Learning

Theories
Theories of teaching
and Learning 1.2
Content
• What is a theory of learning? Watch this video clip,
please use the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcpwEoW1uY8

• Please read slides 3 to 4 and complete the task on

slide 5 before you proceed to slide 6
What is learning?
• “the inner processes and products of the mind that
lead to “knowing” (Berk, 2006, p. 219)
Some key individuals in the field:
• Dewey
• Piaget
• Bruner
• Vygotsky
• Dweck
What is learning
It includes all the following mental activities (and more):
• Attention
• Recollection
• Symbolising
• Categorising
• Planning
• Reasoning
• Problem solving
• Creating
• Fantasising
• Generalising
• Language
How do you think children
learn?
Task 1:

Write down how do you think children learn. Be ready to

share this with your group. Once you have completed this
first part of the task, write a reflection based on the
questions below:

• What do you think?

• Is it based on evidence?
• How is your view biased?
John Dewey
• Activity:

• Watch this video (please use the link below):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3fm6wNzK70

• Please proceed to read slides 7 to 10

• Complete the task in slide 11

Dewey
• more democratic and child-centred education.
• a reaction to the rigid, more formal style of
traditional education
• education must be both active and interactive;
• education must involve the social world of the child
and the community.
 Dewey
• “True education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers
by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself”
• “The child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give
the starting-point for all education”
• “I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a
preparation for future living”
• “The school life should grow gradually out of the home life. . . . It is
the business of the school to deepen and extend his [the child’s]
sense of the values bound up in his home life”
• “I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the
training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life”
When you plan an activity, ask
• How does this expand on what these children
already know?
• How will this activity help this child grow?
• What skills are being developed?
• How will this activity help these children know
more about their world?
• How does this activity prepare these children to live
more fully?
The experience...
• is based on the children’s interests and grows out of
their existing knowledge and experience.
• supports the children’s development.
• helps the children develop new skills.
• adds to the children’s understanding of their world.
• prepares the children to live more fully.

• Fun is not enough

Task 2: Implications
What are the implications of Dewey’s views for:
• Your teaching – the lessons you will be teaching
• Curriculum design – the overall learning experience
children would receive in a school

• Write these down and be ready to share and use

for the case study
 Jean Piaget
• Watch this short video clip of Piaget’s work. Link
below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhcgYgx7aAA

• Read through slides 13 to 21

• Complete task on slide 22

Piaget
• Four stages of development

Pre- Concrete Formal

Sensorimotor
Operational Operational Operational
0-2 years
2-7 years 7-11 years 11+ years
Sensorimotor (0 – 2)
• Multi-staged (named)
• Grasping and sucking
• First motor habits with repetition for pleasure
• Increased awareness of effect on environment
• Intentional actions
• Emerging curiosity and experimentation
• Increased problem solving and emerging language
Pre-operational (2-7)
• Preconceptual (2-4)
• Imagination, symbolic play, make-believe

• Egocentric (I can’t see you then you can’t see me)

• Animism – ascribing feeling to objects; inability to say
whether an object s alive

• Both above points have been disproven!!!!

Pre-operational (2-7)
• Intuitive (4-7)
• Does not yet understand conservation
https://youtu.be/gnArvcWaH6I

• Transferring attention is difficult

Concrete Operational Stage (7-
11)
• Use logical rules to solve problems
• Seriation (ordering)
• Logical transitivity
• Some problems of conservation remain
• Some configurations are confusing (horizontal
decalage)
Formal Operational Stage (11-
15)
• Towards abstract thinking
• Not constrained by personal experience
But……
• Piaget biased towards science and maths here
(deduction)
• Failed to value creativity and intuition
Schema
• Mental model based on experience
• Images
• Concepts
• Learning is the adaptation of schemata
• Assimilation
• Accommodation
• Equilibration
• Organisation
Criticism of Piaget
• Ignored the environment
• Stages are not fixed – they can be accelerated
• Ignored the teacher!!!!!
• Culture and context
Task 3: Implications
What are the implications of Piaget’s views for:
• Your teaching – the lessons you will be teaching
• Curriculum design – the overall learning experience
children would receive in a school

• Write these down and be ready to share and use

for the case study
Vygotsky
Watch this brief view of Vygotsky’s work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I2hrSRbmHE

• Read through slides 23 – 27 and complete the task on slide 28

• Children as active explorers, constructing their own knowledge
• Dependent on the social and cultural context
• Knowledge is constructed using language
• Learning is mediated by language
Zone of Proximal Development
• The distance between what a child is able to do
themselves, unaided, and what they can do with the
aid of others
• Learning occurs within this Zone of Proximal
Development

