Learning about Learning

Dr Kay Hack
Dr Sana Al-Mansoori
30/11/2023

Learning Outcomes
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

Review the extent

Evaluate aspects
Identify key to which learning
of their teaching
aspects of theories apply to
practice in the
several learning learning and
context of
theories teaching in online
learning theory
environments

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30/11/2023

“I hear and I forget, I see and I “Those that know, do.

remember, I do and I understand.” Those that understand, teach”
Confucius 551-479BC Aristotle 384-322 BC

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Key Learning Theories
+ Behaviourist (Skinner)

+ Cognitivist (Piaget; the brain theorists)

+ Constructivist (Vygotsky; Bruner)

+ Experiential learning (Kolb)

+ Socio-cultural theories (Lave & Wenger)

+ Learner types / multiple intelligences (Honey &

Mumford; Gardner)

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Behaviourist Theories
+ World view: stimulus-response. All behaviour caused in response
to external stimuli. No need to consider internal states or
consciousness

+ Classical conditioning (Pavlov); Operant conditioning (Skinner);

Trial and error (Thorndike)

+ Learner: passive, responds only to stimuli. Behaviour shaped by

positive/negative reinforcement. Punishment prevents...

+ Teacher: Controls environment, shapes behaviour, correct-

praise, wrong- immediate correction. Repetition...
Demonstration...Tests... ILOs...

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Cognitivism
+ Focus on inner workings of the mind ‘black box’ – thinking,
knowing, problem-solving

+ Knowing as a mental schema, learning as a changed schema

+ A response to behaviourism. People are not merely programmed

animals but rational beings. Actions result from thinking

+ Learners: process, store and retrieve information

+ Teachers: provide new opportunities for information, support

problem-solving

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Cognitivism
+ Stages of intellectual capacity and readiness to learn
(Piaget)
+ Components of Cognitive Development (Vygotsky) –
symbols, language, Zone of Proximal Development
+ Measurement of intelligence - IQ tests, general
intelligence, theories of multiple intelligence
+ Growth Mindsets (Dweck)
+ Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
+ Taxonomies of cognitive complexity (Bloom)

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Social Constructivism
+ Learning is social and constructed. We actively construct our own
subjective representations

+ Knowledge is created rather than acquired, revisited at ever more

complex levels of understanding

+ Learner: links new information to previous, personal, cultural

experience and knowledge. Continuous building and amending of
own representations and hypotheses through negotiation and
interaction

+ Teacher, other, peer: offer exposure to new experiences, skills,

values, cultures, arguments...

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 Constructivist, Social and Situational
Theories
+ Emphasise context, communities and interaction

+ Lave & Wenger’s work on Communities of Practice

and Situated Learning - learning is an inherently
social process that cannot be separated from the
social context in which it occurs (why students may
find it difficult to apply or transfer knowledge and
skills)

– e.g. Problem-based learning

– e.g. Peer-assisted learning

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Situated learning/Communities of Practice
(Lave & Wenger, 1991)

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 Different Types of Learning
Theory
‘Each (theory) emphasises different aspects of learning,
and each is therefore useful for different purposes. To some
extent these differences in emphasis reflect a deliberate
focus on a slice of the multi-dimensional problem of
learning, and to some extent they reflect more fundamental
differences in assumptions abut the nature of knowledge,
knowing, and knowers, and consequently what matters in
learning.’ (Wenger, 2009, p210)

Wenger, E. (2009). ‘A Social Theory of Learning’. In K. Illeris (ed). Contemporary

Learning Theories (pp209-218). London: Routledge.