If you’re not asleep during staff meetings, you’ve probably heard the phrase “research-based practices” thrown around a lot. Do you silently ask yourself, “Sooo, which practices are research-based anyway?” I don’t know about you but it’s been a little while since I originally learned about the people who did some of the major research in education. Lucky for all of us, I have put together a cheat sheet.
Start studying Praxis II PLT K-6: Educational theorists. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Transfer of Learning: Theory # 6. Learning to Learn: After practicing a series of related or similar tasks then learner learns the capacity to learn the same thing. It is found that whenever learner comes in contact with various learning materials then he learns efficiently and effectively. Learning to learn means when learning starts from one.
Education Theorists
All of these guys did a lot more work than what is mentioned in this graphic. I just tried to pull out what was most relevant to teachers. The cool thing is, you probably recognize a lot of these practices as thing you’re already doing.
Lev Vygotsky – How do you decide the level at which to instruct your students? Vygotsky says to determine their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This means the skills that are just a little bit beyond their reach. When you are working with a small reading group, don’t pick books that kids can read perfectly. Pick ones that are just a little bit challenging, that students will need some support to read. Eventually a student’s ZPD bumps up higher because they have mastered the skills you were supporting them with.
Scaffolding is not a term that Vygotsky actually used but it’s a concept that developed based on his work. When you scaffold a student, you give them support to complete a task that they can’t quite do on their own. For example, at first, students need to be walked through every step of long division. Gradually the scaffolding can be reduced. Maybe they just need a couple of reminders at tricky spots. Eventually the scaffolding can be removed because the student can complete the task on their own.
Jean Piaget – Piaget was a constructivist which means he believed that kids learn by manipulating, modifying, and otherwise working with concepts. They construct their own learning rather than just being told something. Piaget worked with the idea that the things people know are organized into schemas. When a child learns something new, they either assimilate it into an existing schema, change their schema, or develop a new schema. Do you activate background knowledge before a lesson? You’re helping students tap into their existing schema!
B.F. Skinner – When I taught second grade and my class was on the wrong track, I would look for the one kid doing the right thing and say, “Wow, I love how Jesse is standing with his hands to his side and his voice turned off.” As I positively reinforced this behavior with praise, other students would jump on board, too. This is the heart of behaviorism. It’s the idea that praise and rewards positively reinforce a behavior and encourage kids to continue with it. Punishments discourage students from a behavior. Beyond following rules, there are learning actions we can reinforce. If you display quality student work, praise students for using strategies, let students publish on cool paper when they have their writing perfect, etc. you are using behaviorism to guide students toward the behaviors and actions of successful adults.
Jerome Bruner – If you have decent curriculum to use, you’ve probably seen Bruner’s idea of spiral curriculum at work. Elementary students can’t design roads and bridges but they can begin to learn about the physics of how the slope of a ramp affects the speed of a ball rolling down that ramp. Each year they can revisit and build on their previous learning.
Benjamin Bloom – You may have heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy. It’s a hierarchy of intellectual behaviors. The lowest level is remembering facts. The highest level is using your knowledge to create something new. With the new Common Core standards we’ve heard a lot about increasing rigor for our students. One way to do this is to make sure we’re involving our students in higher order thinking activities at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy, not just in memorizing facts.
Howard Gardner – Gardner found that people have more than one way of processing information and that a typical IQ score doesn’t completely measure intelligence. He created the theory of Multiple Intelligences. In the classroom we can engage multiple intelligences by singing educational songs, allowing students to work through concepts verbally, through art, through writing, with partners, and through movement.
I bet a lot of these theories already guide your teaching and now you know the researchers to connect them to. Pin the image above for handy reference!
Education Theorists
All of these guys did a lot more work than what is mentioned in this graphic. I just tried to pull out what was most relevant to teachers. The cool thing is, you probably recognize a lot of these practices as thing you’re already doing.
Lev Vygotsky – How do you decide the level at which to instruct your students? Vygotsky says to determine their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This means the skills that are just a little bit beyond their reach. When you are working with a small reading group, don’t pick books that kids can read perfectly. Pick ones that are just a little bit challenging, that students will need some support to read. Eventually a student’s ZPD bumps up higher because they have mastered the skills you were supporting them with.
Scaffolding is not a term that Vygotsky actually used but it’s a concept that developed based on his work. When you scaffold a student, you give them support to complete a task that they can’t quite do on their own. For example, at first, students need to be walked through every step of long division. Gradually the scaffolding can be reduced. Maybe they just need a couple of reminders at tricky spots. Eventually the scaffolding can be removed because the student can complete the task on their own.
