Piaget believes children learn in a vacuum. This happens as children assimilate and/or accommodate new information into existing schemata to absolve cognitive disequilibrium. He believes children progress through 4 stages: Sensorimotor (goal-oriented), Preoperational (perception not logic, symbols, egocentric), Concrete Operational (solving concrete problems, conservation, transformation, reversibility, classification, serration, and transitivity), Formal Operational (hypothetical reasoning, probability, deduction).
Vygotskii takes a socio-cultural perspective on cognitive development. He believes that children have a zone of proximal development where they are able to learn through mediation by scaffolding and guided participation with an apprenticeship which leads to internalization. He believes that self-talk and inner speech play a significant role in the cognitive process.
Erikson believes in a strong connection between an individual’s emotional needs and their social environment. He believes that individuals progress through the following stages: Trust v. Mistrust (birth to 1yr, trusting or mistrusting the ability to rely on the care of another person), Autonomy v. Shame & Doubt (1yr-3yr, learning to be self-reliant and autonomous leads to high confidence in ability to control one's environment), Initiative v. Guilt (3yr-6yr, finding purpose in life by planning and achieving, follows with greater self-regulation and goal setting), Industry v. Inferiority (7yr-14yr, developing competence in learning new things, leads to more and more challenging tasks), Identity v. Role Confusion (teen, exploring gender roles, politics, religion, developing an integrated self reinforces confidence instead of confusion), Intimacy v. Isolation (Young Adult, ability to feel unselfish love, reciprocate intimate feelings, failure leads to isolation), Generativity v. Stagnation (Middle Adulthood, need to contribute to society and benefit family to avoid stagnation and helplessness), Integrity v. Despair (Late Adulthood, coming to grips with life, evaluating decisions, resolving mistakes to avoid despair).
Kohlberg’s theory says that there are 6 stages of moral development at 3 different levels- Pre-conventional, Conventional, and Post-conventional Reasoning. These range from no internalization of moral values to conforming of values to internalization of values acting without regard to societal conventions.
Goleman developed the theory of emotional intelligence which includes the following traits: Self-awareness (the ability to read one's emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions), Self-management (involves controlling one's emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances), Social awareness (the ability to sense, understand, and react to others' emotions while comprehending social networks), Relationship management (the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict).
The information processing theory focuses on the mental structures that are developed as a result of learning. The brain learns information as it senses, stores, encodes and retrieves information. The brain encodes information in different ways: Declarative Knowledge (semantic, episodic), Procedural (automatic), and Conditional (knowing when and why). Strategies such as mnemonics, dual processing and advanced organizers help with retention.
Knowledge construction and higher order thinking use principles of spiral organization and methods of Bloom’s taxonomy to engage learners in discovery-learning and inquiry-based learning. An authentic activity within a community of learners yields to cooperative learning. Transfer of previous learning build new or expanded schemata but can create misconceptions if transfer is negative.
Classical and operant conditioning are examples of behaviorist theories. Classical conditioning happens when automatic responses are paired with new stimuli. Operant conditioning happens when reinforcement and token economy are used to coax a new behavior. Negative reinforcement removes distractions or negative feelings to increase desired behaviors. Removal punishment removes desired stimuli to increase desired behavior. Presentation punishment uses an adverse stimulus when undesired behavior is manifest. Shaping, fading, and cueing assist in developing desired behaviors.
Social cognitivism relies heavily on principles of self-efficacy: self-regulated learning, self-recording, self-instruction, self-evaluation, and self imposed contingencies. This kind of learning comes through cognitive modeling, vicarious punishment and vicarious reinforcement.
Group and individual differences allows stereotyping and biases to be identified. These can occur in the forms of culture, SES, gender, race, and exceptionalities. Knowing your worldview allows you to work with cultural mismatches and create an inclusive classroom with a least restrictive environment for all students.
Motivation can be described intrinsically or extrinsically. To create motivation, interest (dispositional or situational) must be initiated. Motivation allows for goal setting and self-determination. Motivation also helps develop a sense of autonomy instead of learned helplessness and assists with creating facilitating anxiety rather than debilitating anxiety. Motivation is hard to obtain when psychological needs are not met or when basic physical needs are neglected.
I believe that aspects of all of the learning theories are valid. Piaget’s theory on assimilation and accommodation seems particularly relevant in how we process and encode information. His stages of learning seem too conclusive and I believe there is a large overlap among these stages and that different aspects of ones life can place a person in all of the stages at one time. Intelligent people who are immature would be one example.
Vygotskii’s theory on the ZPD is extremely relevant for students in our classrooms. I do believe however, that children can learn some things purely through discovery.
I agree with Erikson in that we are always trying to find equilibrium in our lives and that we seem to be fighting against a negative force that pulls us away from success or our perception of what we consider success to be.
Kohlberg’s theory is an interesting one. I think that people fluctuate back and forth between stages as they are progressing toward higher levels of moral autonomy. It would require some form of expiation for an individual to reach the highest stage, and that still seems improbable to do in every situation confronted with. I do believe that there are significant differences in how people morally reason their decisions in life.
Emotional intelligence is a required trait for making it through the day. People who are deficient in this area are often socially inept or awkward. It is definitely an essential characteristic for leadership.
It doesn’t seem logical that any of the learning theories would be possible without information processing. I am not as agreeable with the idea of decay, however. I think that information that is accessed often is more accessible… it is like the pile of papers in one’s backpack, the ones that never get used are at the bottom, but they are still there.
Authentic learning is a fascinating concept and very engaging, but I’m not sure that it is necessarily practical for constant use. I think that direct instruction incorporated into spiral learning can lead to periodic authentic learning in the classroom. I do believe that authentic learning should be used as often as possible.
Behaviorist theories work, but I’m not sold on the moral integrity of using behaviorist tactics as a primary form of motivation. I think all students have the desire to learn, we just need to arouse their faculties.
Social cognitivism seems to be a theory that would be greatly applied to Vygotskii’s ZPD theory. When students can recognize their own ZPD, they will be more likely to work with mentors in relative learning activities. Although allowing students to only experience self-analysis without teacher feedback does not seem effective.
Failure to recognize group and individual differences will spell disaster for any learning theory you choose to embrace. Students will be highly unmotivated if they feel their teacher holds biases against them.
Motivation is mandatory for learning. I think that teachers can create situational interest, and that can lead to dispositional interest, but I believe that students must first have some experience with intrinsic motivation before this can occur.
My personal learning theory is: Do whatever it takes! Not any one theory is going to meet the needs of every student. I believe that each student has their own ZPD which will require multi-structured lessons to satiate their thirst for knowledge without drowning them. Students must be able to work within a group framework and evaluate their own contributions. This will have a different outcome for each child depending on their moral development as well as how effectively their environment corresponds with their social needs. Teachers can model effective behavior and take opportunities to embrace moral and emotional learning. By using several different models of instruction, hopefully I can keep all of my students engaged. I don’t believe in plowing through instruction just to complete the curriculum. Instead I think that concrete understanding of principles allows students to scaffold their learning without building superficial concepts that will blow away before the next unit of information begins. This corresponds directly with the results of my teaching philosophy quiz. I scored very close to the same in regards to all of the theories: B=39, C=45, H=41.
This semester has given me a very broad view of several concepts. It would be nice to really expand my understanding of each of them so that I can more fully incorporate appropriate principles into my teaching framework. I feel like I only have a general and basic understanding of the learning theories we have discussed. I would like to focus on each idea separately so that I have the opportunity for flow to occur.
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