5 Educational Theories
5 Theories of Educational Learning
- There are 5 overarching paradigms of educational learning theories; behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, design/brain-based, humanism and 21st Century skills. Below, you will find a brief outline of each educational learning theory, along with links to resources that may be helpful.
- The variety of theories of how education is influenced, and how we view the learning and teaching process is what gives us the purpose and expectation of how schooling and education should be. While we compare and contrast the functionalist perspective, conflict theory perspective, and the interactionist perspectives on the desires.
- Educational Theories. Posted on April 14 2011 by Kelly McLendon. The classroom is taught the way it is today because of the different ‘ages’ in history.
Educational Psychologists, Theorists, Researchers, and Authors. Educational Theories in teaching Science; General Educational Theories. Active learning - C.
- Behaviorism
- Cognitivism
- Constructivism
- Humanism
- Connectivism
Many people believe that all one needs to be a good teacher is a solid foundation of knowledge in the subject or grade level and a decent ability to connect with children or adolescents. This might be true, however, great teachers also become experts at applying the educational learning theories covered in every teacher training program. Here are the five most common theories currently used by the majority of educators.
1. Behaviorism
At its core, behaviorism refers to the notion of learning to do or not do certain behaviors by way of reinforcements and punishments. This refers to both natural consequences and those implemented by another person. In the context of educational learning, teachers use behaviorism in the form of grades, classroom behavior economies, detentions, time-outs, recommendation letters, and parent-teacher conferences, just to name a few. The specific consequences are determined by the age of the students. Behaviorism involves learning how to most effectively apply and help students appreciate internal consequences, such as pride in one’s work.
2. Cognitivism
Cognition refers to the human processes of understanding. It is grounded in the work of Jean Piaget, who developed a theory of cognitive development throughout the lifespan. This theory involves four stages of cognitive development including sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operations. The sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to two years of age. Infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through motor skills and the five senses. The preoperational stage lasts from two to seven years. Children learn to make connections based on symbols by playing pretend, connecting letters to sounds and eventually to words. The concrete operational stage lasts from seven to twelve years. This is when children and preadolescents develop logic. The formal operations stage begins around age twelve and lasts through adulthood. This involves the ability to understand and talk about abstract ideas, and students develop critical thinking skills. The role of a teacher is to tailor the curriculum to students’ stages and spot and address cognitive deficiencies.
3. Constructivism
Constructive theorists found that human beings are unique in their ability to construct unique understandings of their immediate environments and the world beyond them. Every individual experiences life differently based on an immeasurable number of physiological and emotional factors. What this means for teachers is that students cannot be expected to absorb and apply the material in the same way. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development published an informative article about differentiating instruction to help teachers meet each student’s unique needs.
4. Humanism
Closely related to constructivism is humanism, which concerns the idea of self-actualization. All people function under a hierarchy of needs, beginning with the most basic physiological survival needs, and culminating in self-actualization. Self-actualization refers to those brief yet beautiful moments when one feels as though all of their physical, cognitive, and emotional needs are met, and one is the best possible version of oneself. This is a state that all humans are always striving for but the vast majority of people do not remain in for long periods. People influence each other’s places on the hierarchy, so it is important that teachers structure their curriculum and classroom environments to help students move towards self-actualization.
Related Resource: Top 5 Online Doctorate in Educational Psychology
5. Connectivism
Connectivism is the newest educational learning theory. As the name implies, it is grounded in the notion that people learn and grow by forming connections. This includes connections with each other and connections between their increasing number of roles, obligations, hobbies, and other aspects of life. The rise of technology presents both challenges and opportunities for connection. Teachers must learn how to encourage students to make the right kinds of connections and utilize educational technology in the most effective ways.
No two students are created equal, and neither are any two teachers. These five educational learning theories inform teachers about both the similarities and differences between their students in terms of their development and understanding. Teachers are responsible for instructing their students about life as much as their individual subjects. These five theories form their foundation for accomplishing this.
5 Principles and 5 Theories for Effective Training Design
I once asked the director of a company with more than 10,000 employees what he saw as the end goal of his organization’s corporate training. His first answer related to money. More of it, through higher efficiency and better sales. But when I asked him what he thought his employees should know or be able to do after the training in order to generate more money, he had to think. He was eventually able to come up with specific things his employees would know, and behaviors they’d adopt after the training, but it took some time.
Where it all fell down is in knowledge carry-over between classroom and daily work.
It didn’t take me long to figure out why. When I looked into the organization’s corporate training programs, I saw that the learning focus was knowledge transfer, from trainer to learner. The trainers would share their knowledge; the employees would remember. In fact, the employees were really good at remembering phrases and concepts, and most scored high in tests. Where it all fell down is in knowledge carry-over between classroom and daily work. The training didn’t lead to new behaviors and the knowledge gain demonstrated in the written tests didn’t follow the learners back to their desks.