Jean Piaget – Piaget was a constructivist which means he believed that kids learn by manipulating, modifying, and otherwise working with concepts. They construct their own learning rather than just being told something. Piaget worked with the idea that the things people know are organized into schemas. When a child learns something new, they either assimilate it into an existing schema, change their schema, or develop a new schema. Do you activate background knowledge before a lesson? You’re helping students tap into their existing schema!
B.F. Skinner – When I taught second grade and my class was on the wrong track, I would look for the one kid doing the right thing and say, “Wow, I love how Jesse is standing with his hands to his side and his voice turned off.” As I positively reinforced this behavior with praise, other students would jump on board, too. This is the heart of behaviorism. It’s the idea that praise and rewards positively reinforce a behavior and encourage kids to continue with it. Punishments discourage students from a behavior. Beyond following rules, there are learning actions we can reinforce. If you display quality student work, praise students for using strategies, let students publish on cool paper when they have their writing perfect, etc. you are using behaviorism to guide students toward the behaviors and actions of successful adults.
Jerome Bruner – If you have decent curriculum to use, you’ve probably seen Bruner’s idea of spiral curriculum at work. Elementary students can’t design roads and bridges but they can begin to learn about the physics of how the slope of a ramp affects the speed of a ball rolling down that ramp. Each year they can revisit and build on their previous learning.
Benjamin Bloom – You may have heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy. It’s a hierarchy of intellectual behaviors. The lowest level is remembering facts. The highest level is using your knowledge to create something new. With the new Common Core standards we’ve heard a lot about increasing rigor for our students. One way to do this is to make sure we’re involving our students in higher order thinking activities at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy, not just in memorizing facts.
Howard Gardner – Gardner found that people have more than one way of processing information and that a typical IQ score doesn’t completely measure intelligence. He created the theory of Multiple Intelligences. In the classroom we can engage multiple intelligences by singing educational songs, allowing students to work through concepts verbally, through art, through writing, with partners, and through movement.
I bet a lot of these theories already guide your teaching and now you know the researchers to connect them to. Pin the image above for handy reference!
There are many different theories regarding the way people learn. This section will very briefly explore some of them (in alphabetical order), which you might like to research further and try out with your own learners.
Folks:
The posting below is a nice summary of various learning theories. It is from Chapter 3 – Delivering Education and Training in the book The Certificate in Education and Training, by Ann Gravells and Susan Simpson. Published by Sage Publishing Company. www.sagepublishing.com © Ann Gravells 2014. Copyright by Ann Gravells and Susan Simpson. First published by Learning Matters SAGE 2014. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
UP NEXT: An Open Letter to High School Students about Reading
Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning
Educational Learning Theories And Theorists
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Teaching and Learning Theories
There are many different theories regarding the way people learn. This section will very briefly explore some of them (in alphabetical order), which you might like to research further and try out with your own learners. However, don’t get too concerned thinking you must teach in a certain way because a theorist says so. What works with one group or individual learner might not work with another. You might find at first you are teaching the way you were taught at school, college or university. It might have suited you at the time, or it might have had a detrimental effect. Don’t be afraid to try something different and step out of your comfort zone. You will need to find out through experience what works and what doesn’t work with your learners.
Behaviorism
Behaviorism assumes a learner is essentially passive, and will be shaped through positive or negative reinforcement. Learning is therefore defined as a change in behavior. Skinner (1974) believed that behavior is a function of its consequences, i.e. learners will repeat the desired behavior if positive reinforcement is given. The behavior should not be repeated if negative feedback is given. Giving immediate feedback, whether positive or negative, should enable your learners to behave in a certain way. Positive reinforcement or rewards can include verbal feedback such as That’s great, you’ve produced that document without any errors or You’re certainly getting on well with that task, through to more tangible rewards such as a certificate at the end of the programme, or a promotion or pay rise at work.
Cognitivism
Cognitivism focuses on what happens in the mind such as thinking and problem-solving. New knowledge is built upon prior knowledge and learners need active participation in order to learn. Changes in behavior are observed, but only as an indication of what is taking place in the learner’s mind. Cognitivism uses the metaphor of the mind as a computer: information comes in, is processed, and learning takes place.
Constructivism
Constructivism is about learning being an active, contextualized process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it. The learner brings past experiences and cultural factors to a current situation and each person has a different interpretation and construction of the knowledge process.