Potential for
learning under
What I can do the guidance of What I cannot
myself a ‘more do
knowledgeable
other’
Social interaction promotes
cognitive development
• Two (or more) individuals focused on the same goal
• Usually with different levels of understanding of the
goal
• Reach a shared understanding at the end
• Provides a common ground for discussion
• Individuals adjust to the perspective of the other
Scaffolding
• Adults/peers adjust their assistance in order to ‘fit’
the child’s present understanding
• Direct instruction
• Chunking
• Discuss strategies
• Explain purpose of strategies
• Withdraw support slowly over time
• Child ‘internalises’ verbal elements of the support,
this becomes part of their inner speech, and guides
their independent actions thereafter
Assisted discovery
• Provide socially rich, meaningful activities WITHIN child’s ZPD
• Ask children to explain what they are doing, and correct and inform them so
they can reflect on their inner thinking and enter higher levels of cognitive
functioning
Reciprocal teaching (teacher involvement)
• Teacher and small group of students take turns leading a dialogue about a
written passage
• Role entails asking questions, summarising the passage, clarifying unfamiliar
or unclear ideals, and predict upcoming content based on clues in the
passage
• Forms a ZPD for literature comprehension
Cooperative learning (peer-peer involvement)
• Provide opportunities for small group work, working towards a common goal
• Particularly useful if a child’s peer is more ‘expert’ in the activity, provided
they adjust their support to fit the child’s need
Task 4: Implications
What are the implications of Vygotsky’s views for:
• Your teaching – the lessons you will be teaching
• Curriculum design – the overall learning experience
children would receive in a school

• Write these down and be ready to share and use

for the case study
 Other theorists
• In the following slides Bruner’s ‘Discovery Learning’
and Dweck’s ‘Growth Mindset’ work is referred to.
• Please work through these slides, there are no
specific tasks, but it is important that you do read
the slides and watch the video clips.
• If you don’t have time to complete this today,
please do so in your directed independent study
time
 Jerome Bruner
‘Discovery Learning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6j1YxxbogM

• Please watch this short video clip and the proceed

to work through slides 31 to 34
Bruner
• Emphasised culture and its significance
• Schools operate within a wider society
• Context dependent
• Children advance through learning not through
predetermined stages
• Further development of scaffolding
• Motivation is linked to interest
• Discovery learning
Discovery learning
• Use existing knowledge to problem solve
• Internalises meaning

As long as…..
• Learning is organised and structured
• Assess prior knowledge
• Support learning
• Determine new knowledge
Discovery learning

But…..
• Learners can acquire misconceptions
• Unsupervised an unstructured play does not lead to
learning
• See Hattie’s research!
Knowledge representation
• Enactive
Knowledge directly related to actions
E.g. riding a bike
• Iconic
Mental images
E.g. understanding dog without the presence of a dog
Emojis, road signs.
• Symbolic
Abstract representations
Algebra, words, sonatas????
 Carol Dweck - Mindset
• Watch this video clip:
https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power
_of_believing_that_you_can_improve/discussion#t-1
83712
• Work through slides 36 to 39
• In slide 37 there is an article for you to read
Carol Dweck - Mindset
• Occasional failure can increase resilience
• Others’ success/failure impacts on self-efficacy
• Mindsets
Fixed: ability is fixed (helpless)
Growth: ability is enhanced by learning
• Implications for praise
Implications
for teaching

Possible feedback
From
https://www.edweek.org/ew/art
icles/2015/09/23/carol-dweck-r
evisits-the-growth-mindset.html
What are your triggers?
Watch for a fixed-mindset reaction when you face
challenges. Do you feel overly anxious, or does a voice in
your head warn you away?
Watch for it when you face a setback in your
teaching. Do you feel incompetent or defeated? Do you
look for an excuse?
Watch to see whether criticism brings out your fixed
mindset. Do you become defensive, angry, or crushed
instead of interested in learning from the feedback?
Watch what happens when you see an educator
who’s better than you at something you value. Do
you feel envious and threatened, or do you feel eager to
learn? Accept those thoughts and feelings and work with
and through them. And keep working with and through
them.
Others
• Motivational theories (e.g. Deci and Ryan)
• Montessori (early years)
• Skinner (behaviourism)
• Bandura (Self-efficacy)
• Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner)

• VAK (Nooooooooooooooooooooo!)
References
• Dweck, C., 2012. Mindset: Changing the way you
think to fulfil your potential. Hachette UK.
• Gray, C. and MacBlain, S., 2015. Learning theories in
childhood. Sage.
• Bates, B., 2019. Learning Theories Simplified:... and
how to apply them to teaching. SAGE Publications
Limited.