stage theory of cognitive development
7) Bloom´s taxonomy
8) Gagne´s conditions of learning theory
9) Gardner´s multiple intelligences theory (8)

Constructivist Theories
10) Vygotsky´s Social Development Theory
Unit 3
11) Bruner's Theory of Scaffolding
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 3

Methodology of the course

FIRST PART (AN OVERVIEW)
-The teacher will introduce the topics: Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism. You will have to watch videos
posted in the Campus Virtual by the teacher and read the text in your handbook. We will also have Zoom sessions to
discuss the topic (s) presented by the teacher, the questionnaires, and the videos. After each of the topic is presented,
you will have to answer some exercises and questionnaires and put them on the link “tarea” that will be in each of the
sections in the Campus Virtual.
SECOND PART
-At the beginning of the semester, you will be assigned with one of the 11 theories we will see during the semester.
You will have to prepare a video in which you include:
a) A brief description of the biography of the author of the theory, and
b) A microteaching following the characteristics of the theory. A microteaching is, in other words, a lesson in which you
teach English, but you plan your lesson following the characteristics of the theory you were assigned. For example,
Vygotsky´s theory claims that social interaction is essential to learn. So, in your English lesson you should include one
or two activities in which your “students” (i.e., your classmates or members of your family) work together in groups.
Watch the video below so you have an idea on how to conduct a microteaching on-line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaiAbAc868w
Now, what the following video so you how you will “insert” the biography of the author before you start your
microteaching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNnDIDl_vVI&feature=youtu.be
After you prepare your video, you should upload it to youtube and send the link to me via whatsapp one or two days
before we discuss your video in class.
Since we are going through this pandemic, it will not be possible that you gather with your classmates, so you may
want to use a platform (e.g. zoom) so that you can connect with your classmates, teach your class, and record your
class. Record your class, upload the video in youtube, and send the link to me via whatsapp before the google meet
session so we can see and discuss your class during the session. In case you cannot gather with your classmates
and have the session, you should pretend your classmates are “there” and teach your class, or you can also
ask your relatives to help you and play the role of your students.
Check the link below so that you see an English class in which the teacher pretends that his students are there:
https://www.facebook.com/javier.deleoncontreras/videos/3081861258539431

SOMETHING IMPORTANT: BEFORE you record your video, you have to PLAN your class. To do so, you should
use the template below, upload your lesson plan to Moodle in the “pestaña” that says LESSON PLANS, so that I can
check the lesson plan before you start recording your video. Here is an example of the template and how it should be
filled:
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 4

LESSON PLAN

1. General Information:
NAME OF THE TEACHER: Denisse Michelle Acosta Mendoza
Topic of the ENGLISH lesson: How to recognize and express emotions.
Time: 30 minutes
Target students: Children
Objectives: 1. By the end of the class, the students will be able to recognize and express
their emotions.
This English Class represents the 4) Bandura’s social learning theory.
following learning theory:

2. Sequence of events:
Write down step by step what you and your students will be doing in your English class.
(This lesson plan will be followed by all the presenters except by those presenting Bloom´s Taxonomy and Gagne´s
Conditions of Learning Theory, because these two theories have their own sequence of events):
Steps: Description of the lesson: Technical Description (in each of the steps
tell how your activities resemble the learning
theory):
1. Warm up The teacher introduces herself In Bandura’s theory, it is important that there
and expresses how happy she is always someone demonstrating the
is to be with the students. behavior. In this case, the model is the
teacher.
2. Input (discover by yourself) The teacher asks the students The students describe their own feelings to
(only in Cognitivist and if they are happy, and how the teacher, and explain why they feel like
Constructivist theories). they know if they are happy. that.
3. Guided practice: The teacher shares in a power This theory needs someone who is explaining
point presentation the different and guiding the topic, and also, some
emotions they can feel, with supporting material like drawings and images
illustrations of the emotions so so that the students can observe them and
that it is easier to identify imitate them. Also, the model uses the
them. Later, she asks the repetition source so that the students imitate
students to repeat after her her and they increase the desirable behavior.
when she uses the emotions
in different sentences.
4. Practice (the students do it The teacher creates an After observing the characteristics of
by themselves). exercise where the students emotions, the students will reinforce their
apply what they just learned newly acquired knowledge by identifying the
by identifying emotions. topic’s characteristics by themselves.
5. Language Wrap-up (assess The teacher asks the students This will enhance the student’s ability to
your grasp): to classify a few more images recognize their own emotions and to express
so that the students apply them easily.
what they have learned to
make sure they understand it.
For homework, the students
must write down the different
emotions they felt from the
moment they left school, until
they went to sleep.

After I check your lesson plan, you are ready to record your video and present your theory,
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 5

THIS IS HOW THE THEORIES WILL BE PRESENTED:

-To present each theory, we will follow these steps:
a) You will watch a video explaining the basic information about the theory (if available) (The link will be posted by the
teacher in the Campus Virtual) (this assignment should be done by all the students).
b) You will watch a video demonstrating the theory in a classroom (if available) (The link will be posted by the teacher
in the Campus Virtual) (this assignment should be done by all the students)
c) You will answer a questionnaire in which I will include questions about the information in the videos and about
the text in your handbook. A link to the questionnaire will be posted below in each section (Campus Virtual). Then
you will have to send the questionnaire in the “tarea” link in each of the sections (Campus Virtual) (this assignment
should be done by all the students).
d) THE DAY OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE THEORY, we will have a Zoom session in which we will
- discuss the questionnaire (s),
- watch the video presented by your classmates (those in charge of presenting the microteaching related with the
theory we are studying).
IN ADDITION,
I will be sending you the link to enter the class on Zoom via whatsapp.
During the Zoom sessions:
 You should be ready and well prepared to participate actively in group discussion (we will be checking
the questionnaires). This will count as your attendance.
 We will present the video with the microteaching whose link will be sent by your classmates previously
to me.
 In order to have an attendance you should enter the virtual classroom in Zoom at the time and
weekdays when the class is scheduled. You should also have your CAMERA ON and participate in the
discussion so you have your attendance.

FINAL PROJECT 1 – CLASS OBSERVATION (real class or video on youtube)

Select one class from the web (e.g., youtube). This must be an English class. Observe the class and identify the characteristics of
the learning theories that the teachers use in their class. Write a 3 pages report in which you discuss the characteristics of the
learning theories we have seen in class and that you identify in the class you observe. Include the link of the class you observe in
your written report. You may want to use the rubric provided by the teacher when observing the class (handbook, page 7).

FINAL PROJECT 2 – MICROTEACHING (or real class) based on the SOCIO-CULTURAL (i. e. Communicative)
APPROACH

a) Analysis of a class based on the communicative approach (follow the template provided by the teacher) (The
link to the template will be posted in the Campus Virtual)
b) Develop your lesson plan based on the communicative approach (follow the template provided by the teacher)
Both, the analysis of the class and your own lesson plan should be submitted in the corresponding link posted in the Campus
Virtual.
c) Work in groups of four or five, select one of the lesson plans you developed for b) and develop a
microteaching based on the communicative approach. Post it on youtube and send the link to me via
whatsapp.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 6

The course will be evaluated as follows:

Points
Exams (Tentatively 7-8) 20
Oral presentation of the author and Microteaching 15
Lesson Plan of the Microteaching 10
Questionnaires and Homework 25
FINAL PROJECT 1: Class observation (of a real English class from internet) 5
FINAL PROJECT 2: 15
Attendance and participation: 10
10 absences means failing the course.
9 absences, you get 1 point.
8 absences, you get 2 points.
7 absences, you get 3 points.
6 absences, you get 4 points.
5 absences, you get 5 points.
4 absences, you get 6 points.
3 absences, you get 7 points.
2 absences, you get 8 points.
1 absence, you get 9 points.
0 absences, you get 10 points.

(2 tardies constitute 1 absence. If you come late to class it is YOUR

RESPONSIBILITY to let know the teacher AT THE END OF THE CLASS that you
came late –no later than 15 minutes--, so the teacher can give you a tardy rather than
an absence).
TOTAL POINTS 100
Microteaching and class observation are requisites to pass the course.
There will not be make ups for microteachings, questionnaires, etc.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 7

Class observation - Rubric

Used in the
class I
observed?
Theory Main Characteristic (s) Questions to be used as a guide: YES NO
Behaviorism
1 Skinner´s Behaviorism Behavior-Stimulus-Changed Were any stimuli given as an attempt to
behavior increase/decrease behavior? How?
Cognitivism
2 Bandura´s Social Learning through Was learning encouraged through modeling
Learning Theory modeling/observation and observation? How?
3 Atkinson and Shiffrin´s Long and short term memory Were any strategies used to pass information
Cognitive Information from shot-term to long-term memory? How?
Processing Theory
4 Gestalt Psychology The whole is better than its Was learning encouraged through
parts strategies/activities that gave the student the
opportunity to see the whole of something (e.g.,
how and item fits in a given context and/or as
part of a whole)?
5 Ausubel´s Assimilation Meaningful versus rote Was meaningful or rote learning encouraged?
Theory learning How?
6 Piaget´s Theory of Disequilibrium, Assimilation, Were any signs of cognitive disequilibrium,
Cognitive Development Accomodation. assimilation, and accommodation? How?
Sensimotor, Preoperational, Were activities/material, etc., developed
Concrete operational, and according to the stage of students? What were
Formal operational stages. they?
7 Bloom´s taxonomy Knowledge, Comprehension, Were all or any of the stages in the cognitive
Application, Analysis, domain used? How? Were they used in order?
Synthesis
8 Gagne´s Conditions of Gain attention, Were all of any of the instructional events
Learning Theory Identify objective, Recall prior used? How?
learning, Present stimulus,
Guide learning, Elicit
performance, Provide
feedback, Assess performance,
Enhance retention
9 Gardner´s Multiple Linguistic, Logical- Were instructions, activities, material, etc.,
Intelligences Theory mathematical, Musical based on one or several intelligences? How?
Bodily-Kinesthetic, Visual-
spatial, Interpersonal,
Intrapersonal, Naturalistic
Constructivism
10 Vigotsky´s Social Social interaction, MKO, ZPD Were social interaction/MKO/ZPD used as
Development Theory strategies to enhance learning?
11 Bruner´s Theory of Scaffolding Were any types of scaffolding used to enhance
Scaffolding (Temporary structure to help learning, learning? (e.g., cues, prompts, questions, etc.)
whose main objective is to achieve
learners´ independence)

II. After observing your class, prepare your written/oral report. Discuss the following:

a) Setting: Describe the setting of your classroom observation including the level (e.g., beginners, intermediate, advanced) and
topic taught. Give a summary of the student population (e.g., average age, etc.). You should leave off the specific names of
teachers and schools but should give general descriptions of the school setting. (Include pictures if possible).

b) Description of the lesson: Describe the lesson being observed. Summarize the lesson plan the teacher used, the activities, the
materials, instructional groupings, specific strategies. (Include pictures if possible).
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 8

c) Analysis: Analyze the methods and techniques that you observed with relation to the theories that have covered in class.
Mention concrete/specific examples from your observations, discuss their effectiveness, and give suggestions for methods and
techniques that could be used to improve any specific examples that you critique. (Include pictures if possible).

d) Conclusion: Give a conclusion about what you will take with you from this experience and what personal implications it would
have on your teaching.

SAMPLE OF A CLASS OBSERVATION REPORT

By Karen Cecilia Chávez Tena

Setting
I went to a public elementary (primary) school for my observation class. I went on Monday 05/17/2018. It is a full time school
whose hours are from 8 to 3 pm. It was quite difficult to me stay observe the whole school day, that is why I went to the first hour
of classes from 8 to 9 a.m. The group I went to observe was 1 st. grade. This is a group made up of 17 students and most of them
are 6 years old. Students of this age, in their first year of primary school, are taught to basic things: one focused on Spanish writing
and reading, and the other part on Mathematics, teaching numbers, adding, and substracting. The classroom is a large place, with
lots of windows, lighting is important for these little people to feel productive. The walls are decorated with letters and numbers in
bold colors for students to identify them and become familiar with them. Friendly shape to the students´ eyes. The students´ chairs
go in the direction of the whiteboard so that they can focus their attention on it comfortably.

Description of the lesson

When the class started the teacher asked the students to take their place and so each one took a seat in the place that corresponded.
After the students took their spot, the teacher asked them what they have done in their weekend. This is an activity used to break
the ice and start the day comfortably. Then, the teacher called the roll. Following this, the teacher ordered the students to take out
their notebooks because they started with the dictation of each morning. The teacher explained to me that as in this grade of
education they focus on two subjects mainly (Spanish and Mathematics) half of the school day they use for one subject and
followed by the break, the other half of the day they focus on Mathematics, and every day as a warm-up they start with a dictation
of words to practice writing, reading, and the auditory ability of the student. The teacher dictated in Spanish seven words, all of
them names of fruits and vegetables (Calabaza, tomate, cebolla, repollo, melon, chile, naranja y uva). A very familiar topic to
children since it is something they see every day. The teacher left an interval of time between each word so that the student had
time to write the word correctly. During that time the students repeated the word continuously and did it in syllabic form to
familiarize the sounds with the letters they could write. After the dictation, the teacher wrote the words on the blackboard so that
the students could compare the teacher´s writing with their own and correct if they had errors. The teacher wrote a word with a
mistake on the blackboard and he explained to me that he always does it so that the children think by themselves and not only
follow what the teacher writes on the board. After a while, the students detected the incorrect word (calaboza - calabaza). After the
dictation and the corrections, the students were asked to write a sentence where they used each of the words, a sentence by word
and the students began to work on that. Some of the students were showing their sentences to the teacher, but due to the short time
I had to observe the class, I did not have time to see the final result. The teacher told me that as they recently learned to write, it
takes a lot of time to write sentences, complete and correct them. In that type of exercise, it takes them maximum 3 hours to
complete the exercise correctly.

