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Learning Theories
What is a theory? A theory
 provides a general explanation for observations made over
time,
 Explains and predicts behavior,
 Can never be established beyond all doubt
 May be modified
 Seldom has to be thrown out completely if thoroughly tested
but sometimes a theory may be widely accepted for a long
time and later disproved.

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Sensory Stimulation theory
 Its principle is that effective learning occurs when the senses
are stimulated.
 75% knowledge held by adults is learned through seeing, 13%
through hearing. Other senses- touch, smell & taste account
for 12%.
 By stimulating the senses, particularly the visual sense,
learning can be enhanced.
 If multi-senses are stimulated, greater learning takes place.
 How: through greater variety of colors, volume levels, strong
statements, facts presented visually, use of variety of
techniques and media.

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Reinforcement Theory
Skinner: positive reinforcement, negative
reinforcement, punishment. (details later)
Note: much ‘competency based training’ is based on
this theory.
Very useful in learning repetitive tasks, but higher
order learning is not involved.
Criticism – too rigid

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Holistic learning theory
principle: the individual personality consists of many
elements… specifically… the intelligence, emotions,
the body impulse (or desire), perception and
imagination that all require activation if learning is to
be more effective

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Facilitation theory (the humanist
approach)
Carl Rogers, Premise: learning will occur by the
educator acting as a facilitator, by establishing an
atmosphere in which learners feel comfortable to
consider new ideas and are not threatened by external
factors.
Believe that human beings have a natural keenness to
learn;
The most significant learning involves changing one’s
concept of oneself.

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Facilitation theory (2)
Teachers are:
More able to listen to learners, especially to their
feelings,
pay as much attention to their relationship with
learners as to the content of the course
Willing to accept feedback, both positive and negative
and to use it as constructive insight into themselves
and their behavior.

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Facilitation theory (3)
Learners
Are encouraged to take responsibility for their own
learning
Provide much of the input for the learning which
occurs through their insights and experiences
Are encouraged to consider that the most valuable
evaluation is self-evaluation and that learning needs to
focus on factors that contribute to solving significant
problems or achieving significant results.

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Experiential learning
Kolb’s 4-stage
learning process
•The process can begin
at any of the stages and
is continuous (no limit Have an
experience
to the # of cycles).
•Without reflection we
Plan next steps, Review that experience
would simply continue experimenting to find
to repeat our mistakes. solution

Conclude from that experience

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Experiential learning (2)
Learning is through 1) concrete experience,2)
observation & reflection, 3) abstract
conceptualization, 4) active experimentation.
People begin with their preferred style in the
experiential learning cycle. Hence 4 learning styles:
activist (prefer to learn by doing), reflector ( like to
observe & reflect), theorist (like to have everything
organized into a neat schema ), pragmatist (enjoys
the planning stage and keen to test things out in
practice)

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Action Learning
Links the world of learning with the world of action
through a reflective process within collaborative
learning groups- “action learning sets”.

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Current educational Goals and
Methods: Two views
Directed instruction: grounded primarily in
behaviorism and the information-processing branch
of cognitive learning theories
Constructivist instruction evolved from other
branches of thinking in cognitive learning theory.

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Philosophical foundations
Objectivist: knowledge has a separate, real existence
of its own outside the human mind. Learning
happens when this knowledge is transmitted to
people and they store it in their minds.
Constructivist: humans construct all knowledge in
their minds by participating in certain experiences;
learning occurs when one constructs both
mechanisms for learning and her own unique version
of the knowledge, colored by background,
experiences, and aptitudes.

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Methodological differences
Directed Constructivist
 Teacher: transmitter of  Teacher: guide and facilitator
knowledge; expert source; as students construct their
director of skill/concept own knowledge; collaborative
development through resource and assistant as
structured experiences students explore topics.
 Student: receive information;  Student: collaborate with
demonstrate competence; all other; develop competence;
students learn same material students may learn different
 Curriculum: based on skill and material
knowledge hierarchies; skills  Curriculum: based on
taught one after the other in set projects/problems, etc. that
sequence. foster both higher and lower
level skills concurrently.

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Theoretical Foundations: Directed
Behavioral theories: concentrate on immediately
observable, thus, behavioral, changes in performance
(tests) as indicators of learning.

