Module 1: Theories and Constructs of Learning

How People Learn: Introduction to Learning Theory

How People Learn: Introduction to Learning Theory. (2020, January 09). Retrieved June 15, 2020, from https://www.learner.org/series/the-learning-classroom-theory-into-practice/how-people-learn-introduction-to-learning-theory/

Opening Quote: "refer to them as writers; I am a writing coach"

Dr. Linda Darling Hammond, host

knowing how people learn is at the heart of teaching

success: knowing how to best influence learning

1st Grade Teacher: Faye

• conceptual goal for students, students' experiences (prior knowledge), tools needed (visualizations with the large book), questioning to prompt student thinking, students' developmental stage (counting in whole numbers vs. fractions), puts self in learner' shoes, student centered so that students have first hand experience with their discoveries

End of Lesson: wide variety of ways to show their understanding (some could state what they saw during, but some were more able to draw or write their explanations)

Productive Environment: feelings count, culture influences how we learn, learning is social

6th Grade Teacher: Kathleen

• FDJ to bring in families and home culture

Creating emotionally safe space: 

• in order to share writing, need to be able to have a safe space (builds towards families coming to share)
• home literacies
• (don't like the word "tolerance")
• as a result of having a culturally responsive classroom: personal literacies, deep knowledge of who students are, appreciation of home literacies, "can't get that from teaching from an anthology"
• learning from one another: conferencing, response groups, "learn to be real writers together" 

The Process: cognitive apprenticeship (learning to think), metacognition, structure of the disciplines (inquiry that guides experts, think like the experts), transfer

HS Writing Class Teacher: Kendra

• strategies alone isn't enough; have to know how to apply them too
• what works for me as a writer (could be reader, or learner too)
• metacognition: which of the strategies would work for me personally? 
• scaffolding with the writing process: how do you know when to support and when to step out of the way? 

Interactions of Theories: motivation, creating school culture

Engineering/Science Teacher: Don

• take on role of engineer (authenticity) within certain conditions (problem solve)
• methodical way of looking at things (scientific method)
• show understanding through demonstration of building the bridge
• work in collaborative groups
• application to real world-proof is that you did it
• motivation: learning by doing; connecting to what they value/what they are interested in

School/Classroom Culture: 

• correlation between our own learning and what the kids get from it 
• we must be life-long learners in order to pass along to our students
• no single theory; combination of theories to match the learners and the environment

Teaching Reflection: Ask yourself, “How am I taking into account who my students are as learners? How am I constructing a safe and productive classroom? And how am I supporting my students in learning at a high level that will transfer to other situations?

Summary: I am left with the last three questions Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond poses to the audience and feel that these three questions should be at the heart of everything we do in our classrooms. Unfortunately, teachers become too focused on testing and the standards, that they lose sight of teaching students how to learn and just teach them through rote memorization. Instead of finding themselves valued in the classroom, they become a test score that has to be moved. What I wish teachers would understand and be supported in doing by administrators is really take these three questions to heart. Test scores really don't matter if our classrooms aren't really filled with learning. When students graduate, they won't remember all of the information that they memorized to pass tests. Isn't it better to develop them as learners and to use metacognition to build their self-efficacy as learners? Isn't it better to have them equipped to problem-solve independently and collaboratively? The emphasis on high stakes testing has carried most educators away from their purpose at the great detriment of our students. 

Learning Theories Article: 

History of Learning Theory

• "most effective strategies for learning depend on what kind of learning is desired and toward what ends" (Darling-Hammond, Rosso, Austin, Orcutt, & Martin, p. 12). 

Greeks: 

• Plato: rationalist; knowledge is discovered through self-reflection
• Socrates: knowledge through reason; dialectic method-knowledge is built in conversation/discussion with others; requires reflection and discourse
• Aristotle: empiricist, inquiry/scientific method; making sense of the world through sensory

Romans: 

• focused more on practical knowledge; what would expand the empire-vocational education has ties to style of education (apprenticeships)

"'cognitive apprenticeships' combine the modeling inherent in guiding an apprentice to learn a trade with the discourse, reflection, and inquiry that the Greeks used to train the mind" Darling-Hammond, Rosso, Austin, Orcutt, & Martin, p. 12). 

Roman Catholic Church

• learning by transmission (comes from the priest)
• not about transforming knowledge 

Renaissance

• learning through exploration; focused on arts and humanities
• Humanism: a study of human values that are not religious based
• knowledge driven by the individual through inquiry and discovery
• Is education to be practical? Is education for personal enlightenment? 

Descartes

• not about pouring information into a vessel; knowledge is innate and shaped by our own experiences
• Influence on cognitive sciences and understanding the process of thinking

Locke

• "blank slate" shaped by experiences
• Experiences shape simple ideas, which connect to one another to build complex understanding
• Influence on Dewy, Montessori, Piaget

Kant

• "awareness of knowledge may begin with experience, but much knowledge exists prior to experience" (Darling-Hammond, Rosso, Austin, Orcutt, & Martin, p. 13)
• first to recognize the cognitive processes of the mind
• Influence on Piaget & those focused on cognition

How Psychologists Have Thought of Learning

• 19th Century: tests developed to study how people learn and best approach to teaching
• 20th Century: largely dominated by behaviorists and cognitive psychologists; do we respond/react to stimulus or do we construct knowledge from stimulus? 