Analysis
The teacher did not use any strategy of Behaviorism during the time I was observing the class. From Cognitivism the teacher used
Bandura´s Social Learning Theory. In this activity the main purpose is for the student to learn from the correct writing of the
words dictated and the sentences that they should form, and that would be achieves by observing the words the teacher wrote on
the board or personally presenting their doubts to the teacher as well. From Atkinson and Shiffrin´s Cognitive Information
Processing Theory, during the dictation of words in the intermediate time where they write they repeated continuously the word
and the sound of each letter to remember which letter corresponded to the sounds and thus to be able to write the word complete.
The students had to remember information they had learned previously to achieve the objective of this activity. From Bloom´s
taxonomy, I identified the stage of knowledge when the students had to remember the sound of the letters to write the names of
the fruits and vegetables, the stage of comprehension when the students understood how to use these words in a sentence, the
stage of application when they wrote their own sentences in their notebooks, the stage of analysis when they connected the
previous dictation exercises from other days and familiarized them with this new one.

From Gagne´s Conditions of Learning Theory, all of the instructional steps were used: gain attention when the class started and
the teacher asked them how they had spent their weekend; identify objective, when the teacher asked to take out their notebook to
start with the dictation activity; recall prior learning when the students wrote the words and sentences with the knowledge they
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 9

had previously acquired; present stimulus, when the teacher presented the new words and the new topic (i.e., fruits and
vegetables); guide learning, when the teacher correctly wrote the words dictated on the board for the students to take them as a
guide; elicit performance, when the teacher asked them to write new sentences for each word; provide feedback, when the
students approached the teacher to pre-determine if their sentences were correct; assess performance, when the teacher asked the
students to analyze what he wrote so that they could also notice if there were any errors (i.e., calaboza - calabaza), as well as when
the students identified that the teacher had written an incorrect word on the board; and finally, enhance retention occurred when
the students who did not finish the work they would have to do it as homework.

From Gardner´s Multiple Intelligences Theory and Learning Styles, the teacher made the students use their linguistic
intelligence (they focused on working on the writing of Spanish, both the students in their notebooks and the teacher on the board);
visual when the students had to look at the board to check if their writing was correct); musical since in order to write the words the
students had to listen to the words from the teacher and then repeat them in syllables; interpersonal when the students shared their
examples with the teacher to know if they were correct (sometimes the students asked their classmates for help); intrapersonal as
many of the students preferred to work on their own without asking questions.

From Constructivism, the teacher used Vygotsky´s Social Development Theory. From this, the teacher used the Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD) when he gave the guide on the board so the students could make their own corrections, as well as
when they made their own sentences from what they previously learned from other exercises. This gave them the independence to
write their own sentences and the chance to ask one of the More Knowledgeable Others (MKO) (in this case the teacher and/or
those classmates that knew more than they did).

Conclusion
It was a good experience to see a learning process especially in these children who are just beginning their education. Being able to
analyze how well it makes such a simple exercise and that daily practice helps the students improve, even if they do not know the
implications and all the theories behind that exercise, but the students know how to get the most out of it. However, I would have
liked see them doing an activity they were not used to, to see their behavior outside their comfort zone and see them learn from
scratch.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 10

Overview
Behaviorism – Cognitivism -
Constructivism
Behaviorism
Retrieved from (http://myenglishpages.com/blog/behaviorism)

Behaviorism is a learning theory that considers anything an organism do as a behavior. According to the behaviorists, these
behaviors can be scientifically studied regardless of what happens in the mind (psychological constructs such as thoughts,
feelings). As a theory, behaviorism focuses on observable behaviors and contends that there are no philosophical differences
between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling.)
Behaviorism main figures were, Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner.
Behaviorists believe in three basic assumptions:
1. Learning is manifested by a change in behavior.
2. The environment shapes behavior.
3. The principles of contiguity (how close in time two events must be for a bond to be formed) and reinforcement (any
means of increasing the likelihood that an event will be repeated) are central to explaining the learning process.

For behaviorists, learning is the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning.

Classical Conditioning
In Behaviorism, learning is defined as a sequence of stimulus and response
actions. For example in the case of Pavlov’s conditioning experiments on dogs,
behavior becomes a reflex response to stimulus. In conducting the
experiment, Pavlov noticed that the dog would salivate (response), upon
hearing the ringing of a bell. This occurred because the dog had learned to
associate its unconditional stimuli (normally feeding), with the neutral stimuli
of the bell ringing simultaneously with the feeding process.

Examples of the applications in teaching

Here some of the applications of behaviorism in education:
 Directed instruction (a teacher provides the knowledge to the students
directly). The use of exams to measure observable behavior of learning.
 The use of rewards and punishments.
 The audio-lingual approach to language teaching.

As a learning theory Behaviorism focuses on the observable behavior, which they claim must be the subject of a scientific study.
However it fails to account for the learning process and how the mind and the affective domain interfere in the processing
of information. New learning approaches and theories appeared in the 20th century as a response to these shortcomings.
Cognitivism and Constructivism are the major trends of this movement.

SKINNER’S OPERANT CONDITIONING

Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/operant-conditioning.html

By the 1920s other behaviorists were becoming influential. Perhaps the most important of these was Burrhus Frederic Skinner,
although, for obvious reasons he is more commonly known as BF Skinner. Skinner believed that we do have such a thing as a
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 11

mind, but that it is simply more productive to study observable behavior rather than internal mental events. He called this approach
operant conditioning.

Skinner studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments using animals, which he placed in a “Skinner Box”.

Skinner coined the term operant conditioning; it means roughly changing of behavior by the use of reinforcement which is
given after the desired response.

OPERANT CONDITIONING
• Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be
either positive or negative.

• Punishers: Response from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment weakens
behavior.
POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT (to increase)

Skinner showed how positive reinforcement worked by placing a hungry rat in his Skinner box. The box contained a lever in the
side and as the rat moved about the box it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so a food pellet (a small hard ball
of food) would drop into a container next to the lever. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of
being put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again
and again.

TO INCREASE THE PROBABILITY THAT A If... Then... INCREASED behaviour

DESIRED BEHAVIOUR OCCURS OVER AND
OVER
POSITIVE APPLICATION OF A The rat presses The rat receives food The rat presses the lever
REINFORCER REWARDING STIMULUS, the lever (rewarding stimulus)
after a particular behaviour; so
the behaviour is repeated.

Positive reinforcement strengthens a behaviour by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding. For example, if your
teacher gives you $5 pesos each time you complete your homework (i.e. a reward) you are more likely to repeat this behaviour in
the future, thus strengthening the behaviour of completing your homework.

TO INCREASE THE PROBABILITY THAT A If... Then... INCREASED behaviour

DESIRED BEHAVIOUR OCCURS OVER AND
OVER
POSITIVE APPLICATION OF A You complete Your teacher gives you You keep on completing
REINFORCER REWARDING your homework $5 your homework
STIMULUS, after a (rewarding stimulus)
particular behaviour; so the
behaviour is repeated.

The term reinforce then means to strengthen and is used in psychology to refer to any stimulus which strengthens or increases the
probability of a specific response.. Positive Reinforcement is an an attempt to increase the likelihood of a behavior occurring in the
future, an operant response is followed by the presentation of an appetitive stimulus. In other words, THE TEACHER GIVES
SOMETHING VALUABLE TO THE STUDENT. This is positive reinforcement.

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT (to increase)

Negative Reinforcement is the removal of an adverse stimulus. Negative reinforcement strengthens behaviour because it stops
or removes an unpleasant experience.

For example, if you do not complete your homework you give your teacher $5. You will complete your homework to avoid paying
$5, thus strengthening the behaviour of completing your homework.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 12

TO INCREASE THE PROBABILITY THAT A If... Then... INCREASED behaviour

DESIRED BEHAVIOUR OCCURS OVER AND
OVER
NEGATIVE REMOVAL OF AN You complete You DONT pay your You complete your
REINFORCER AVERSIVE STIMULUS, your homework teacher $5 dollars homework
after a particular behaviour; (removal of an
so the desired behaviour is adversive stimulus)
increased

Skinner showed how negative reinforcement worked by placing a rat in his Skinner box and then subjecting it to an unpleasant
electric current which caused it some discomfort. As the rat moved about the box it would accidentally knock the lever.
Immediately it did so the electric current would be switched off. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few
times of being put in the box. The consequence of escaping the electric current ensured that they would repeat the action again and
again.

TO INCREASE THE PROBABILITY THAT A If... Then... INCREASED behavior

DESIRED BEHAVIOUR OCCURS OVER AND
OVER
NEGATIVE REMOVAL OF AN The rat knocks The rat doesn’t get the The rat knocks the lever
REINFORCER AVERSIVE STIMULUS, the lever electric current over and over
after a particular behaviour;
so the desired behaviour is
increased

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT (to decrease)

Punishment (weakens behaviour)

Punishment is defined as the opposite of reinforcement since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than increase
it. Like reinforcement, punishment can work either by directly applying an unpleasant stimulus like a shock after a response or by
removing a potentially rewarding stimulus, for instance, deducting someone’s pocket money to punish undesirable behaviour.

TO ELIMINATE BEHAVIOUR If... Then... ELIMINATED

behaviour
POSITIVE APPLYING AN The student The teacher gives him The student won’t
PUNISHMENT AVERSIVE (unpleasant) commits a zero commit plagiarism
STIMULUS, after a plagiarism again (hopefully!)
particular behaviour; so the
behaviour is NOT repeated.
NEGATIVE REMOVAL OF A The student The institution The student won’t
PUNISHMENT REWARDING commits suspends the student’s commit plagiarism
STIMULUS, after a plagiarism scholarship
particular behaviour; so the
behaviour is NOT repeated.

Analyze the following situations and tell which are POSITIVE and NEGATIVE reinforcers; porsitive or negative
PUNISHMENTS:
http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/prtut/reinpair.htm, http://allpsych.com/psychology101/reinforcement.html
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/nr.html):
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 13

TO INCREASE THE PROBABILITY THAT A DESIRED BEHAVIOUR IS REPEATED

POSITIVE APPLICATION OF A REWARDING STIMULUS, after a particular behaviour; so
REINFORCER the behaviour is repeated.

NEGATIVE REMOVAL OF AN AVERSIVE STIMULUS, after a particular behaviour; so the

REINFORCER desired behaviour is increased

TO ELIMINATE BEHAVIOUR
POSITIVE APPLICATION OF AN AVERSIVE STIMULUS, after a particular behaviour; so the
PUNISHMENT behaviour is NOT repeated.

NEGATIVE REMOVAL OF A REWARDING STIMULUS, after a particular behaviour; so the is

PUNISHMENT NOT repeated.

+R If I do Then this Thus, is the Action

SITUATION -R this… happens behavior taken:
+P (Stimulus) increased or (applicatio
-P decreased? n of a
rewarding
stimulus?)
1. You leave home earlier than usual one -R Leave Avoid Increased Removal of
morning, and don't run into heavy traffic. home traffic an aversive
You leave home earlier again the next early stimulus
morning and again you avoid heavy
traffic. Your behavior of leaving home
earlier is strengthened by the consequence
of the avoidance of heavy traffic.

2. Students in Professor Smith's class were

given a weekly quiz. The students' percent
correct quiz responding on the first quiz
was low, so Professor Smith stopped
praising the performance of the students.
As a result of this procedure, the students'
low performance stopped.

3. Martha was a five-year-old girl who

attended preschool. She seldom played
with the other children. Workers at the
preschool began praising and admiring
Martha when she engaged in cooperative
play with other children. As a result of this
procedure Martha's level of cooperative
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 14

play with the other children increased.

4. Imagine a teenager who is nagged by

his mother to take out the garbage week
after week. He finally one day performs
the task and the nagging stops.

5. When a child says "please" and "thank

you" to his/her mother, the child may not
have to engage in his/her dreaded chore of
setting the table. The Child starts saying
"please" and "thank you" to his/her
mother.

7. If you want your dog to sit on

command, you may give him a treat every
time he sits for you. The dog will
eventually come to understand that sitting
when told to will result in a treat. This
treat is reinforcing because he likes it and
will result in him sitting when instructed
to do so.

Answer the following:

1. What is behaviorism primarily concerned with? and what is the principle of contiguity?
2. Is behaviourism concerned with internal events like thinking and emotion?
3. Behaviorism “measures” knowledge in terms of observable behavior. In a TESOL
(Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) classroom situation, what would
be an observable behavior?
4. How is the role of the student perceived according to Behaviorism?
5. How is the student behaviour shaped?
6. How’s learning defined in Behaviorism?
7. What was Skinner’s posture towards internal events and behaviour?
8. How is Pavlov’s theory called?
9. How is Skinner’s theory called?
10. How are different classical conditioning and operant conditioning?

Cognitivism
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. It replaced behaviorism in 1960s as the dominant paradigm. Cognitivism focuses on the inner
mental activities. Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions. Learning is defined as change in a learner’s
schemata.
As a response to behaviorism, people are not “programmed animals” that merely respond to environmental stimuli; people are
rational beings that require participation in order to learn, and whose actions are a consequence of thinking. Changes in behavior
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 15

are observed, but only as an indication of what is occurring in the learner’s head. Cognitivism uses the metaphor of the mind as
computer: information comes in, is being processed, and leads to certain outcomes.

For potentially meaningful knowledge to become meaningful knowledge to a learner, it is usually, according to Ausubel, inserted
in a broader, more inclusive piece of meaningful knowledge closely related to it. Understanding of the concept "sonnet" is
enhanced when we learn that it is a kind of poem (assuming we understand what a poem is). The more distinct the new knowledge
is from the relevant subsumer, the harder it is to understand. The key to understanding, it appears, is relating it to appropriate prior
knowledge.

According to this paradigm, the following some of the mental processes that may occur in the mind of an individual:
1. ASSIMILATON
2. DISEQUILIBRIUM
2. ACCOMODATION

Let´s talk about these three processes:

Adapted from: http://www.msn.com/en-us?cobrand=hp13.msn.com&ocid=HPCDHP&pc=HPDTDFJS

Initially proposed by Jean Piaget, the term accommodation refers to part of the adaptation process. The process of accommodation
involves altering one's existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences. New schemas may also be
developed during this process.

Consider, for example, how small children learn about different types of animals. A young child may have an existing schema for
dogs. She knows that dogs have four legs (assimilation), so she might automatically believe that all animals with four legs are
dogs (assimilation). When she later learns that cats also have four legs, she will undergo a process of disequilibrium (e.g., why
isn´t this animal a dog if it has four legs?), then, eventually, (probably after an adult tells her why that is a cat rather than a dog) she
will undergo a process of accommodation in which her existing schema for dogs will change and she will also develop a new
schema for cats.

