Learning theory attempts to describe how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.
Behaviorists look at learning as an aspect of conditioning and advocating a system of rewards and targets in education. Educators who embrace cognitive theory believe that the definition of learning as a change in behaviour is too narrow, and study the learner rather than their environment—and in particular the complexities of human memory. Those who advocate constructivism believe that a learner's ability to learn relies largely on what they already know and understand, and the acquisition of knowledge should be an individually tailored process of construction. Transformative learning theory focuses on the often-necessary change required in a learner's preconceptions and worldview. Geographical learning theory focuses on the ways that contexts and environments shape the learning process.
Outside the realm of educational psychology, techniques to directly observe the functioning of the brain during the learning process, such as event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging, are used in educational neuroscience. The theory of multiple intelligences, where learning is seen as the interaction between dozens of different functional areas in the brain each with their own individual strengths and weaknesses in any particular human learner, has also been proposed, but empirical research has found the theory to be unsupported by evidence.
Educational philosophy
Classical theorists
Plato
Plato (428 BC–347 BC) proposed the question: "How does an individual learn something new when the topic is brand new to that person?", This question may seem trivial; however, think of a human like a computer. The question would then become: How does a computer take in any factual information without previous programming? Plato answered his own question by stating that knowledge is present at birth and all information learned by a person is merely a recollection of something the soul has already learned previously, which is called the Theory of Recollection or Platonic epistemology. This answer could be further justified by a paradox: If a person knows something, they don't need to question it, and if a person does not know something, they don't know to question it. Plato says that if one did not previously know something, then they cannot learn it. He describes learning as a passive process, where information and knowledge are ironed into the soul over time. However, Plato's theory elicits even more questions about knowledge: If we can only learn something when we already had the knowledge impressed onto our souls, then how did our souls gain that knowledge in the first place? Plato's theory can seem convoluted; however, his classical theory can still help us understand knowledge today.
Locke
John Locke (1632–1704) offered an answer to Plato's question as well. Locke offered the "blank slate" theory where humans are born into the world with no innate knowledge and are ready to be written on and influenced by the environment. He maintained that knowledge and ideas originate from two sources, which are sensation and reflection. The former provides insights regarding external objects (including their properties) while the latter provides the ideas about one's mental faculties (volition and understanding). In the theory of empiricism, these sources are direct experience and observation. Locke, like David Hume, is considered an empiricist because he locates the source of human knowledge in the empirical world.
Locke recognized that something had to be present, however. This something, to Locke, seemed to be "mental powers". Locke viewed these powers as a biological ability the baby is born with, similar to how a baby knows how to biologically function when born. So as soon as the baby enters the world, it immediately has experiences with its surroundings and all of those experiences are being transcribed to the baby's "slate". All of the experiences then eventually culminate into complex and abstract ideas. This theory can still help teachers understand their students' learning today.
Educational psychology
Behavior analysis
The term "behaviorism" was coined by American psychologist John Watson (1878–1959). Watson believed the behaviorist view is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science with a goal to predict and control behavior.Phillips, D.C., Soltis, J.F., Perspectives on learning pg. 22 In an article in the Psychological Review, he stated that, "Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness."Phillips, D.C. & Soltis, J.F. (2009). Perspectives on Learning (Fifth). New York: Teachers College Press. p. 22.
Methodological behaviorism is based on the theory of only explaining public events, or observable behavior. B.F. Skinner introduced another type of behaviorism called radical behaviorism, or the conceptual analysis of behavior, which is based on the theory of also explaining private events; particularly, thinking and feelings. Radical behaviorism forms the conceptual piece of behavior analysis.
In behavior analysis, learning is the acquisition of a new behavior through conditioning and social learning.
Learning and conditioning The three main types of conditioning and learning: Classical conditioning, where the behavior becomes a reflex response to an antecedent stimulus. Operant conditioning, where antecedent stimuli results from the consequences that follow the behavior through a reward (reinforcement) or a punishment. Social learning theory, where an observation of behavior is followed by modeling.
Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning. He observed that if dogs come to associate the delivery of food with a white lab coat or the ringing of a bell, they produce saliva, even when there is no sight or smell of food. Classical conditioning considers this form of learning the same, whether in dogs or in humans. Operant conditioning reinforces this behavior with a reward or a punishment. A reward increases the likelihood of the behavior recurring, a punishment decreases its likelihood. Social learning theory observes behavior and is followed with modeling.
These three learning theories form the basis of applied behavior analysis, the application of behavior analysis, which uses analyzed antecedents, functional analysis, replacement behavior strategies, and often data collection and reinforcement to change behavior. The old practice was called behavior modification, which only used assumed antecedents and consequences to change behavior without acknowledging the conceptual analysis; analyzing the function of behavior and teaching of new behaviors that would serve the same function was never relevant in behavior modification.
Behaviorists view the learning process as a change in behavior, and arrange the environment to elicit desired responses through such devices as behavioral objectives, Competency-based learning, and skill development and training. Educational approaches such as Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, curriculum-based measurement, and direct instruction have emerged from this model.Kim, T and Axelrod, S. (2005): "Direct Instruction: An Educators' Guide and a Plea for Action" - The Behavior Analyst Today, 6.(2), p. 111
Transfer of learning Transfer of learning is the idea that what one learns in school somehow carries over to situations different from that particular time and that particular setting.Kleibard, H. (2004). Scientific curriculum-making and the rise of social efficiency. In The Struggle for American Curriculum (pp. 77-105). Transfer was amongst the first phenomena tested in educational psychology. Edward Lee Thorndike was a pioneer in transfer research. He found that though transfer is extremely important for learning, it is a rarely occurring phenomenon. In fact, he held an experiment where he had the subjects estimate the size of a specific shape and then he would switch the shape. He found that the prior information did not help the subjects; instead it impeded their learning.
One explanation of why transfer does not occur often involves surface structure and deep structure. The surface structure is the way a problem is framed. The deep structure is the steps for the solution. For example, when a math story problem changes contexts from asking how much it costs to reseed a lawn to how much it costs to varnish a table, they have different surface structures, but the steps for getting the answers are the same. However, many people are more influenced by the surface structure. In reality, the surface structure is unimportant. Nonetheless, people are concerned with it because they believe that it provides background knowledge on how to do the problem. Consequently, this interferes with their understanding of the deep structure of the problem. Even if somebody tries to concentrate on the deep structure, transfer still may be unsuccessful because the deep structure is not usually obvious. Therefore, surface structure gets in the way of people's ability to see the deep structure of the problem and transfer the knowledge they have learned to come up with a solution to a new problem.Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don't students like school? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Current learning pedagogies focus on conveying rote knowledge, independent of the context that gives it meaning. Because of this, students often struggle to transfer this stand-alone information into other aspects of their education. Students need much more than abstract concepts and self-contained knowledge; they need to be exposed to learning that is practiced in the context of authentic activity and culture.Brown, John S., Allan Collins, and Paul Duguid. "Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning." Educational Researcher 18.1 (1989): 32-42. Web. Critics of situated cognition, however, would argue that by discrediting stand-alone information, the transfer of knowledge across contextual boundaries becomes impossible.Sfard, A. (1998, March). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 4-13. There must be a balance between situating knowledge while also grasping the deep structure of material, or the understanding of how one arrives to know such information.
Some theorists argue that transfer does not even occur at all. They believe that students transform what they have learned into the new context. They say that transfer is too much of a passive notion. They believe students, instead, transform their knowledge in an active way. Students don't simply carry over knowledge from the classroom, but they construct the knowledge in a way that they can understand it themselves. The learner changes the information they have learned to make it best adapt to the changing contexts that they use the knowledge in. This transformation process can occur when a learner feels motivated to use the knowledge—however, if the student does not find the transformation necessary, it is less likely that the knowledge will ever transform.
Techniques and benefits of transfer of learning