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How we learn

ICT has been shown to be an effective support of a number of teaching strategies which promote learning (Bransford et al. 2000). Informed use of ICT involves an understanding of the learning theories behind the different methods of instruction. There has been considerable research on learning theories and how they apply to the use of ICT in teaching and learning.

As practicing educators it is highly likely that you have eclectic views on the learning process. Your conclusions are likely to be a blend of the diverse theories on learning, motivation, instruction, intellectual development, and effective teaching practices, largely as a result of your own personal experience. You may thus be drawing from behavioural theories, cognitive theories, social cognition theories, attribution theory, achievement motivation theory, as well as using concepts from Piaget or Vygotsky. We will not go into a great deal of detail here but provide you with a brief overview of some relevant theories (the links in the following text will take you to short summaries of the theories) and provide you with some online resources if you wish to go further.

Until the late 1950s the dominant theory of learning was behaviourism which saw learning as a process of forming connections between stimuli and responses. This had limitations due to its focus on observable behaviour and not the underlying phenomena such as understanding, reasoning and thinking. Some of the principles of behaviourism however are still widely used in today’s classrooms and many online and computer-based drill and practice exercises use the behaviourist principle of positive reinforcement.

Cognitive psychology developed in the late 1950s as a way of dealing with behaviourism’s inability to adequately explain complex behaviours such as language acquisition. This branch of learning theories is concerned with the things that happen inside our heads as we learn. The developmental theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, also known as cognitive-developmental theories emphasise thought processes such as thinking, understanding, and perceiving. Cognitive theories take the perspective that students actively process information and learning takes place through the efforts of the student as they organise, store and then find relationships between information, linking new to old knowledge, schema and scripts. Over the last fifteen years, cognitive psychology, and in particular the information processing model, has become dominant partly because of the insights the model gives us in describing and explaining cognitive (mental) processes, such as thinking and problem solving.

Robert Gagné built upon behaviourist and cognitive theories to recommend approaches to instruction. His work played a key role in the systematic design of instruction which is still widely used in the development of training material.

Continuing research into learning rejected the idea that learning is a process where knowledge is transmitted to and acquired by learners. Contemporary theorists suggest that learning is a process where knowledge is constructed either individually or socially and is based on a person’s previous knowledge. Though there are a number of theories that come under the label constructivism they all have a similar view of learners as being actively engaged in a process of integrating new experiences and information with existing concepts. They suggest that learners’ pre-existing knowledge, skills, beliefs and concepts influence what they notice about the world they live in and how they organise and interpret it. As a consequence rather than simply absorbing ideas communicated to them by teachers, students take those ideas and assimilate them with their pre-existing notions and experience to modify their knowledge and understanding in a more complex, complete and refined way. Teaching therefore is the process which supports this construction and reconstruction of new knowledge rather than the communication of knowledge. Research suggests that educational technology is most effective when used to enhance constructivist or student-centered instructional strategies because they emphasise interactivity, learner control and student engagement.

So where does that leave us? Drawing on the variety of theoretical perspectives on learning can be useful when developing effective teaching practices. Flexibility in our theoretical position allows us to use a number of methods in our teaching in order to cater to the diversity of learners and the kind of information and skills they need.

Behaviourism
Developmental theories of learning
Cognitive theories of learning
Information Processing
Systematic Instructional Design
Constructivism
So where does this leave us?

References:

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (eds). 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. The National Academy Press. Washington, D.C. (Available online) http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9853.html [19 October 2001]