Schemas become more refined, detailed, and nuanced as new information is gathered and accommodated into our current ideas and
beliefs about how the world works.

How Accommodation Takes Place throughout Life

Accommodation does not just take place in children; adults also experience this as well. When experiences introduce new
information or information that conflicts with existing schemas, you must accommodate this new learning in order to ensure that
what's inside your head conforms to what's outside in the real world.

For example, imagine a young boy raised in a home that presents a stereotyped schema about another social group. Because of his
upbringing, he might even harbor prejudices toward people in this group. When the young man moves away to college, he
suddenly finds himself surrounded by people from this group. Through experience and real interactions with members of this
group, he realizes that his existing knowledge is completely wrong (disequilibrium). This leads to a dramatic change, or
accommodation, in his beliefs about members of this social group.

Thus,

1. ASSIMILATON When the individual inserts this new knowledge into his existing mental schemata (it may fit
or may not fit).
2. DISEQUILIBRIUM When the individual realizes that what he/she inserts does not correspond with reality.
2. ACCOMODATION When the individual sees new possibilities and creates knowledge out of the new and the
previous information (there is a restructuring of knowledge through which the individual
integrates new knowledge)

Work in groups and come up with your own examples of assimilation, disequilibrium, accommodation.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 16

Constructivism
The Basics of Constructivism

Constructivism is a theory about how people learn. Constructivists believe that learners construct their own reality or at least
interpret it based upon their perceptions of experiences, so an individual's knowledge is a function of one's prior experiences,
mental structures, and beliefs that are used to interpret objects and events. What someone knows is grounded in perception of the
physical and social experiences which are comprehended by the mind.

The Assumptions of Constructivism

a) Knowledge is constructed from experience (hands-on).
b) Learning is a personal interpretation of the world.
c) Learning is an active process in which meaning is developed on the basis of experience.
d) Conceptual growth comes from the negotiation of meaning, the sharing of multiple perspectives and the changing of our internal
representations through collaborative learning.
e) Learning should be situated in realistic settings; testing should be integrated with the task and not a separate activity.

Constructivism is the label given to a set of theories about learning which fall somewhere between cognitive and humanistic views.
If behaviourism treats the organism as a black box, cognitive theory recognises the importance of the mind in making sense of the
material with which it is presented. Nevertheless, it still presupposes that the role of the learner is primarily to assimilate whatever
the teacher presents. Constructivism — particularly in its "social" forms — suggests that the learner is much more actively
involved in a joint enterprise with the teacher of creating ("constructing") new meanings. "Social constructivism" emphasizes
how meanings and understandings grow out of social encounters—(e.g. Vygotsky´s theory).

In this sense, conversational theories of learning fit into the constructivist framework. The emphasis is on the learner as an active
"maker of meanings". The role of the teacher is to enter into a dialogue with the learner, trying to understand the meaning to that
learner of the material to be learned, and to help her or him to refine their understanding until it corresponds with that of the
teacher.

Implications of Constructivism in the Classroom

Constructivism depends on learning by doing (e.g. hands-on activity, discussion, and free exploration), but it also depends on
learning by thinking. Methods that rely on doing and discussing should not be judged not on how much doing or discussing is
involved but rather on the degree to which they promote cognitive processing. Guidance, structure, and focused goals should not
be ignored. This is the consistent and clear lesson of decade after decade of research on the effects of discovery methods.

In the most general sense, Constructivism means 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 (cognitive activity). The teacher makes sure he/she understands the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the
activity to address them and then build on them.

Constructivist teachers 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.

When the students continuously reflect on their experiences, they find their ideas gaining in complexity and power, and they
develop increasingly strong abilities to integrate new information. One of the teacher's main roles becomes to encourage this
learning and reflection process.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 17

For example: Groups of students in a science class are discussing a problem in physics. Though the teacher knows the "answer" to
the problem, he/she focuses on helping students restate their questions in useful ways. She prompts each student to reflect on and
examine his or her current knowledge. When one of the students comes up with the relevant concept, the teacher seizes upon it, and
indicates to the group that this might be a fruitful avenue for them to explore. They design and perform relevant experiments.
Afterward, the students and teacher talk about what they have learned, and how their observations and experiments helped (or did
not help) them to better understand the concept.

1. According to Constructivism, how do we learn?

2. What is the role of the teacher in education according to Constructivism?
3. What is the role of the learner in education according to Constructivism?
4. In addition to the teacher and the learner, what else participates in learning? For example, those who study to work as chefs, how
do they learn to cook? In other words, what else participates in the learning of cooking?
5. Object of study means "a tangible and visible thing towards which cognition/learning is directed. Anything regarded as external
to the mind, as existing in the external world".
6. What is the object of study in cooking?
7. Why is it important for us as students of Lengua Inglesa to learn about Learning Theories?

Unit 1
Behaviorist Theory
(Skinner´s)
Theory No. 1) Skinner´s Behaviorism
The Basics of Behaviorism
The theory of behaviorism concentrates on the study of overt behaviors that can be observed and measured (Good & Brophy,
1990). It views the mind as a "black box" in the sense that response to stimulus can be observed quantitatively, totally ignoring the
possibility of thought processes occurring in the mind. Some key players in the development of the behaviorist theory were Pavlov
and Skinner.

Pavlov (1849 - 1936)

The Russian physiologist Pavlov is best known for his work in classical conditioning. Pavlov's most famous experiment involved
food, a dog and a bell.

Pavlov's Experiment
▪ Before conditioning, ringing the bell caused no response from the dog. Placing food in front of the dog initiated salivation.
▪ During conditioning, the bell was rung a few seconds before the dog was presented with food.
▪ After conditioning, the ringing of the bell alone produced salivation.

Skinner (1904 - 1990)

Like Pavlov, Skinner believed in the stimulus-response pattern of conditioned behavior. His theory dealt with changes in
observable behavior, ignoring the possibility of any processes occurring in the mind.

Skinner's work differs from that of Pavlov´s (classical conditioning), in that he studied voluntary behaviors.

Difference between Classical and Operant Conditioning

The two main differences between Pavlov´s Classical Conditioning and Skinner´s Operant Conditioning are:
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 18

Pavlov Skinner
-Involuntary behavior -Voluntary behavior
-stimulus before behavior -Stimulus after behavior

THE ROLES OF BEHAVIORISM THEORY IN LEARNING ENGLISH FOR THE BEGINNERS

To develop your microteaching, do research on THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD, which is an English language teaching
method that basis on behaviorism to assure learners of English acquire the language.

Microteaching:
Skinner´s Behaviorist Theory has to do with the notion of stimulus-response. The Audiolingual Language
Teaching Method adopted this theory of learning, which claims that the occurrence of behavior is dependent
upon three crucial elements in learning: a stimulus, which serves to elicit behavior; a response, triggered by
a stimulus; and reinforcement, which serves to mark the response as being appropriate (or inappropriate)
and encourages repetition (or suspension) of the response. Reinforcement is a vital element in the learning
process, because it increases the likelihood that the behavior will occur again and eventually become a habit:
Reinforcement (to increase behavior BY
REPETITION, so the behavior becomes
a habit)
Stimulus  Organism (student)  Response (behavior)
What is Verbal behavior (e.g.,
presented oral repetition of what the Punishment (Behavior no likely to orally
by the teacher says) occur again.
teacher.

To teach an English class

The teacher says an utterance (e.g., I bought a car). The student repeats the utterance aloud as soon as he/she
has heard it. The student repeats the utterance without looking at a printed text. The utterance must be brief
enough to be retained by the student. The utterance is repeated by the teacher and by the students many times
(e.g., extensive repetition). The teacher says another utterance and the students repeat many times. The
utterance may be related to the previous utterance trying a question and answer technique (e.g., did I buy a
car?). A third utterance may be introduced (e.g., Yes, you bought a car) practicing extensive repetition.

Think of enough utterances so you teach a 30- minutes class, approximately.

You can use reinforcements (e.g., praise your students); and punishment (e.g., correct them when they
commit mistakes).

Unit 2
Cognitivism
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 19

Theory No. 2) Bandura´s Observational Learning

Copyright 1998, 2006 C. George Boeree

Albert Bandura was born December 4, 1925, in the small town of Mundare in northern Alberta, Canada. He was educated in a
small elementary school and high school in one, with minimal resources, yet a remarkable success rate. After high school, he
worked for one summer filling holes on the Alaska Highway in the Yukon.

He received his bachelor degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1949. He
went on to the University of Iowa, where he received his Ph.D. in 1952. It was there that he came under the influence of the
behaviorist tradition and learning theory.

In 1953, he started teaching at Stanford University. While there, he collaborated with his first graduate student, Richard Walters,
resulting in their first book, Adolescent Aggression, in 1959.

Behaviorism, with its emphasis on experimental methods, focuses on variables we can observe, measure, and manipulate, and
avoids whatever is subjective, internal, and unavailable -- i.e. mental.

His social learning theory (later renamed the social cognitive theory) is conceivably the most instrumental theory of learning and
development. Although this theory finds it origins in many of the basic ideas of traditional learning theory, Bandura doubted that
direct reinforcement accounted for every type of learning. Instead, his theory contends that people can learn new behaviors from
watching others. Also known as modeling, this form of learning can be used to describe a multitude of behaviors.

The social learning theory is based upon three basic concepts. First is the belief that learning is possible through observation of
another person's behavior and attitudes. By watching the behaviors of others, a person forms an idea of how to perform new
behaviors and stores the information for later use as a guide for action. Second is the belief that internal mental states are an
important part of the process. Third, this theory acknowledges that a learned behavior will not always result in a changed behavior.

Observational learning, or modeling

Of the hundreds of studies Bandura was responsible for, one group stands out above the others -- the bobo doll studies. He made
of film of one of his students, a young woman, essentially beating up a bobo doll. In case you don’t know, a bobo doll is an
inflatable, egg-shape balloon creature with a weight in the bottom that makes it bob back up when you knock him
down. Nowadays, it might have Darth Vader painted on it, but back then it was simply “Bobo” the clown.

The woman punched the clown, shouting “sockeroo!” She kicked it, sat on it, hit with a little hammer, and so on, shouting various
aggressive phrases. Bandura showed his film to groups of kindergartners who, as you might predict, liked it a lot. They then were
let out to play. In the playroom, of course, were several observers with pens and clipboards in hand, a brand new bobo doll, and a
few little hammers.

And you might predict as well what the observers recorded: A lot of little kids beating the daylights out of the bobo doll. They
punched it and shouted “sockeroo,” kicked it, sat on it, hit it with the little hammers, and so on. In other words, they imitated the
young lady in the film, and quite precisely at that.

This might seem like a real nothing of an experiment at first, but consider: These children changed their behavior without first
being rewarded for approximations to that behavior. And while that may not seem extraordinary to the average parent, teacher, or
casual observer of children, it didn’t fit so well with standard behavioristic learning theory. He called the phenomenon
observational learning or modeling, and his theory is usually called social learning theory.

Bandura also stated that mental states are intrinsic to learning because learning and reinforcement are influenced by factors other
than external, environmental reinforcements. Internal rewards such as pride and satisfaction are also fundamental to learning. By
focusing on cognition, learning theories can be linked to cognitive developmental theories. In fact, Bandura describes his theory as
a social cognitive theory which assumes a middle ground position between other theories that emphasize either internal cognitive
or environmental processes as the only means of learning.

SINCE THE MAIN POINTS IN BANDURA´S THEORY ARE MODELING AND IMITATION, TO DESIGN YOUR
MICROTEACHING, YOU AS A TEACHER SHOULD MODEL WHAT YOU WANT YOUR STUDENTS TO LEARN,
SO THE STUDENTS IMITATE YOU.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 20

Microteaching:
Bandura deals with the idea that stimulus is not the only way to learn, as Behaviorism proposes. Bandura
proposes that there is other way to learn. That is, individuals MIGHT also learn from
WATCHING/OBSERVING others (although not always observing means learning). For Bandura,
observational leaning consists of three components:

-A person who is demonstrating the behavior.

-A person who is describing and explaining the behavior.
-A symbolic model which consists of real or fictional characters exhibiting behavior in films, television,
shows, or books (e.g., Bandura showed the film of a woman punching the bobo doll to the kids).

To teach an English class

The teacher is the one who demonstrates, verbally explains the behavior, and shows the fictional character
exhibiting the behavior. Let´s suppose that the class is about expressing feelings. The teacher demonstrates
the behavior "She feels happy". The teacher uses a symbolic model, which in this case may be a drawing of
a face with a big smile. The drawing should be of an appropriate size and colorful so students pay more
attention. Thus,

-The teacher should act the behavior by pointing at his/her own mouth smiling.
-The teacher shows the drawing and verbally explains the behavior: "She is happy".
-The teacher tries this out with other feelings.
-To enhance reproduction, the teacher tells the utterance (e.g., she is happy) and students repeat (students
here are reproducing the teacher´s behavior).
You can use reinforcements (e.g., praise your students) to enhance motivation

Theory No. 3) Atkinson and Shiffrin´s Cognitive Information Processing Theory

Retrieved from:
http://eev.liu.edu/know_base/cip.htm

Beginning in the 1950s, a major change occurred in the field of Psychology that has come to be known as the Cognitive
Revolution. The cognitive revolution took form as what is now known as “Cognitive Psychology”. This field of psychology had
freed itself from the behaviorist views that were dominant in the 1950s. It wanted to look at the “interior” mental processes, rather
than the observable “exterior” views that behaviorism held. This revolution had a huge impact on theory and research in the field
of psychology, as well as many other disciplines, such as human-computer interaction, human factors and ergonomics. Overall,
information-processing models helped reestablish internal thought processes as a legitimate area of scientific research.

A central metaphor that was adopted by cognitivists at this time was the computer, which served to provide these researchers
important clues and directions in understanding the human brain and how it processes information. Many psychologists and
researchers believe that the Information Processing Theory was influenced by computers, in that the human mind is similar to a
computer. However, today the metaphor of mind as computer has faded. The analogy has many strengths, in that humans have
different memory stores and information is transferred from one store to another, however it does little to actually explain how the
process works and has thus diminished in popularity.

