Types of Learning Theory
In psychology and education, learning is commonly defined as a process that brings together: cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, improving, or making changes to's knowledge of one, skills, values, and world views (Illeris, 2000; Ormorod, 1995 ).
Learning as a process focuses on what happens when the learning takes place. A description of what happened is learning theories. Learning theory is an attempt to describe how people and animals learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning.
Types of Learning Theory
There are three main categories or philosophical framework of the theories of learning, ie learning theories of behaviorism, cognitivism learning theory and constructivism learning theory. Behaviorism learning theory focuses only on the objectively observable aspects of learning. Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning. And constructivism views learning as an active process in which learners build or construct new ideas or concepts.
Behaviorism
John Watson (1878–1959) coined the term "behaviorism." Critical of Wundt's emphasis on internal states, Watson insisted that psychology must focus on overt measureable behaviors. Watson believed that theorizing thoughts, intentions or other subjective experiences was unscientific. Behaviorism as a theory was primarily developed by B. F. Skinner. It loosely encompasses the work of people like Edward Thorndike, Tolman, Guthrie, and Hull. What characterizes these investigators are their underlying assumptions about the process of learning. In essence, three basic assumptions are held to be true.[original research?] First, learning is manifested by a change in behavior. Second, the environment shapes behavior. And third, 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 behaviorism, learning is the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning.
Cognitivism
Cognitive theories grew out of Gestalt psychology. Developed in Germany in the early 1900s, it was transplanted to America in the 1920s. Gestalt is roughly translated as "configuration," or "pattern," and emphasizes "the whole" of human experience. Over the years, the Gestalt psychologist provided compelling demonstrations and described principles by which we organize our sensations into perceptions. The earliest challenge to the behaviorists came in a publication in 1929 by Bode, a gestalt psychologist. He criticized behaviorists for being too dependent on overt behavior to explain learning. Gestalt psychologists proposed looking at the patterns rather than isolated events. Gestalt views of learning have been incorporated into what have come to be labeled cognitive theories. Two key assumptions underlie this cognitive approach: (1) that the memory system is an active organized processor of information and (2) that prior knowledge plays an important role in learning. Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning. Cognitivists consider how human memory works to promote learning. For example, the physiological processes of sorting and encoding information and events into short term memory and long term memory are important to educators working under the cognitive theory. The major difference between gestaltists and behaviorists is the focus of control over the learning activity: the individual learner is more key to gestaltists than the environment that behaviorists emphasize.
Once memory theories like the Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model and Baddeley's working memory modelwere established as a theoretical framework in cognitive psychology, new cognitive frameworks of learning began to emerge during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Today, researchers are concentrating on topics like cognitive load and information processing theory. These theories of learning play a role in influencing instructional design. Aspects of cognitivism can be found in learning how to learn, social role acquisition, intelligence, learning, and memory as related to age.
Educators employing a cognitivist approach to learning would view learning as internal mental process (including insight, information processing, memory, perception) where in order to develop learner capacity and skills to improve learning, the educator structures content of learning activities to focus on building intelligence and cognitive and meta-cognitive development.
Constructivism
Constructivism is a revolution in educational psychology. Built on the work of Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner, constructivism emphasizes the importance of active involvement of learners in constructing knowledge for themselves...Constructivism emphasizes top-down processing: begin with complex problems and teach basic skills while solving these problems. Constructivism explains why students do not learn deeply by listening to a teacher, or reading from a textbook. Learning sciences research is revealing the deeper underlying basis of how knowledge construction works. To design effective environments, one needs a very good understanding of what children know when they come to the classroom. This requires sophisticated research into children's cognitive development, and the learning sciences draws heavily on psychological studies of cognitive development (e.g., Siegler, 1998). The learning theories of John Dewey, Marie Montessori, and David Kolb serve as the foundation of constructivist learning theory. Constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge or experience. In other words, "learning involves constructing one's own knowledge from one's own experiences." Constructivist learning, therefore, is a very personal endeavor, whereby internalized concepts, rules, and general principles may consequently be applied in a practical real-world context. Constructivism itself has many variations, such as Active learning, discovery learning, and knowledge building. Regardless of the variety, constructivism promotes a student's free exploration within a given framework or structure. The teacher acts as a facilitator who encourages students to discover principles for themselves and to construct knowledge by working to solve realistic problems. Aspects of constructivism can be found in self-directed learning, transformational learning, and experiential learning.
wikipedia