Vygotsky’s (1978) theory is one of the foundations of constructivism. It asserts three major themes.
1. Social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development. Vygotsky felt social learning precedes development and stated: 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 page 57).
2. 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 the teacher, or an older adult, but the MKO could also be a peer, a younger person, or even information from the internet.
3. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is the distance between a learner’s ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/or with peer collaboration and their ability to solve the problem independently. According to Vygotzky, learning occurs in this zone.
Think of these themes as:
1. what the learner can do
2. what the learner can do with help from others
3. what the learner can’t do yet but will attempt to do
Experiential learning
Experiential learning is about the learner experiencing things for themselves and learning from them. Kolb (1984) proposed a four stage model known as the experiential learning cycle. It is a way by which people can understand their experiences and, as a result, modify their behavior. It is based on the idea that the more often a learner reflects on a task, the more often they have the opportunity to modify and refine their efforts. The process of learning can begin at any stage and is continuous, i.e. there is no limit to the number of cycles which can be made in a learning situation. This theory suggests that without reflection, people would continue to repeat their mistakes.
* Concrete experience is about experiencing or immersing yourself in the task and is the first stage in which a person simply carries out the task assigned. This is the doing stage.
* Observation and reflection involve stepping back from the task and reviewing what has been done and experienced. Your values, attitudes and beliefs can influence your thinking at this stage. This is the stage of thinking about what you have done.
* Abstract conceptualization involves interpreting the events that have been carried out and making sense of them. This is the stage of planning how you will do it differently.
* Active experimentation enables you to take the new learning and predict what is likely to happen next or what actions should be taken to refine the way the task is done again. This is the redoing stage based upon experience and reflection.
Humanism
Humanism is an approach that believes learning is seen as a personal act to fulfill potential. Humanists believe that it is necessary to study a person as a whole, particularly as they grow and develop over their lifetime. Rogers (1983) and others developed the theory of facilitative learning based on a belief that people have a natural human eagerness to learn and that learning involves changing your own concept of yourself. This theory suggests that learning will take place if the person delivering it acts as a facilitator. The facilitator should establish an atmosphere in which her learners feel comfortable, are able to discuss new ideas and learn from their mistakes, as long as they are not threatened by external factors.
Pedagogy and andragogy
Formal teaching is known as pedagogy, where the teacher directs all the learning. Informal teaching is known as andragogy, where the learner is the focus, for example, via group work and discussions. Pedagogy does not always allow for individual knowledge to be taken into account and often focuses on teaching the same topic at the same time to all learners. Knowles et al. (2005) initially defined andragogy as the art and science of helping adults learn. An andragogical approach places more emphasis on what the learner is doing. You can include your learners’ experiences and knowledge by involving them whenever possible, and building upon what they already know and what interests them. Learners can also learn from their peers’ knowledge and experiences, as well as from you.
Pragmatism
John Dewey (1859-1952) believed that formal schooling was falling short of its potential. He emphasized facilitating learning through promoting various activities rather than by using a traditional teacher-focused method. He believed that learners learnt more from guided experiences than from authoritarian instruction. He subscribed to a pragmatist theory which placed the learner as the focus rather than the teacher. Dewey argued that learning is life, not just preparation for life. Using different delivery approaches, combined with practical activities, will help reach the different learning preferences of the individuals you are teaching.
6 Education Theories
Sensory theory
Laird (1985) suggests that learning occurs when the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste are stimulated. This is easy if you are teaching a practical session, but not so if you are teaching a theoretical subject. However, if you are willing to try something different, you can make your sessions really interesting and memorable. Whenever possible, link theory to practice, and use practical activities based around the subject and the areas of interest of your learners. If you can make your session fun and interesting, relating to all the senses, it will help your learners remember the topics better. Don’t forget two other senses you can use as a teacher: a sense of humor and common sense.
Extension Activity
6 Education Theorists
Research the theories explained here and compare and contrast them. Find out what other relevant theories there are. Use textbooks and journals, or key the words ‘learning theories’ into an internet search engine.
References
Knowles, M, Holten III, E and Swanson, R (2005) The Adult Learner (6th ed.). Oxford: Butterworth-Heineman.
Kolb, DA (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Laird, D (1985) Approaches to Training and Development. Harlow: Addison Wesley.
Rogers, CR (1983) Freedom to Learn for the 80s. Columbus, OH: Charles Merrill.
Skinner, BF (1974) About Behaviorism. San Francisco, CA: Knopf.
Vygotsky, LS (1978) Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