The information processing theory approach to the study of cognitive development evolved out of the American experimental
tradition in psychology. Developmental psychologists who adopt the information-processing perspective account for mental
development in terms of maturational changes in basic components of a child’s mind. The theory is based on the idea that humans
process the information they receive, rather than merely responding to stimuli. This perspective equates the mind to a computer,
which is responsible for analyzing information from the environment. According to the standard information-processing model for
mental development, the mind’s machinery includes attention mechanisms for bringing information in, working memory for
actively manipulating information, and long term memory for passively holding information so that it can be used in the future.
This theory addresses how as children grow, their brains likewise mature, leading to advances in their ability to process and
respond to the information they received through their senses. The theory emphasizes a continuous pattern of development, in
 Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 21

contrast with Cognitive Developmental theorists such as Jean Piaget that thought development occurred in stages at a time.

Description of Theory
In a Cognitive Information Processing Theory, the learner is a processor of information. Learning occurs when info from the
environment (E) is inputted, processed, stored in memory, and outputted as a learned capability. Like behaviorism, CIP asks, "How
does E (environment) change behavior (B)?" Unlike behaviorism, CIP assumes that there is an intervening variable, info
processing (IP), between E and B.
The following is a representation of a general CIP model:

The following List of Terms provides descriptions and/or

discussions of various parts of the model as represented
above:

Sensory Memory

Sensory memory holds information associated with the

senses (e.g., vision, hearing) just long enough for the
information to be processed

further (mere seconds).

The sensory memory very briefly holds info in memory for further processing. The following are processes that occur at the
moment we perceive (sensory memory):
▪ Selective attention - ability to select and process specific info while ignoring other info at the same time; depends on
meaningfulness of info to learner, similarity between competing info sources, task complexity or difficulty, and ability to control
attention.

Short-term memory (STM)

STM functions as a temporary working memory, whereby further processing is carried out to make information ready for long-
term storage or for a response. Working memory holds information for a limited amount of time and holds a limited amount of
information.

Short-term memory or Temporary Working Memory holds limited amount of info for a limited time to make info ready for long-
term memory. While information is in working memory, a learner participates in two activities to seek to retain information and
commit it to long-term memory.
▪ Chunking - process of increasing working memory's capacity by creating larger "bits."
▪ Maintenance rehearsal - engaging in a repetitive task to maintain info in STM for a set period of time.
Data that is committed to LTM is encoded. This data is available to be retrieved and once again stored temporarily in working
memory when the situation calls for it.
▪ Encoding - relating incoming info to stored concepts in memory.
▪ Retrieval - previously stored info is brought back into working memory.

Long-term memory (LTM)

LTM represents our permanent storehouse of information, capable of retaining an unlimited amount and variety of information.
Implications for Instruction

-Group information into categories

-Foster group discussion
-Use of cues/prompts
-Use concept maps
-Use Mnemonics (Acronyms)
-Use pictures and photographs
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 22

Microteaching:

The metaphor of mind as computer has many strengths in that humans have different memory stores and
information is transferred from one store to another; however, it does little to explain HOW THAT
PROCESS WORKS in the mind of the individuals. Information processing theory is an attempt to explain
how such a process works; in other words, what does the mind do in order to store and process
information? The theory thus claims that individuals perform certain mechanisms to process information in
their minds. Such mechanisms are:
-They receive the information (input) through the senses: visual and auditory.
-They activate their selective attention; that is, they decide to be attentive to specific information and ignore
other information at the same time depending on how meaningful or difficult the information is for them.
-At the same time the selective attention occurs, pattern recognition also occurs; that is, individuals
recognize the stimulus if they already have a concept related to the stimulus in their existing schema. One
important thing to take into account is that selective attention and pattern recognition are "used" to put the
new information into the Short Term Memory. Now, to maintain this new information in the Short Term
Memory, individuals carry out two processes: Rehearsal and Chunking. Rehearsal refers to the repetition
of tasks (e.g., as we do when we study for an exam; we get engaged in extensive repetition in order to
remember the information we need to pass the exam). Chunking, on the other hand, refers to pieces of
information that are already in our mind, and that we enlarge by inserting new information (e.g., we already
know the meaning of the concept "poem"; now we are told that there are sonnets which are types of poems;
thus we enlarge the –i.e., create "create larger bits"—our existing information by adding the new information
about sonnets). Without Rehearsal and Chunking, the new information will stay in the Short Term
Memory only from 15 to 30 seconds.
-Once the new information is in the Short Term Memory, the task of the teacher is to help the students to
transfer the new information to the Long Term Memory. This is done through the process of Encoding,
which refers to relating incoming information to stored concept (s) in the memory. Once the information is
already in the Long Term Memory, we can bring it back every time we need it by the process of Retrieval.

-The most important contribution of this theory to education is that teachers need to help their students 1) to
pay attention to the most relevant information (we can do this by generating questions previous to an
activity, and by asking out students to create concept maps, create mnemonics –that is, acronyms).
-Then, teachers should help the students to relate the new information with what is already in their
minds. This can be done by grouping the new information into categories, using pictures or photographs
to introduce the new information, having students participating in group discussions, singing, reading
aloud, learning by doing.

ENGLISH LESSON:
-Select a topic (something that is familiar to the students: e.g., going to the movies, etc.)
-Develop a dialogue (or a small text) that has to do with the topic (you can invent your own dialogue or get
one dialogue from internet or an English book). Before you hand out the dialogue to the students, ask them
questions about the topic and encourage your students to answer the questions using their personal
information.
-If there is new vocabulary in the dialogue, help the students understand such vocabulary by using pictures.
-Then, hand out the dialogue, but at the same time put questions about the dialogue so the students, while
reading the dialogue, search for the answer for such questions.
-After they answer the questions, discuss them with all the class.
-Provide the students with an explanation about the dialogue, and ask them if they have further questions.
-Then, mimic the dialogue to the students (e.g., read the dialogue line by line, and students repeat; do this just
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 23

twice or three times).

-Have final questions about the topic in the dialogue (two or three questions) and have the students working
in groups of three or four, so they share/discuss with their classmates their answers.

Theory No. 4) Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt claims that human consciousness cannot be broken down into its elements. This approach to psychology was founded on
the concept of the gestalt, or whole. Gestalt psychologists led by Max Wertheimer (1880 - 1943), Wolfgang Kohler (1887 – 1967)
and Kurt Koffka (1886 – 1941) have made substantial contributions to our understanding of perception. Gestaltists pointed out that
perception has meaning only when it is seen as a whole.

The figure below illustrates the gestalt perception which saw that the whole is different from the sum of the parts.

Gestalt psychology (also Gestalt of the Berlin School) is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of
the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies, or that the whole is different from the sum of its parts.
The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures
and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves. The following figure shows an example of picture that
contains the gestalt theory.

The word Gestalt in German literally means “shape”, “figure”, or “form”. Gestaltists proposed six principles or laws for perceptual
organization: 1) THE GENERAL LAW: good form; then, 2) figure or ground, 3) similarity, 4) proximity, 5) closure, and 6)
continuity.

1) The Law of Good form or Pragnanz (THIS IS THE GENERAL LAW)

As mentioned before, the word ‘Gestalt’ means “shape”, “figure”, or “form”. Gestalt psychologists were of the view that
psychological organization will always be as ‘good’ as prevailing conditions allow. Thus, the law of good or pragnanz states
that when we perceive, we will always pick out form. Our perceptions are influenced by our past experiences.

2) The Law of Figure or ground – Ground Discrimination

The Rubin vase shown in the figure below is an example of this tendency to pick out form. We do
not simply see black and white shapes, we also see two faces and a vase.

The problem here is that we see the two forms of equal importance. If the source of this message
wants us to perceive a vase, then the vase is the intended figure and the black background is the
ground. The problem here is a confusion of figure and ground. WE CAN´T SEE THE TWO
FIGURES AT THE SAME TIME

3) The Law of Proximity

When you look at A you see (a man + a man) + a table

When you look at B you see (a man + a table) + a man

Things, which are close together in space or time, tend to be

perceived as grouped together. Thus, if you want your
audience to associate the product with the presenter, put
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 24

them close together; if you want them to perceive two ideas as associated, present them in close proximity.

4) The Law of Similarity

Things that are similar are likely to form ‘Gestalten’ as groups. So, in the
graphic labeled with A (on the left), you probably see an X of fir trees
against a background of the others. In the graphic labeled with B (on the
right), you may see a square of the other trees, partly surrounded by fir
trees.

5) The Law of Closure

Perceptually, we have the tendency to fill in the gaps. In other words, we can still read WASHO,
see the square and read ‘perception’ despite the missing information. You probably know that
redundancy can be deliberately added into messages to increase the likely fidelity of reception,
but the Gestalt psychologists’ law of closure suggests that it certainly is not always necessary.

6) The Law of Continuity

When you see figure 1, you are much more likely to see it as consisting
of two lines like 1A, rather than of the two shapes1B. This is the Gestalt
principle of continuity which saw a single unbroken line is likely to be
seen as an entity.

The most famous maxim of Gestalt psychologists is that ‘The whole is greater than the sum of the parts’. In other words, the
relationships between parts provide the key to understanding. As a corollary, a single part of the whole gets its meaning from the
CONTEXT in which it appears. Thus a statement in one context may have a different meaning in another context.

TOP DOWN THEORY (Using the Gestalt to teach reading)

NOT USED IN THE GESTALT: Bottom up theory

Reading and writing consist of learning a number of skills, which, if taught in the correct sequence, will lead to learning to read
and write (e.g. first students check the meaning of isolated words; then they analyze the structure of the sentence; finally they read
the whole text).

USED IN THE GESTALT: Top down theory

Reader tries to make meaning of the whole text. The student makes meaning of the whole meaning of the text; then, the student
reads the whole text; the student comprehends the text; the student analyzes sentence structure or words.

Application to instruction

Before Reading:
Skilled reading is constructive. 
The notion of constructing knowledge refocuses the locus of control in the reading process on the
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 25

reader. It is not enough for readers to decode the information from the text, but rather they must bring to mind their own world
knowledge and worldview. It demands that the teachers activate their students' schema -- that is, help students recognize the
knowledge that they already have about the topic of a text. This would be akin to the building of a foundation in the process of
construction.

Activating knowledge about a topic is particularly important for second language readers whose world knowledge often far
exceeds their linguistic skills. Teachers need to provide opportunities for all readers to think, write, or discuss what they know
about the topic of the reading.

In addition, teachers need to focus the students' attention on features of the text that can aid in building a scaffold for what they will
read: titles, photographs or illustrations, and if appropriate, the actual structure of the text. (For example, a newspaper is structured
a certain way that facilitates skimming, scanning, and locating specific information; a textbook uses chapter titles and subheads to
organize topics and concepts.)

To improve top-down skills, ESOL teacher Judy Powers has her students use post-it notes to mark a text as they are reading. The
notations on the post-its include: asking a question, answering a question, creating a mental picture, expressing opinion, connecting
to life, and connections to reading. These "notes" could include key information, a new vocabulary item, interesting descriptions,
or whatever focus seems appropriate. Although students read on their own, they review their reading process by using post-its, also
making their reading a more active process.

GROUPING and CONTEXT are essential parts in the Gestalt theory, as well as the TOP DOWN theory for READING.
Take this information into account when designing your microteaching.

Microteaching:

In case you want to teach vocabulary:

The Gestalt psychology has to do with the WHOLE is better than its parts in isolated. This means that in
order to make the students "grasp" the new knowledge, teachers must provide such new knowledge with a
CONTEXT. For example, to teach vocabulary you cluster the vocabulary according to a category they
belong. Teachers don´t teach new words in isolated, but they have to be related to each other in some way. If
the ENTIRE CONTEXT is the kitchen (e.g., things that normally can be found in a kitchen), the teacher will
teach vocabulary that is related to the notion of kitchen (e.g., spoon, cup, fork, etc.), and he won´t include
vocabulary such as book, pencil, pen, etc. In other words, the teacher clusters the vocabulary according to a
category. If you decide to teach vocabulary, do it in a context. Also, you can use, for example, the law of
proximity to present the new vocabulary by putting together the words that are more related than others. You
can teach and group some words under the category "furniture/devices you can find in a kitchen", and a
different group of words under the category "food that can be found in a kitchen".

In case you want to teach reading:

The ideas of the Gestalt psychology are also used in reading. Top-Down reading is enhanced by having
students recalling previous experiences that are related to the topic they are about to read, by asking
questions about the reading (i.e., before the students read the text, but after they have read the title), by using
photographs or illustrations, etc. An example of how to use the Top-Down technique is on page 25 in your
workbook.

Theory No. 6) Ausubel´s Assimilation Theory

Retrieved from
http://www.davidausubel.org/
http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/advorgbk02.htm

David P. Ausubel was born in 1918 and grew up in Brooklyn, NY. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, taking the pre-
medical course and majoring in Psychology. After graduating from the medical school at Middlesex University, he completed a
rotating internship at Gouveneur Hospital (NY City Department of Hospitals) located in the lower east side of Manhattan,
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 26

including the Little Italy and Chinatown of 1944.

His military service began then with the US Public Health Service. He was assigned to UNRRA (United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration) in Stuttgart, Germany working with displaced persons. Three psychiatric residences followed: with
the US Public Health Service in Kentucky, the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, and Bronx Psychiatric Center. With assistance from the
GI Bill, he earned a PH D in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University. A series of psychological professorships
ensued at schools of education: the University of Illinois, University of Toronto, and in the European universities at Berne, the
Salesian University at Rome, and the Officer's Training College at Munich. He received a Fulbright Research Grant in 1957-58 to
do a comparative study of the vocational motivation of Maoris and Europeans.

In 1973 he retired from academic life to devote full time to his psychiatric practice. His principal interests in psychiatry have been
general psychopathology, ego development, drug addiction, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Ausubel published extensively : t
extbooks in developmental and educational psychology and books on specialized topics such as drug addiction, psychopathology,
and ego development, and over 150 articles in psychological and psychiatric journals. In 1976 he received the Thorndike Award
from the American Psychological Association for "Distinguished Psychological Contributions to Education".