The company’s corporate training team recognized the gap and asked me how to design training that would engage learners, lead to a higher knowledge transfer value, and result in employees using their new knowledge in their day-to-day job behavior.
5 Principles
To ensure a high learning outcome when I design training programs that lead to actual change, I’m guided by five principles that help ensure I’m taking the learners’ experience into consideration.
The five principles I use are as follows (Merrill, 2013):
1. Problem-centered. Learning is promoted when learners acquire skill in the context of real-world problems.
5 Educational Theories
2. Activation. Learning is promoted when learners activate existing knowledge and skills as a foundation for new skill.
3. Demonstration. Learning is promoted when learners observe a demonstration of the skill they are working to acquire.
4. Application. Learning is promoted when learners apply their newly acquired skill to solve problems.
5. Integration. Learning is promoted when learners reflect on and discuss their newly acquired skill.
These five principles integrate some of the most important learning theory and research from the time of Aristotle until now. They reflect the development in learning theory over time, adding new perspectives to previous theories rather than substituting the new theories and throwing out the old.
5 Learning Theories
In addition to the five principles, I also leverage the following five theories into my learning design:
1. Cognitivism
2. Constructivism
3. Social constructivism
4. Experiential learning, and
5. Transformative learning.
The Role of Instructor Passion
Passion for the topic being taught is a wonderful thing. However, it doesn’t actually play a role in effective learning outcomes. In fact, I’ve seen examples of trainers and instructors who are so passionate about the material that they forget all about learning design. Without proper knowledge of and consideration for how the human brain works, and how to design an effective learning experience, passion alone with not lead to high learning outcomes.
Integrating the 5 X 5
To illustrate how I integrate the five principles and theories when I design a training program, I’ll provide an example from an online training program I developed for a company selling physical products. The learning objective was to enhance the employees’ knowledge of the product so that they could use the knowledge to sell.
Getting their Attention
The first step in the training session design is to create an introduction that aims to grab the learner’s attention and let them know why their participation is important. This is where, in my physical product example, I make the learners aware of a problem: that consumers want to face a knowledgeable sales person. I introduce facts and numbers, share interview with consumers talking about the importance of speaking to a knowledgeable salesperson. I also let the learners know (Gagne, 1985):
- What they are going to do in the training
- Why they should participate the training
- What they will be able to do after participating the training (learning goals)
- How they will know they have achieved the learning goals
- How they can apply the knowledge and tools from the course in real life, and
- How they are going to be assessed and how real life experience will be a part of the assessment.
Creating the Content
The second step in the training session design is to create the actual content. The content is divided into five parts, and I’ll show you how I applied each part to this particular training example:
- Information about the product: in this case a video that explains the product.
- Observation: a sales expert showing how to sell the product to a consumer, using the knowledge from the video above.
- Recap: the sales expert discussing a recap of numbers 1 and 2 above, highlighting the most important actions the learners can apply.
- Exercises: real-life practice selling the product to a consumer. And,
- Assessment: multiple-choice assessments, including peer instruction (Mondrup, 2016), that facilitates reflection and discussion. The questions are developed so that they require the learner to have watched all the videos and completed the real life practice.
Educational Theories Pdf
Contemporary research in assessment indicates that continuous assessment leads to significantly better learning results
5 Educational Learning Theories
You’ll notice that I do not advocate integration of a large, final assessment in my training design. I believe in the value of continuous assessment instead. Contemporary research in assessment indicates that continuous assessment leads to significantly better learning results (Tuunila & Pulkkinen, 2015).
“When students learn through student-centric online technology, testing doesn’t have to be postponed until the end of an instructional module and then administered in a batch mode… Misunderstandings do not have to persist for weeks.” - Clayton Christensen (Christensen, 2016), Harvard Business School.
Resources:
Christensen, C. (2016). Localized at: https://www.knewton.com/resources/blog/adaptive-learning/final-exams-benefits-continuous-assessment/
Gagne, R. (1985). The Conditions of Learning, Fourth Edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Merrill, M. D. (2013). First principles of instruction: Identifying and designing effective, efficient and engaging instruction. Hoboken, NJ: Pfeiffer/John Wiley & Sons
5 Educational Learning Theories
Mondrup, H. J. (2016). The Evolution of Multiple Choice E-learning. Localized at:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolution-multiple-choice-e-learning-henrik-j-mondrup?trk=prof-post
Educational Theories Used In Nursing
Tuunila, R., & Pulkkinen, M. (2015). Effect of continuous assessment on learning outcomes on two chemical engineering courses: case study. European Journal of Engineering Education, 40(6), 671-682