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 Behaviorist (Skinner, ‘stimulus-response’ )
 behavior is more controlled by the consequences of
actions than by events preceding the action. A
consequence is an outcome (stimulus) after the behavior
influence future behaviors. (e.g. a child reasons she will
get praise if she behaves well in school).
 Since internal learning processes cannot be seen directly,
the focus is on cause-and –effect relationships that can be
established by observation.
 Human behavior can be shaped by ‘contingencies of
reinforcement”:
 positive reinforcement – increase in desired behavior from
a stimulus (study hard- praise)
 Negative reinforcement -increase in desired behavior from
avoiding or removing a stimulus (not finish assignment –
detention).
 Punishment – decrease in undesirable behavior from
undesirable consequences. (cheating– failure)

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Theoretical Foundations: Directed
(cont.)
Information Processing Theories: behaviorisms focus
only on external directly observable indicators of
learning, information-processing theory (first and most
influential of the cognitive-learning theories) try to
visualize what is impossible to observe directly.
Human brain has 3 kinds of memories:
 sensory registers--memory that receives all the information a
person senses (1 second)
 Short-term (working) memory (5-20 seconds)
 Long-term memory (indefinitely).

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 Theoretical Foundations: Directed
(cont.)
Information-Processing Theory: Model of human
memory system Lost
Lost

Sensory Working Long

Input Register attention (short term
(through term) memory
Rehearsal
eyes, memory
mouth, etc.) Meaningful
learning
Organizing
Elaborating May lost if not
using regularly
Imagery

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More directed: Gagne’s Principles
 Build on behaviorism and information-processing theories,
Gagne translated principles from learning theories into practical
instructional strategies.
 Events of instruction (9): to arrange optimal ‘conditions of
learning’.
1. Gaining attention
2. Informing the learner of the objective
3. Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning
4. Presenting new material
5. Providing learning guidance
6. Eliciting performance
7. determining assessment
8. total assessment
9. Enhancing retention and recall

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One more Gagne
Learning hierarchies: the development of
‘intellectual skills requires learning that amounts to a
building process. Lower level skills provide a
necessary foundation for higher level ones. E.g. to
learn long division, students first have to learn all
prerequisite skills including number recognition,
addition and subtraction, etc.
Gagne’s work has been widely used to develop
systematic instructional design principles (major
influence in business, industry, and military training).

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Constructivism
The differences among those who think of themselves
as constructivists makes it difficult to settle on a
single definition.
Theorists like Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bruner
are credited with fundamental premises of
constructivism.

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Social constructivism
Dewey:
curriculum should arise from student interests
Curriculum topics should be integrated, not isolated.
Education is growth, rather than an end in itself.
Learning occurs through its connection with life, rather
than through participation in curriculum.
Learning should be hands on and experience based,
rather than abstract.

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Social constructivism (cont.)
Vygotsky:
Cognitive development is directly related to and based
on social development.
Zone of proximal development: difference between two
levels of cognitive functioning (adult/expert and
child/novice).
Scaffolding: the assistance that an expert gives a novice
to help him/her reach higher than would be possible by
the novice’s efforts alone.

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Piaget: Cognitive development
 Child’s 4 stages of cognitive development:
1. Sensorimoter (birth-2 yrs.) –explore world through senses
and motor activity. Cannot differentiate between self and
environment
2. Preoperational: (2-7) – develop greater abilities to
communicate via speech and to engage in symbolic
activities (drawing object, play pretending and imaging).
3. Concrete operational (7-11) – increase in abstract reasoning
ability and ability to generalize.
4. Formal operations (12-15) – can form and test hypotheses,
organize information, reason scientifically, show results of
abstract thinking in the form of symbolic materials.

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Piaget (cont.)
Piaget’s basic assumptions:
1. Children are active and motivated learners
2. Children’s knowledge of the world becomes more integrated
and organized over time
3. Children learn through the processes of assimilation and
accommodation
4. Cognitive development depends on interaction with one’s
physical and social environment
5. Cognitive development occurs in four qualitatively different
stages.

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Bruner: Learning as discovery
 Bruner also categorized children’s cognitive development stage:
 Enactive stage (0-3)
 Iconic stage (3-8)
 Symbolic stage (8-)
 Discovery learning: an approach to instruction through which
students interact with their environment – by exploring and
manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies,
or performing experiments.
 However, teachers found that discovery learning is most successful
when student have prerequisite knowledge and undergo some
structured experiences.

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Gardner: Multiple intelligences
 Of all theories embraced by constructivists,
Gardner is the only one that attempt to define the
role of intelligence in learning.
 Types of intelligence:
Linguistic; Musical; Logical-mathematical;
Bodily-kinesthetic; Intrapersonal; Interpersonal.
 Educational implication: teachers need to try to
determine which types of intelligence each student
has and direct the student to learning activities that
capitalize on these natural abilities.

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