He retired from professional life in 1994 to devote himself full time, at the age of 75, to writing. Four books resulted. Dr. Ausubel
passed away on July 9, 2008.

What is Ausubel's Theory of Assimilation

David Ausubel’s Assimilation Learning Theory focuses on what he describes as ‘meaningful Learning’. This is a process where
new information is related to an existing relevant aspect of the individual’s knowledge structure.

He identifies two aspects of learning - rote learning and meaningful learning. Meaningful learning refers to the concept that the
learned knowledge is fully understood by an individual and that the individual knows how that specific fact relates to other stored
facts (stored in your brain that is). To understand this concept, it is good to contrast meaningful learning with the much less
desirable, rote learning.

Rote learning is where you memorize something
without full understanding and you do not know how
the new information relates
to your other stored
knowledge.

Rote learning is learning - but it is not high level learning and has implications for recall and transferability.
The table outlines the differences between these.

Meaningful Learning Rote learning

Non-arbitary, non-verbatim substantive incorporation of new Arbitrary, verbatim incorporation of new knowledge
knowledge No effort to link new knowledge with other higher order
Deliberate effort to link new knowledge with other higher order concepts
concepts Learning unrelated to experiences
Learning related to experiences No affective commitment to relate new knowledge to prior
Knowledge is retained much longer learning
Added capacity for subsequent learning of related materials Generally knowledge cannot be recalled after hours or days
Can be applied in a variety of new problems or contexts No added capacity, in fact may inhibit learning, for subsequent
(transferable) learning of related materials.
Transferability to new problems or contexts is minimal

To experience meaningful learning, students need to do much more than access or seek information. They need to know how to
examine, perceive, interpret and experience information. There are several proposed structuring strategies for teachers to
enhance their teaching method such as advanced organizers.

A key concept of Ausubel’s theory is the Advance organizer. David Ausubel (1969) suggested teacher to use structuring strategy
called advance organizers as means to enhance students learning. He found that by providing students with deliberately prepared,
slightly abstract passages in advance of the main material to be learned, student learning of subsequent material was
facilitated. Advance organizers can be verbal phrases (e.g. the paragraph you are about to read is about Albert Einstein), or a
graphic. In any case, the advance organizer is designed to provide, what cognitive psychologists call, the "mental scaffolding: to
learn new information”.

Ausubel believed that learning proceeds in a top-down manner. Ausubel's theory consists of three phases,
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 27

1) Presentation of an advance organizer,

2) Presentation of learning task or material, and
3) Strengthening the cognitive organization (students organize by themselves; in other words, they practice their new knowledge).

Microteaching:

Ausubel´s Assimilation theory has to do with rote learning versus meaningful learning. While rote learning
refers to such learning that we acquire through mechanical repetition (almost without thinking, and without
understanding fully what we learn), meaningful learning occurs when new information is related to the
information we already have stored in our brains. Also, while with rote learning new information is stored as
individual facts, with meaningful learning the facts are stored in a relational manner. To enhance meaningful
learning, Ausubel suggests the use of advanced organizers such as: use of concept maps, pictures,
photographs, phrases/sentences such as "the paragraph you are about to read is about Einstein".

For example, let´s suppose that you´re going to teach your classmates (who in this case are your students)
how to say in English the members of a family (e.g., wife, husband, son, daughter, sister, brother, etc.) and
family relationships.

3 PHASES OF AUSUBEL´S THEORY:

1. Advanced organizer
You first present as an advanced organizer a photograph of the Simpsons, and prompt your classmates to the
new topic by asking questions such as: "do you know who these people are?". Your classmates are probably
going to tell you things such as The Simpson family; a cartoon; etc. Then you ask them questions such as
"who is the father?", "who is the mother?", etc. If your classmates don´t answer to this questions correctly,
you can give them clues such as "This is Bart; and this is Bart´s mother", and then continue with the
questions. Once they have recognized the members of the family, you´re ready to present the learning task.

2. Presentation of learning task or material.

a) You first inform your classmates the objective of the class (e.g., "today we´re going to learn about
families"). Have them thinking about their own families. Hand out a strip of paper with statements such as "I
have _____ brother (s), and ______ sister (s)"; "my sister´s name is ________; and my brother´s name is
_________ ".
b) Give them a picture of a tree and have them filling the tree with the names of the members of their
families and what´s the relationship among them.

3. Strengthen the cognitive organization

Hand out a strip of paper with 2-3 questions about family. Have your classmates working in pairs practicing
the new information by asking/answering each other questions about their families.

Theory No. 6) Piaget´s Stage Theory of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a biologist who originally studied molluscs (publishing twenty scientific papers on them by the time
he was 21) but moved into the study of the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and
listening to them while they worked on exercises he set.

His view of how children's minds work and develop has been enormously influential, particularly in educational theory. His
particular insight was the role of maturation (simply growing up) in children's increasing capacity to understand their world: they
cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 28

He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and
moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or
12 years. This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding
things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum.

Piaget’s 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development. There are sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational
stage, and formal operational stage. Piaget believed that all people pass through the stages in exactly the same order. It is important
to note that the age ranges associated with the stage may not apply to every child. Some children may reach a particular stage
earlier or later than the others.

1. Sensorimotor Birth to 2
The baby constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions.
During this stage, babies learn about the world through:
• Sensory activities such as seeing, hearing, and tasting) and
• Motor activities such as moving, reaching, and touching.
In the initial part of the stage, children focus on what
they are doing and seeing at the moment. Their schemes are based largely on
behaviours and perceptions. For them, objects that are out of sight are out of mind. Later in the stage, babies develop object
permanence. It is infants’ understanding that objects continue to exist even they are out of sight. Toward the end of the stage,
babies acquire the ability to represent objects and events in term of symbols. These symbols take the form of words and simple
sentences. In addition, they develop the ability to imitate. This ability allows them to learn by observing others.

2. Preoperational 2 to 7
The child can reason logically about concrete events and classify objects. During this stage, the use of symbolic thought expands
rapidly especially the use of language. Children’s rapidly increasing vocabularies enable them to represent and think about people,
objects, events, and feelings. They gain the ability to represent mentally objects that are not present. They also begin to draw
people, animals, and objects. In the beginning, their drawings are fanciful. However, toward the end of the stage, their drawings
become more realistic, neat, and precise.
Apart from the great expansion in the use of symbolic thought, preoperational children also gain other cognitive advances. For
example, at this stage, children begin to realize that every event has a cause. In addition, they are able to group objects, people, and
events into meaningful categories such as big or small and boy or girl. Furthermore, they can count and deal with quantities. As
they grow older, they become more able to imagine how others might feel.
Even though preoperational children make progressive progress in this stage, they have some definite limitations.
Egocentrism
Children of this stage experience egocentrism or the tendency to see the world of others from their own viewpoints. They assume
that everyone else share their feelings, reactions, and perspetives. Example: A boy assumes that all people enjoy watching
Ultraman as he does.
Animism
This is the tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive. - Example: A child says, “My teddy bear wants a cup of milk too”.
Lack of conservation
Conservation is the principle that some characteristics of an object stay the same even though the object changes in appearance.
Example: A preoperational child cannot understand that the amount of liquid stays the same regardless of the container’s shape
Irreversibility
Irreversibility refers to the failure to understand that certain processes can be undone or reversed. Example: A young child might
recognize that 3 + 2 = 5, but not understand that the reverse 5 – 2 = 3, is true.

3. Concrete operation 7 to 12
The adolescent reasons in more abstract and logical ways. During the concrete operational stage, children develop the ability to
think in a more logical manner. They are less egocentric than before and can take multiple aspects of a situation into account. At
this stage, children can do mentally what they previously could do only physically and they can reverse concrete operations.
Spatial thinking
Can use map.
• Can give directions for finding objects, places, and locations. • Can estimate distance.
Seriation
Can arrange items in order such as from the smallest to the biggest.
Multiple categorization
Can group items into shape or colour or both.
• Understand the concept of class (such as vehicle) and the concept of subclass (car).
Inductive reasoning
Can use inductive reasoning, that is, drawing general conclusion from specific observations.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 29

Conservation
Can comprehend that a transformation in appearance does not imply a transformation in amount.
Reversibility
Can understand that certain processes can be undone or reversed.
Number
Can count in head.
Although the concrete operational thinkers make important advances in logical capabilities, their thinking is still limited to real
situations in here and now. Put in another way, they have difficulty in understanding abstract ideas.

4. Formal operational stage (12 years to adulthood)

This stage begins when children develop the capacity of thinking that is abstract, systematic, and hypothetical. These capabilities
allow students to make abstract reasoning, sophisticated moral judgments, and plan more realistically for the future. They can
understand historical time, learn algebra and calculus, imagine possibilities, form and test hypotheses (hypothetical-deductive
reasoning in Piaget’s term) and can use deductive reasoning.

Piaget´s Stages of Cognitive Development Application to Classroom

Guidelines for working with preoperational students (2-7)
• Use concrete teaching aids such as sticks in teaching addition and subtraction.
• Reduce egocentrism by involving children in social interaction.
• Let students make comparison: big, bigger, biggest.
• Ask
them to justify their answers.
• Provide a wide range of experiences such as taking field trips to fire station and lake garden.
•
Make short instructions, step by step.
Guidelines for working with concrete operational students (7-12)
• Continue to ask students to justify their answers.
• Encourage students to work in groups and exchange thought.
• Use prompts
and visual aids as well as familiar examples when teaching complex ideas.
• Involve students in adding, subtracting, multiplying,
dividing, ordering, seriating, and reversing tasks.
• Create activities that require conservation.
Guidelines for working with formal operational students
• Continue to use teaching aids.
• Give students opportunities to debate and discuss in small groups.
• Develop projects for
students to carry out.
• Give students opportunities to solve problem and reason scientifically.

Microteaching:

Piaget´s Theory pf Cognitive Development states that there are four stages of cognitive development children
go through: Sensorimotor (from birth to 2 years old); Preoperational (from 2 to 7 years old); Concrete
Operation (from 7 to 12 years old); Formal Operational (from 12 years old to adulthood).

Microteaching:
For your microteaching let´s pretend that your classmates (in this case, your students) are children from 7 to
12 years old that are going through the Concrete Operation Stage of cognitive development. Therefore,
they are able to use a map, to give directions for finding objects, places, and locations. They are also able to
work in groups and exchange thoughts or ideas.
-Design a class whose objective is to tell the location of several places using the structures "there is a", "there
are", and the vocabulary "besides", "next to", "in front of", "between", "on the corner of", "church", "library",
"book store", "park", "fire station", etc.
-To introduce the students with the new vocabulary use pictures to present "church", "library", "book store",
"park", "fire station", etc. (of an appropriate size and colorful) and elicit from your students "what is this?" to
activate previous knowledge.
-Then, explain the terms "besides", "next to", "in front of", "between", "on the corner of" using REAL
information. Here you can use your classmates. Have some students come to the front and put them in
different positions in the classroom so you can teach, for example, María is next to Juan, etc.
-Create a Map where you include places such as "church", "library", "book store", "park", "fire station", etc.,
and inform your students about the objective of the class: to identify places in a map.
-Hand out the map and strips of papers (as prompts) to guide the students interactions with questions such as
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 30

"where is the church?" (here, students are likely to answer through the use of statements such as "the church
is between the book store and the fire station"). Have the students working in pairs or groups of three, asking
each other questions about the neighborhood. If time allows, have your students drawing their own
neighborhood and tell their classmates what buildings can be found in their neighborhoods.

Theory No. 7) Bloom´s Taxonomy

Retrieved from
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html
http://teachercommons.blogspot.mx/2008/04/bloom-taxonomy-biography-of-bloom.html

Benjamin S. Bloom was born into the tumultuous time period of World War I. Yet, his early life was shaped in many ways by the
typical Eastern American experience. Born on February 21, 1913, Bloom grew up in Lansford Pennsylvania. He was a small and
unassuming man with a sharp wit and a deep desire to learn.

He attended Penn State University and later earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. At the time he developed his famous
taxonomy, the United States was at the forefront of educational theory. From John Dewey’s Progressive school to the boom in
Information Processing Theory to Skinner’s science of Behaviorism, the U.S. paved the way in educational theory. As a Board
Examiner from 1943 to 1959, Bloom developed his famous Bloom´s Taxonomy.

To him, all learning must be individualized and criterion-referenced. Eventually, on their own, students would reach the same
level. Bloom had an affinity for science and statistics, which enabled him to classify information quickly. Those who knew him
would often remark on his messy office, filled with books, notes, scribbles of information and statistical research.

Although his theories have been largely adopted by the more traditional teaching movements (especially in standards-based
instruction and in the Core Curriculum Movement), Bloom considered himself a progressive. His style of teaching was interactive
and encouraging to new ideas of research. Indeed, he was more Progressive than people could have guessed. Before Social
Learning Theory existed, Bloom suggested that the environment played a major role in a student’s learning. Before differentiated
instruction was an educational buzzword, he believed in tailoring instruction to an individual’s needs. In his later years, Bloom
became an educational activist. He worked as a consultant for India and Israel. His advocated an educational system based upon
higher-level thinking and a progressive style of teaching. Later, he testified before Congress about the importance of early
childhood development. To him, one of his greatest victories was the creation of the Head Start Program.

"Taxonomy” simply means “classification”, so the well-known taxonomy of learning objectives is an attempt to classify forms and
levels of learning. It identifies three “domains” of learning
▪ Cognitive domain: mental skills (Knowledge)
▪ Affective domain: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude)
▪ Psychomotor domain: manual or physical skills (Skills)

The Cognitive Domain

Domains can be thought of as categories. The cognitive domain involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills.
This includes the recall or recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns, and concepts that serve in the development of
intellectual abilities and skills. There are six major categories, which are listed in order below, starting from the simplest behavior
to the most complex. The categories can be thought of as degrees of difficulties. That is, the first ones must normally be mastered
before the next ones can take place.

Category
Knowledge: Recall data or information.
Comprehension: Understand the meaning, translation, interpolation, and interpretation of instructions and problems. State a
problem in one's own words.
Application: Use a concept in a new situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Applies what was learned in the classroom
into novel situations in the work place.
Analysis: Separates material or concepts into component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood.
Distinguishes between facts and inferences.
Synthesis: Builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements. Put parts together to form a whole, with emphasis on creating a
new meaning or structure.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 31

Evaluation: Make judgments about the value of ideas or materials.

USE ONLY THE COGNITIVE DOMAIN TO DEVELOP YOUR MICROTEACHING.

Microteaching:

To present Bloom´s taxonomy, focus on the Cognitive Domain, which has six stages (knowledge,
comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation).

Microteaching: (Objective of the lesson: adverbs of frequency)

-Previous knowledge. Write down on the board the words always, often, sometimes, and never (adverbs of
frequency). Ask your students information about how often they watch TV. The students may come up with
words like sometimes. Use the board to explain the students what adverbs of frequency are and tell them that
there are other types of adverbs: for example, adverbs of manner.
-Comprehension. To check comprehension, ask students to explain in their own words what adverbs of
frequency and of manner are. Students write down their responses on their notebooks. Elicit from 2-3
students their answers, so the whole class listens to their answers.
-Application (use the concept –in this case, adverbs of frequency, in a new situation). Prepare a small
text (5-10 sentences) where some adverbs of frequency and manner are to be used. The text should have
lines in blank to be filled up with the adverbs of frequency and manner (use other adverbs, not only those that
you used to explain manner and frequency). Give this text to your students and ask them to read the text and
fill up the blanks with the appropriate adverb.
-Analysis (separate new information into components): Then, provide students with a chart with these
divisions: 1) adverbs of frequency, and 2) adverbs of manner. The students should classify the adverbs in the
text you gave them previously into frequency and manner.
-Synthesis (put information together again in order to create a new structure). Ask your students to use
the adverbs in the chart to write a new story (a story of their own).
-Evaluation (make judgements about the value of material). Here you can have your student working in
pairs evaluating their paragraphs; or you, as the teacher, can ask for the paragraphs and evaluate them.

Theory No. 8) Gagne´s Conditions of Learning Theory

Robert Mills Gagne, a graduate of Yale and Brown University. He was very focused on task analysis and often pondered, given
only instruction, what behavior a learner would have to do to learn a new skill. He taught psychology at Princeton, held numerous
research positions, and was a Professor of Educational Research at Florida State University.

This theory stipulates that there are several different types or levels of learning. The significance of these classifications is that each
different type requires different types of instruction. Gagne identifies five major categories of learning: verbal information,
intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor skills and attitudes. Different internal and external conditions are necessary for each
type of learning. For example, for cognitive strategies to be learned, there must be a chance to practice developing new solutions to
problems; to learn attitudes, the learner must be exposed to a credible role model.

The theory outlines nine instructional events and corresponding cognitive processes (phases of learning):
(1) gaining attention (reception)
(2) informing learners of the objective (expectancy)
(3) stimulating recall of prior learning (retrieval)
(4) presenting the stimulus (selective perception)
(5) providing learning guidance (semantic encoding)
(6) eliciting performance (responding)
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 32

(7) providing feedback (reinforcement)

(8) assessing performance (retrieval)
(9) enhancing retention and transfer (generalization).

These events should satisfy or provide the necessary conditions for learning and serve as the basis for designing instruction and
selecting appropriate media (Gagne, Briggs & Wager, 1992).

While Gagne's theoretical framework covers all aspects of learning, the focus of the theory is on intellectual skills. The theory has
been applied to the design of instruction in all domains (Gagner & Driscoll, 1988).

The following examples illustrate a teaching sequence corresponding to the nine instructional events.
For the objective, Recognize an equilateral triangle:
1. Gain attention - show variety of computer generated triangles
2. Identify objective - pose question: "What is an equilateral triangle?"
3. Recall prior learning - review definitions of triangles
4. Present stimulus - give definition of equilateral triangle
5. Guide learning- show example of how to create equilateral
6. Elicit performance - ask students to create 5 different examples
7. Provide feedback - check all examples as correct/incorrect
8. Assess performance- provide scores and remediation
9. Enhance retention/transfer - show pictures of objects and ask students to identify equilaterals

For teaching cells:

1. Gain attention - show a model of an animal cell
2. Identify objective - ask students "What is a cell?"
3. Recall prior learning - review prior knowledge of human anatomy (including organs and systems)
4. Present stimulus - give definition of animal cell
5. Guide learning- use microscope to view cheek cells
6. Elicit performance - ask students to draw cheek cell and label parts
7. Provide feedback - check drawings for accuracy
8. Assess performance- provide grades and remediation if necessary
9. Enhance retention/transfer - show picture of cell and have students identify parts

For teaching activities in simple present tense.

1. Gain attention - show a variety of activities that can be done in a typical day (here you can use visual aids)
2. Identify objective - ask students "what´s your typical day?"
3. Recall prior learning - review prior knowledge of how to tell the time in English (assuming that this lesson was already
taught). Now the students are about to use both: sentences in simple present and how to tell the time: "I get up at six
o´clock"
4. Present stimulus- Teacher writes on the board several sentences using simple present + how to tell the time.
5. Guide learning- This step is done by students. Students give one example of a sentence using present tense + how to tell
the time.
6. Elicit performance – students work in groups and write 5 more sentences using present tense + how to tell the time.
7. Provide feedback – teacher checks sentences for accuracy.
8. Assess performance- teacher provides grades and remediation if necessary.
9. Enhance retention/transfer – Teacher gives homework to students (e.g., describe the typical day of their family)

Microteaching:

Follow the nine steps to conduct a class of English. Time your activities, so your lesson lasts 30-40 minutes.
Steps:
1. Gain attention: Show a variety of activities that can be done in a day (e.g., get up, take a shower, read the
newspaper, go to school, etc.) You can do this by showing the students visual aids.
2. Identify objective: ask your students "what is your typical day?" (in this way you´re informing your
students the objective of the lesson: a typical day in the life of...).
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 33

3. Recall prior learning: review the students´ previous knowledge that might be linked to the new topic
(e.g., how to tell the time, at 6:30 a.m., etc.).
4. Present stimulus: teach the students how sentences to express activities are formed: I get up at 7:00
o´clock.
5. Guide learning: Have students putting into practice what they have just learned. This stage is for students
to encode semantically, which means, in other words, to storage new information in long term memory. You
can do this by handing out an activity in which students have to identify (e.g., match columns) which activity
correspond to each time.
6. Elicit performance: have students creating their own sentences that depict the activities they do in a
typical day.
7. Provide feedback: Go around the class listening, correcting and providing feedback.
8. Assess performance: give grades to students and remediation if needed. Remediation refers to provide the
correct answer (i. e., what sentences are incorrect) and giving explanation of why it is not correct.
9. Enhance retention/transfer: This can be done as homework. Have students writing a paragraph when
they tell about one of their classmates' typical day.

Theory No. 9) Gardner´s Multiple Intelligences

Retrieved from:
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm
http://www.oyginc.com/articles/multipleintell3/
http://raqsazar.com/mi.html

Howard Gardner was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1943. His parents had fled from Nürnberg in Germany in 1938 with their
three-year old son, Eric. Just prior to Howard Gardner's birth Eric was killed in a sleighing accident. These two events were not
discussed during Gardner's childhood, but were to have a very significant impact upon his thinking and development (Gardner
1989: 22). The opportunities for risky physical activity were limited, and creative and intellectual pursuits encouraged. As Howard
began to discover the family's 'secret history' (and Jewish identity) he started to recognize that he was different both from his
parents and from his peers.

His parents wanted to send Howard to Phillips Academy in Andover Massachusetts - but he refused. Instead he went to a nearby
preparatory school in Kingston, Pennsylvania (Wyoming Seminary). Howard Gardner appears to have embraced the opportunities
there - and to have elicited the support and interest of some very able teachers. From there he went to Harvard University to study
history in readiness for a career in the law. However, he was lucky enough to have Eric Erikson as a tutor. In Howard Gardner's
words Erikson probably 'sealed' his ambition to be a scholar (1989: 23). But there were others:
My mind was really opened when I went to Harvard College and had the opportunity to study under individuals—such as
psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, sociologist David Riesman, and cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner—who were creating knowledge
about human beings. That helped set me on the course of investigating human nature, particularly how human beings think.
(Howard Gardner quoted by Marge Sherer 1999)

Howard Gardner's interest in psychology and the social sciences grew (his senior thesis was on a new California retirement
community) and he graduated summa cum laude in 1965.

Howard Gardner then went to work for a brief period with Jerome Bruner on the famous MACOS Project ('Man: A course of
study'). Bruner's work, especially in The Process of Education (1960) was to make a profound impact, and the questions that the
programme asked were to find an echo in Gardner's subsequent interests. During this time he began to read the work of Claude
Levi-Strauss and Jean Piaget in more detail. He entered Harvard's doctoral programme in 1966, and in the following year became
part of the Project Zero research team on arts education (with which he has remained involved to the present). Howard Gardner
completed his PhD in 1971 (his dissertation was on style sensitivity in children). He remained at Harvard. Alongside his work with
Project Zero (he now co-directs it with David Perkins) he was a lecturer (1971-1986) and then professor in education (1986- ). His
first major book, The Shattered Mind appeared in 1975 and some fifteen have followed. Howard Gardner is currently Hobbs
Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and adjunct professor of neurology at the
Boston University School of Medicine.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 34

Project Zero provided an environment in which Howard Gardner could begin to explore his interest in human cognition. He
proceeded in a very different direction to the dominant discourses associated with Piaget and with psychometric testing. Project
Zero developed as a major research centre for education - and provided an intellectual home for a significant grouping of
researchers. A key moment came with the establishment of the Project on Human Potential in the late 1970s (funded by Bernard
van Leer Foundation) to 'assess the state of scientific knowledge concerning human potential and its realization'. The result was
Frames of Mind (1983) Howard Gardner's first full-length statement of his theory of multiple intelligences.

Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences - the initial listing

Howard Gardner initially formulated a list of seven intelligences. His listing was provisional. The first two have been typically
valued in schools; the next three are usually associated with the arts; and the final two are what Howard Gardner called 'personal
intelligences' (Gardner 1999: 41-43).

Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use
language to accomplish certain goals. This intelligence includes the ability to effectively use language to express oneself
rhetorically or poetically; and language as a means to remember information. Writers, poets, lawyers and speakers are among those
that Howard Gardner sees as having high linguistic intelligence.
Teach linguistic learners through the written word or verbal communication. Suit this type of learner through activities such as
lecture, debate, listening to podcasts, reading or writing assignments such as poetry and essays. Usually these are the types of
students who can read a book on a topic and understand the information with little extra practice.
The design of these should include written information on what you are talking about and the key points with references. People
who are linguistic like to read and you can often noticing them in the room reading the workbook before you even start. They will
be quick to catch grammar mistakes. Exercises should be more reflective of nature, with them reading something and having time
and space to absorb.
Famous examples: Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, T.S. Eliot, Sir Winston Churchill

Logical-mathematical intelligence consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and
investigate issues scientifically. In Howard Gardner's words, it entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think
logically. This intelligence is most often associated with scientific and mathematical thinking.
For this type of learning, what is important is that what is explained is tied into real-life applications. People who are logical-
mathematical really need a ‘connect the dots’ process that they can understand how they can apply it in real life situations. Stories
that give specific examples of how what they learned were applied to address a situation are critical for these people in the debrief.
Create lessons for logical-mathematic oriented students where the learner can analyze problems and compute. Suit this type of
learner through puzzles, scientific investigations, data analysis, deductive reasoning, mathematical computations or designing new
ideas. These types of students usually do well in mathematics classes and are less interested in reading text for information.
Famous examples: Albert Einstein, John Dewey.

Musical intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the
capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms. According to Howard Gardner musical intelligence runs in
an almost structural parallel to linguistic intelligence.
For this type of learning, what is important is that they hear what is going on. Music has been proven to operate in the long-term
memory (thus your ability to remember a song when you hear it). In N.L.P. these are the auditory people and by applying music
and hearing what is being learned, they are able to process information.
Relate musical learners to musical patterns and pitches. Suit this type of learner through performance, singing information aloud,
rhyming, listening to information set to a rhythm or simply clapping along with repeating information. This type of student is
usually very creative and able to "think outside the box."
Famous examples: Mozart, Leonard Bernstein, Ray Charles.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the
ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements. Howard Gardner sees mental and physical activity as related.
Move with the bodily-kinesthetic learners as they are able to coordinate body movements with information. Suit this type of learner
through hands-on experiences, movements such as dancing or performing, touching items or games that involve movement and
play. Typically this type of student does not easily gain information from reading, but putting the ideas with a simple movement
can help them in remembering.
Famous examples: Charlie Chaplin, Michael Jordan.

Visual Spatial intelligence involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.
For this type of learning, posters with key concepts are put on the wall, there is powerpoint and video can be used effectively.
People who are visual-spatial need to ‘see what is going on’. In N.L.P. these are visual people or people who process information
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 35

through pictures and images.

Allow visual-spatial learners to synthesize information using patterns or pictures. Suit this type of learner through activities that
involve pictures or items on display, flash cards, diagrams, movies or drawing. Generally the idea of "show don't tell" works best
for these students, so always try to have a visual aid available for them.
Famous examples: Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright

Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It
allows people to work effectively with others. Educators, salespeople, religious and political leaders and counsellors all need a
well-developed interpersonal intelligence.
Teach interpersonal learners with the assistance of other people. Suit this type of learner through reflection from another person's
point of view, group work, asking the learner to teach information to someone else or interpret emotions felt in an event.
Sometimes it seems as though these types of learners are talking out of turn, when they truly feel more comfortable bouncing ideas
off of other people or seeking support from their peers.
Famous examples: Ronald Reagan, Terry Fox, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen

Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations. In
Howard Gardner's view it involves having an effective working model of ourselves, and to be able to use such information to
regulate our lives.
Create lessons for intrapersonal learners where they consider their own emotions or can build off their own motivations. Suit this
type of learner by allowing them to set personal goals, work at their own pace, express their feelings through activities such as
poetry and drama or simply reflect on learning experiences. Sometimes these students can appear shy or withdrawn, but generally
like to "be in their own head."
Famous examples: Freud, Eleanor Roosevelt, Plato

Naturalistic intelligence
Take naturalist learners outside of the classroom when possible, as they benefit from hands-on experiences in nature. Suit this type
of learner through experiments, hands-on activities outdoors, collecting things from the environment, comparing and contrasting
natural occurrences and field trips. Sometimes these students appear to be less successful in the classroom, but when brought out
into the environment they can succeed quite well.
In Frames of Mind Howard Gardner treated the personal intelligences 'as a piece'. Because of their close association in most
cultures, they are often linked together. However, he still argues that it makes sense to think of two forms of personal intelligence.
Gardner claimed that the seven intelligences rarely operate independently. They are used at the same time and tend to complement
each other as people develop skills or solve problems.
In essence Howard Gardner argued that he was making two essential claims about multiple intelligences. That:
The theory is an account of human cognition in its fullness. The intelligences provided 'a new definition of human nature,
cognitively speaking' (Gardner 1999: 44). Human beings are organisms who possess a basic set of intelligences.

Microteaching:

9 Gardner´s multiple intelligences theory

a) WARM-UP (TIME e.g. 5 minutes)
Warm-up represents the introduction to a lesson, and necessarily requires the creation of a realistic situation or feeling, requiring
the target language to be learned. This can be achieved through using pictures, dialogs, texts, stories, questions to students,
anecdotes, anything that captures the students’ attention (feel free to do research on types of warm-ups and adapt them to your
lesson). Here are some links that might me of your interest http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/esl/warmups.cfm
http://www.englishclub.com/english-clubs/english-club-warm-up.htm
In the warm-up stage, the teacher checks to see that the students understand the nature of the situation, then, builds the "concept"
underlying the language to be learned using small chunks of language that the students already know (connecting previous
knowledge).

b) INPUT (Discover by yourself):

THE TEACHER HANDS IN STRIPS OF PAPERS WHERE THEY are presented with two different GRAMMAR issues. They
are asked to compare/contrast the two sentences. The teacher guides the discovery of the rule by providing specific questions.
THE IDEA IS THAT THE TEACHER DOES NOT TEACH THE STRUCTURE, BUT THAT THE STUDENT DISCOVERS
THE STRUCTURE BY HIM/HERSELF.

Here is an example of the strip of paper that can be used in this input stage (in this case the previous knowledge is SIMPLE
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 36

PRESENT, and the new information is PRESENT CONTINUOUS):

SENTENCE A: She reads the newspaper every day. (Simple Present tense)
SENTENCE B: She is reading the newspaper right now. (Present Continuous)

How is the verb different in sentences A and B?

What sentence takes the tobe+verb –ing structure? A or B?
What sentence is describing an event that ocurrs commonly/as a daily routine? A or B?
What sentence is describing an event that is occurring at the time of speaking? A or B?

Complete the following:

We use SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE to talk about events that occur:_______________________

We use PRESENT CONTINUOUS to talk about events that occur: _______________________

SIMPLE PRESENT IS FORMED:

________ + ________ + __________ + ____________.

PRESENT CONTINUOUS IS FORMED:

________ + ________ + __________ + ____________ + _______________.

c) GUIDED PRACTICE (follow me):

Students are given the language "model" (e.g. the new structure). In other words, write down the new structure on the board, so
your students confirm what they wrote on the strips of paper. The teacher also models pronunciation.
d) PRACTICE (do it by yourself):
Here you can have an activity according to the type of intelligence you´re going to explain.
Linguistic intelligence: any activity fits as language itself has to do with linguistic intelligence.
Logical-mathematical intelligence: You´re already explored this type of intelligence with your students as they discovered by
themselves the grammatical structure on the previous activity. However, give them an activity that reinforces what they have
already discovered. As logical-mathematical intelligence is tied to real-life applications, you may have your students writing about
activities they are doing at the moment so they practice the present continuous.
Musical intelligence: Use a song that contains present continuous.
Bodily kinesthetic: Use an activity through which your students practice the present continuous as they move around the
classroom. You can hand out papers with statements such as "find someone who is wearing glasses". Students check around the
classroom and write down the name of the person who is wearing glasses on the paper.
Visual-spatial intelligence: Use videos or maps to practice present continuous.
Interpersonal intelligence: Have your students working in pairs or groups of three.
Intrapersonal intelligence: This has to do with self-reflection; thus, you can have your students reflecting on what they do in the
present continuous (e.g., I am studying Lengua Inglesa).
Naturalistic intelligence: you may teach your students something relevant about nature, in which they use the present continuous.
e) LANGUAGE WRAP-UP (assess your grasp):
Give the student an activity to be done as homework, to let him assess what he/she has learned.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 37

Unit 3
Constructivism
Theory No. 10) Vygotsky´s Social Development Theory
Retrieved from:
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html
http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=26925&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/175316new/lecture_notes/lecture_20/lecture_20.html

Vygotsky was born in the same year, 1896, as Piaget, but died prematurely at the age of 37 from tuberculosis. His active career as
a psychologist was only around 10 years long. During that time, his goals in the post-revolutionary climate of the emerging Soviet
Union were to reconstruct psychology along Marxist lines, and to apply psychology to the massive problems confronting the
emerging state, particularly in the field of educational psychology. He travelled extensively during this period, both conducting
research and assisting in teacher training, by teaching and helping in the establishment of new teacher-training institutions. He had
no apartment of his own for several years, but lived, when in Moscow, in the basement of the Institute of Psychology. It is a
testimony to his energy that he produced any writings at all under these circumstances. In 1936 his work was effectively banned in
the Soviet Union by a decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. This only changed after Stalin's death in 1953.

His work became available in the West in 1962 with the publication of an abridged version of his 1934 book Myshlenie i rech'
(Thinking and Speech) under the title Thought and Language, with a foreword by Jerome Bruner. Since then more translations and
more titles have become available. Vygotsky is reported to have had a photographic memory, and his work is clearly influenced by
his wide reading of contemporary developmentalists such as Wolfgang Kohler, Jean Piaget, Karl Buhler and William Stern. His
early death means that he has not left us with any clearly-articulated and formally elaborated theory, but a body of ideas to be
mined for their riches. One of the leading lights in making Vygotsky's work available in the West is James Wertsch.

The work of Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) has become the foundation of much research and theory in cognitive development over
the past several decades, particularly of what has become known as Social Development Theory. Vygotsky's theories stress the
fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition Vygotsky, 1978), as he believed strongly that community
plays a central role in the process of "making meaning."

Unlike Piaget's notion that children's' development must necessarily precede their learning, Vygotsky argued, "“learning is a
necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function”"
(1978, p. 90). In other words, social learning tends to precede (i.e. come before) development.

Vygotsky has developed a socio-cultural approach to cognitive development. He developed his theories at around the same time
as Piaget was starting to develop his theories (1920's and 30's), but he died at the age of 38 and so his theories are incomplete -
although some of his writings are still being translated from Russian.

No single principle (such as Piaget's equilibration) can account for development. Individual development cannot be understood
without reference to the social and cultural context within which it is embedded. Higher mental processes in the individual have
their origin in social processes.
Vygotsky's theory differs from that of Piaget in a number of important ways:

1: Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting/shaping cognitive development - this contradicts Piaget's view of
universal stages and content of development.
2: Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive development (Piaget is criticised for
underestimating this).
3: Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in cognitive development (again Piaget is criticized for
lack of emphasis on this).
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 38

Social Influences on Cognitive Development

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believes that young children are curious and actively involved in their own learning and the discovery and
development of new understandings/schema. However, Vygotsky placed more emphasis on social contributions to the process of
development, whereas Piaget emphasized self-initiated discovery.

According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor. The
tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal instructions for the child. Vygotsky refers to this as co-operative or collaborative
dialogue. The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher), then
internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their own performance.

Shaffer (1996) gives the example of a young girl who is given her first jigsaw. Alone, she performs poorly in attempting to solve
the puzzle. The father then sits with her and describes or demonstrates some basic strategies, such as finding all the comer/edge
pieces and provides a couple of pieces for the child to put together herself and offers encouragement when she does so. As the
child becomes more competent, the father allows the child to work more independently. According to Vygotsky, this type of
social interaction involving co-operative or collaborative dialogue promotes cognitive development.

In order to gain an understanding of Vygotsky's theories on cognitive development, one must understand three of the main
principles of Vygotsky's work: Social interaction, the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal
Development (ZPD).

According to experts, Vigotsky´s major themes are:

1) Social interaction
2) The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO)
3) The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Social interaction
Social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development. In contrast to Jean Piaget’s understanding of
child development (in which development necessarily precedes learning), Vygotsky felt social learning precedes development. He
states: “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the
individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological).” (Vygotsky, 1978).
This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate
as actual relationships between individuals.

Cultural mediation (the process by which the child develops higher mental functions with his interactions with significant people)

Vygotsky investigated child development and how this was guided by the role of culture and interpersonal communication.
Vygotsky observed how higher mental functions developed through social interactions with significant people in a child's life,
particularly parents, but also other adults (e. g. teachers, peers). Through these interactions, a child came to learn the habits of mind
of her/his culture, including speech patterns, written language, and other symbolic knowledge (e.g. idea, process, number, etc.,)
through which the child derives meaning and affects a child's construction of his or her knowledge. This key premise of
Vygotskian psychology is often referred to as "cultural mediation". The specific knowledge gained by a child through these
interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization.

The easiest way to understand mediation is to start with an example and follow with the Vygotskian principles behind it:

At a North American girl's fourth birthday, she sits at the table with friends and family. As the candles on her birthday cake are lit
and it is placed on the table, the child gains a feeling of deeply felt joy. This is not only because she knows the cake is sweet and
she likes sweet food, nor that the candles' sparkling is pleasing to her eyes. While these would be sufficient reason to arouse an
emotional response in an ape, there are mental processes in a four-year-old that extend well beyond this. She patiently waits as her
family and friends sing "Happy Birthday to you". The joy is not in the cake itself but in the cake's specific meaning to her. It is
a sign that today is a special day for her in which she is the center of attention and that her friends and family are praising her. It's
also a sign that she is bigger and as such has higher status among her peers. It's not just a cake, it is a birthday cake and, more
specifically, it is her own. The true significance of the birthday cake then, is not in its physical properties at all, but rather in
the significance bestowed upon it by the culture the daughter is growing into. This is not restricted to such artifacts as a
birthday cake: a classroom, a game of soccer, a fire engine are all first and foremost cultural artifacts from which children derive
meaning.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 39

This example can help us understand Vygotsky's approach to human development. Like animals, we have lower mental functions
tied closely to biological processes. In our birthday cake example, a toddler may well have reached out to take a handful of cream
from the cake as soon as she saw it and the four-year-old may have been tempted to do the same. In humans, however, lower
mental functions facilitate a new line of development qualitatively unique to humans. Vygotsky referred to this as the higher
mental functions. The lower mental functions cannot be equated to those of an ape as they are interwoven with the line of higher
mental functions and are essential to them.

"The history of child behavior is born from the interweaving of these two lines. The history of the development of the higher
mental functions is impossible without a study of their prehistory, their biological roots, and their organic disposition." (Vygotsky,
1978, p. 46) However, it is this higher line of development that explains the birthday cake example with profound insight.

From the perspective of an individual child's development, the higher psychological line of development is one guided by the
development of tools and signs within the culture. In our example above, the birthday cake is much more than a source of
nourishment, it is a sign with much deeper and broader meaning. The sign mediates between the immediate sensory input and the
child's response, and in so doing allows for a moment of reflection and self-regulation that would not otherwise be possible. To the
extent that these signs can be used to influence or change our physical or social environment they are tools. Even the birthday cake
can be considered as a tool in that the parents use it to establish that their daughter is now older and has a new status in society.

The cake is a sophisticated example. Tools and signs can be much simpler, such as an infant pointing to an object she desires. At
first she may simply be trying to reach the object, but the mother's response of passing the object helps the infant realize that the
action of pointing is a tool to change the environment according to her needs. It is from these simple inter-subjective beginnings
that the world of meaning in the child mediated by tools and signs, including language, develops.

A fundamental premise of Vygotsky's therefore, is that tools and signs are first and foremost shared between individuals in society
and only then can they be internalized by individuals developing in the society as is reflected in this famous quote:

"Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later on the individual level; first,
between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to
logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations between human
individuals." (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57)

The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO)

The MKO refers to anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, with respect to a particular
task, process, or concept. The MKO is normally thought of as being a teacher, coach, or older adult, but the MKO could also be
peers, a younger person, or even computers. IN other words, MKO refers to someone who has a better understanding or a higher
ability level than the learner, with respect to a particular task, process, or concept. Although the implication is that the MKO is a
teacher or an older adult, this is not necessarily the case. Many times, a child's peers or an adult's children may be the individuals
with more knowledge or experience.

In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all. Some companies, to support employees in their learning process, are now using
electronic performance support systems. Electronic tutors have also been used in educational settings to facilitate and guide
students through the learning process. The key to MKOs is that they must have (or be programmed with) more knowledge about
the topic being learned than the learner does.

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

The most significant bases of a social constructivist theory were laid down by Vykotsy
in his theory of the "Zone of Proximal Development" (ZPD). "Proximal" simply means
"next". He observed that when children were tested on tasks on their own, they rarely
did as well as when they were working in collaboration with an adult. It was by no
means always the case that the adult was teaching them how to perform the task, but
that the process of engagement with the adult enabled them to refine their thinking or
their performance to make it more effective. Hence, for him, the development of
language and articulation of ideas was central to learning and development.

It is common in constructing skills check-lists to have columns for "cannot yet do",
"can do with help", and "can do alone". The ZPD is about "can do with help", not as a
permanent state but as a stage towards being able to do something on your own. The
key to "stretching" the learner is to know what is in that person's ZPD—what comes next, for them.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 40

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is the distance between a student’s ability to perform a task under adult
guidance and/or with peer collaboration and the student’s ability solving the problem independently. According to Vygotsky,
learning occurred in this zone.

This aspect of Vygotsky's theory is the idea that the potential for cognitive development depends upon the "zone of proximal
development" (ZPD): a level of development attained when children engage in social behavior. Full development of the ZPD
depends upon full social interaction. The range of skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration exceeds
what can be attained alone.
Microteaching:

STEPS TO CONDUCT THE MICROTEACHING:

1. Think how old your audience (i.e. your classmates) is. They may be children, teenagers, adults.
2. OBJECTIVE 1: Think of a topic that you are going to teach (e.g., giving directions, daily routines, going
to the supermarket) (This is ONE of the objectives of the lesson).
3. OBJECTIVE 2: Think of the grammar structure that is needed to produce language according to the topic
you selected (for example, for the topic "going to the supermarket" you may want to explain structures such
as "how much", "how many", "some", "any", "there is", "there are") (This is the other objective of the
lesson).
4. Develop a lesson plan for a lesson that lasts about 30-40 minutes (this depends on the time you spend
explaining the theory first).
5. In your lesson plan (and in your class) you should include the following stages:

a) WARM-UP (TIME e.g. 5 minutes)

Warm-up represents the introduction to a lesson, and necessarily requires the creation of a realistic situation
or feeling, requiring the target language to be learned. This can be achieved through using pictures, dialogs,
texts, stories, questions to students, anecdotes, or telling the students the objective of the lesson
anything that captures the students’ attention. Here you may want to make students retrieve their previous
knowledge related to the topic you´re going to present.

b) INPUT (Discover by yourself - 10 minutes):

THE TEACHER HANDS OUT STRIPS OF PAPERS WHERE THE STUDENTS are presented with two
different GRAMMAR issues; ONE THEY ALREADY KNOW and THE ONE THAT IS NEW
INFORMATION. The students are asked to compare/contrast the two sentences. The teacher guides the
discovery of the rule by providing specific questions. THE IDEA IS THAT THE TEACHER DOES NOT
TEACH THE STRUCTURE, BUT THAT THE STUDENT DISCOVERS THE STRUCTURE BY
HIM/HERSELF.

Here is an example of the strip of paper that can be used in this input stage (in this case the previous
knowledge is SIMPLE PRESENT, and the new information is PRESENT CONTINUOUS):
SENTENCE A: She reads the newspaper every day. (Simple Present tense)
SENTENCE B: She is reading the newspaper right now. (Present Continuous)

How is the verb different in sentences A and B?

What sentence takes the tobe+verb –ing structure? A or B?
What sentence is describing an event that ocurrs commonly/as a daily routine? A or B?
What sentence is describing an event that is occurring at the time of speaking? A or B?

Complete the following:

We use SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE to talk about events that occur:_______________________

We use PRESENT CONTINUOUS to talk about events that occur: _______________________

SIMPLE PRESENT IS FORMED:

Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 41

c) GUIDED PRACTICE (follow me – 7 minutes):

Students are given the language "model" (e.g. the new structure). In other words, the teacher explains the
new structure by writing down the new structure on the board, so your students confirm what they wrote on
the strips of paper is correct. The teacher uses drills (repetition of the structure to practice pronunciation).

d) PRACTICE (do it by yourself – 15 minutes):

Here, since you´re working with the MKO and the ZPD you can have your students working in groups on an
activity you design according to the topic (that is with the new information you taught). After the students
finish, check the answers with the entire class.

e) LANGUAGE WRAP-UP (assess your grasp) (3 minutes):

Give the student an activity to be done as homework, to let him assess what he/she has learned.

Theory No. 12) Bruner´s Theory of Scaffolding

Retrieved from:
http://es.scribd.com/doc/60088531/Implication-Of-Bruner-s-Theory
http://sites.wiki.ubc.ca/etec510/Components_of_Cognitive_Apprenticeship:_Scaffolding
http://www.tutorgig.info/ed/Jerome_Bruner

Jerome Bruner was born on October 1, 1915 in New York to Polish parents, Heman and Rose Bruner. He received his bachelor's
degree in psychology in 1937 from Duke University. Bruner went on to earn a master's degree in psychology in 1939 and then his
doctorate in psychology in 1941 from Harvard University. In 1939, Bruner published his first psychological article, studying the
effect of thymus extract on the sexual behavior of the female rat. During World War II, Bruner served on the Psychological
Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditory Force Europe committee under Eisenhower, researching
social psychological phenomena. Then, in 1945, Bruner returned to Harvard as a psychology professor and was heavily involved in
research relating to cognitive psychology and educational psychology. In 1970, Bruner left Harvard to teach at the University of
Oxford in England. He returned to the United States in 1980 to continue his research in developmental psychology. In 1991,
Bruner joined the faculty at New York University, where he still teaches students today. As an adjunct professor at NYU School of
Law, he studies how psychology affects legal practice. Throughout his career, Bruner has been awarded honorary doctorates from
Yale and Columbia, as well as colleges and universities in such locations as Sorbonne, Berlin, and Rome, and is a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Bruner is one of the pioneers of the cognitive psychology movement in the United States. This began through his own research
when he began to study sensation and perception as being active, rather than passive processes. In 1947, Bruner published his
classic study Value and Need as Organizing Factors in Perception in which poor and rich children were asked to estimate the size
of coins or wooden disks the size of American pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and half-dollars. The results showed that the value
and need the poor and rich children associated with coins caused them to significantly overestimate the size of the coins, especially
when compared to their more accurate estimations of the same size disks. Similarly, another classic study conducted by Bruner and
Leo Postman showed slower reaction times and less accurate answers when a deck of playing cards reversed the color of the suit
symbol for some cards (e.g. red spades and black hearts) (Check video in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYBY_YUH5I)
This study wasn't to test memory. It was to test a theory on learning which is that people will use what they already know to
understand things. So the red spade is often identified incorrectly as a heart because we know hearts are red.

These series of experiments issued in what some called the 'New Look' psychology, which challenged psychologists to study not
just an organism's response to a stimulus, but also its internal interpretation. After these experiments on perception, Bruner turned
his attention to the actual cognitions that he had indirectly studied in his perception studies. In 1956, Bruner published a book A
Study of Thinking which formerly initiated the study of cognitive psychology. Then, in 1956, Bruner helped found the Center of
Cognitive Studies at Harvard. After a time, Bruner began to do research on other topics in psychology, but in 1990 he returned to
the subject and gave a series of lectures. The lectures were complied into a book Acts of Meaning and in these lectures, Bruner
refuted the computer model for studying the mind, advocating a more holistic understanding of the mind and its cognitions.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 42

Jerome Bruner coined the term "scaffolding" to describe the support

structure teachers and parents routinely provide children during the
learning process. This theory states that learning takes place actively as
children build new ideas upon their current and prior knowledge.

Bruner used the term scaffolding to describe the way parents facilitated
language learning in their children. Scaffolding was described as a
support system that helps children achieve success on tasks that are too
difficult for them to achieve on their own. He describes scaffolding as a
temporary support structure parents build around a child's quest to learn
and comprehend new information. They often provide this type of
assistance in day-to-day play interactions. Teachers commonly use
instructional scaffolding with students of all ages.

The purpose of instructional scaffolding is to guide the child through

the learning process, lending support until it becomes evident that the
child has achieved task independence. Bruner's belief is that scaffolding
can ultimately help a child to become a self-regulated, independent
learner.

Application to education
In the world of construction scaffolding (in Spanish: andamiaje) is a temporary support system built beside the structure being
erected. The scaffold aids and supports the construction as needed and is removed when the building is able to stand independently.

In the world of education, instructional scaffolding is a process of temporary support that aids learners as they construct
understanding and progress from being unable to do something, to being able to perform the task with assistance, to being able to
do it autonomously.

Bruner´s theory builds on the work by Vygostky. A learner's level of actual development is scaffolded to the level of their potential
development. Scaffolding is a specific type of teacher (or more knowledgeable other, MKO) support that helps the learner achieve
a task that they would not be able to achieve without assistance; assistance provided just at the time of need, that is designed to
help the learner work with increasing independence.

Teachers have the responsibility of identifying tasks that are within a student's ZPD (Zone of proximal development); tasks that are
beyond a students present ability level. Teachers, peer tutors or other facilitators (collectively MKO's or More Knowledgeable
Others) provide help and support to students only with tasks that students are unable to complete autonomously and only at the
specific time of need. As students are able to do more and more on their own, the support is lessened until the students are able to
do the task unassisted.

An important aspect of scaffolding is that you want the learner to feel success. Choosing a task that the learner has already
mastered (one within their ZAD) does not provide any new learning or feeling of accomplishment. Requiring students to perform
tasks that are within their ZAD will lead to a decrease in motivation to learn; choosing a task that is too difficult for a student, even
with assistance, will lead to frustration, insecurity and anxiety. It is important that students are able to complete challenging tasks
with assistance. (Moriani, 1997)

The greatest probability of student success is achieved when challenging tasks are matched with a high level of support. Student
confidence and feeling of success should be important considerations as the goal is to have them complete the tasks autonomously;
even to become the MKO for another.

The quality and nature of the support provided by the MKO is paramount to the success of the scaffolding process. Teachers
sequence activities, provide individualized support and guidance, and allow students the necessary time to process and benefit from
the support. It is through these interactions that students are taken past their current knowledge base; from a point of needing
assistance to a point of autonomy.

Instructional scaffolds must be designed in a way that they will cease to be needed. Correctly implemented, scaffolds will decrease
in level and intensity as students construct their own connections and understandings. This level of adjustment in scaffolds must be
based on the individual progression of the students. The ultimate goal is to produce independent learners.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 43

The tasks must satisfy curriculum (macro focus) requirements but they must also be designed to meet the needs (micro focus) of a
variety of learners at different levels. The micro level tasks must all be part of the larger picture. Micro level student-teacher
interactions in support of sequenced tasks must align with macro-level system goals and planning.

Implications on Second Language Acquisition

The importance of visual scaffolding for ESL students

ESL students are particularly dependent on visual scaffolding which can and should be removed when it has served its purpose, but
often the purely oral scaffolding undertaken by the teacher is not enough. ESL students greatly benefit from the type of scaffolding
that makes extensive use of visual aids – hence the term visual scaffolding. When students can see an image of what the teacher is
describing or see the key words that the teacher is explaining, this not only serves to make the input considerably more
comprehensible, but serves to remove the affective filter which results from the fear or boredom that comes of understanding very
little in class.

Visual scaffolding is a support that includes images and words that can be seen as well as heard. Visual scaffolding is an excellent
way to provide comprehensible input to ESL students so that not only will they learn the essential subject content but also they will
make progress in their acquisition of English. Researches in cognitive/ educational psychology and second language acquisition
such as Vygotsky, Krashen and Bruner have contributed with their theoretical bases to understand scaffolding in the acquisition of
a second language.

Examples of Scaffolding
▪ Provide explanations
▪ Model by example
▪ Cooperative learning to provide practice with teamwork and promote dialogue among peers
▪ Using a variety of questioning techniques - prompting, coaching, and cueing
▪ Reminding students of prior knowledge

Microteaching:

STEPS TO CONDUCT A MICROTEACHING:

1. Think how old your audience (i.e. your classmates) is. They may be children, teenagers, adults.
2. OBJECTIVE 1: Think of a topic that you are going to teach (e.g., giving directions, daily routines, going
to the supermarket) (This is ONE of the objectives of the lesson).
3. OBJECTIVE 2: Think of the grammar structure that is needed to produce language according to the topic
you selected (for example, for the topic "going to the supermarket" you may want to explain structures such
as "how much", "how many", "some", "any", "there is", "there are") (This is the other objective of the
lesson).
4. Develop a lesson plan for a lesson that lasts about 30-40 minutes (this depends on the time you spend
explaining the theory first).
5. In your lesson plan (and in your class) you should include the following stages:

a) WARM-UP (TIME e.g. 5 minutes)

Warm-up represents the introduction to a lesson, and necessarily requires the creation of a realistic situation
or feeling, requiring the target language to be learned. This can be achieved through using pictures, dialogs,
texts, stories, questions to students, anecdotes, or telling the students the objective of the lesson
anything that captures the students’ attention. Here you may want to make students retrieve their previous
knowledge related to the topic you´re going to present.

b) INPUT (Discover by yourself - 10 minutes):

THE TEACHER HANDS OUT STRIPS OF PAPERS WHERE THE STUDENTS are presented with two
different GRAMMAR issues; ONE THEY ALREADY KNOW and THE ONE THAT IS NEW
INFORMATION –The previous knowledge is the SCAFFOLDING you are going to provide your students.
Theories of Psychology - Handbook Page 44

The students are asked to compare/contrast the two sentences. The teacher guides the discovery of the rule
by providing specific questions. THE IDEA IS THAT THE TEACHER DOES NOT TEACH THE
STRUCTURE, BUT THAT THE STUDENT DISCOVERS THE STRUCTURE BY HIM/HERSELF.

Here is an example of the strip of paper that can be used in this input stage (in this case the previous
knowledge is SIMPLE PRESENT, and the new information is PRESENT CONTINUOUS):

SENTENCE A: She reads the newspaper every day. (Simple Present tense)
SENTENCE B: She is reading the newspaper right now. (Present Continuous)

How is the verb different in sentences A and B?

What sentence takes the tobe+verb –ing structure? A or B?
What sentence is describing an event that ocurrs commonly/as a daily routine? A or B?
What sentence is describing an event that is occurring at the time of speaking? A or B?

Complete the following:

We use SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE to talk about events that occur:_______________________

We use PRESENT CONTINUOUS to talk about events that occur: _______________________

SIMPLE PRESENT IS FORMED:

________ + ________ + __________ + ____________.

PRESENT CONTINUOUS IS FORMED:

________ + ________ + __________ + ____________ + _______________.

c) GUIDED PRACTICE (follow me – 7 minutes):

Students are given the language "model" (e.g. the new structure). In other words, the teacher explains the
new structure by writing down the new structure on the board, so your students confirm what they wrote on
the strips of paper is correct. The teacher uses drills (repetition of the structure to practice pronunciation).

d) PRACTICE (do it by yourself – 15 minutes):

Have your students working in groups on an activity you design according to the topic (that is with the new
information you taught). After the students finish, check the answers with the entire class.

e) LANGUAGE WRAP-UP (assess your grasp) (3 minutes):

Give the student an activity to be done as homework, to let him assess what he/she has learned.