Thorndike: 

• educational psychologist who wanted to bring scientific method to studying learning
• focused on trial-and-error; learning is built through positive responses when given certain stimuli
• focused on the environment that learning took place so that the right stimuli would lead to learning

Skinner: 

• father of modern behaviorism
• positive reinforcement for correct responses; learning to be the production of desired behaviors, not influenced by mental processes
• reward over punishment, incrementally move students through at his own speed
• Influence of Behaviorists: structured curricula, programmed instructional approaches, workbooks; appropriate for skills that are learned through reinforcement and practice but not for higher-order thinking

Piaget: 

• 1st to say "learning is a developmental cognitive process"
• knowledge is created, not received 
• constructing knowledge is through experience and based on biological, phsysical, and mental stage of development
• 4 stages of growth: sensori-motor, preoperational, concrete operations, formal operations
• balance of rote knowledge and learning through experience at the right time of development

Vygotsky

• added to Piaget; social-cultural cognition-all learning takes place within a context of culture and social interactions
• ZPD; learning takes place just beyond the student's experiences to challenge them to grow through scaffolding of teacher or through assistance of a peer/collaboration
• education is responsive to the development of the child, connect new learning to prior knowledge, and provide opportunities for learning socially through engaging with the environment

Learning Theory in Practice

• Progressives: pulled from Piaget, Vygostky, and emphasize learning through experience and reflection
• child-centered based on experiences and learning is situated
• Dewy: child centered with pedagogically sound educator who is knowledgable about their subject area; dialectal-child and curriculum and overseen by teacher; teacher must know both the needs of the child and the demand the content places on the child, so that the student uncovers the knowledge through experiences; environment is key to learning; education is key to social progress
• Montessori: free expression and freedom of movement; hands-on-learning by experimenting; teacher is center of creating environment and structure from which the exploration of the child can take place, but the teacher does not interfere; teacher as guide to child's learning through play and social interactions. 
• Bruner: disciplines require structure, which in turn influences the curriculum and connects to the developing child; all children can learn any content-just has to be broken down; spiral curriculum-places higher cognitive load as the child progresses

"Effective teachers understand that different strategies are useful for different kinds of learning" (Darling-Hammond, Rosso, Austin, Orcutt, & Martin, p. 15-16). 

Summary: All of the theorists have an influence on the way we thinking about teaching and learning. The authors posit that educators need to know a wide variety of strategies that are derived from multiple theorists and implement the strategies based on the type of learning they want students to achieve. They suggest that educators should consider the goal of the learning and how the strategies will help students to get there. 

The Learning Process

• Learning is influenced by the brain, the environment, connections made across prior knowledge or understanding, and by how people feel about their learning. 
• Learning happens within social and cultural conditions

The Brain: 

• process information from stimuli
• different parts of the brain perform different functions
• learning changes the physical structure of the brain-expands brain's capacity
• On-going/life-long development
• Each of us process differently

Associations:

• making connections between prior knowledge and new information is learning
• teachers influence based on how material is organized and helping students access/connect material to prior knowledge
• Aids in transferring 

Environment: 

• we learn through our interaction within our environment and the stimuli that are there
• stimuli and feedback aids in development/learning
• content must be relevant to students' lives
• students need choice
• students need multiple opportunities to practice and build understanding
• teachers as models

Cultural and Social Contexts:

• culturally responsive teaching values cultures of the learner
• learning happens when teachers connect curriculum and assignments to students' home experiences (cultural funds of knowledge)
• classroom culture is also influential on learning outcomes (communication, students' roles, support or discourage collaboration)

Different Learning Styles: 

• honoring student intelligences beyond the typically taught subjects (writing, math)
• when students understand how they best process information and are given the chance to use those multiple modalities, they are more likely to engage with learning
• Not just about how students learn, but also different kinds of learning (complex thinking/problem solving vs. rote memorization)

How We Think about Our Own Learning Matters:

• Thoughts and emotions influence learning
• metacognition helps in directing learning; intentionality set through metacognitive/reflective thinking; seeing learning as problem-solving/solution oriented
• Negative emotions prevent students from learning effectively, if at all
• Regulating emotions and knowing coping strategies helps learners face setbacks or frustrations

Text to World Connection/Reflection: When we tap into students' funds of knowledge, we have greater buy-in and engagement. I have seen this first hand through my work with Family Dialogue Journals.  My goal is to always know my students as people first; know what they value and how they spend their time outside of school. Those personal or home literacies are what we can tap into in order to grow educational literacies. This also connects to students' ways of making meaning of their worlds through multi-modalities. Dr. Steve Bickmore recently said that if we can have students show us what they know through the modality they feel most confident, then we can move towards the more traditional or more difficult modalities of school, like writing.  What if a student's more natural way of making meaning is through dance or art? If that's the way they can communicate their ideas first, then they may feel more confident to move towards those modalities with which they struggle. 

What Teachers Can Do to Assist Learning

"Teachers can be more effective in their work if they teach in ways that are compatible with the processes of learning" (Darling-Hammond, Rosso, Austin, Orcutt, & Martin, p. 17)

Organizing the Environment: 

• Hands-on learning; authenticity through activities and audiences
• Active learning + reflection = deeper learning
• Choice and agency over learning
• Classroom culture that values building on a sense of belonging with a community of learners so that risks are taken and valued

Organizing Knowledge, Information, and Activities: 

• consider how people process information and organize information accordingly in the environment; build on students' experiences and prior knowledge
• task accessibility
• feedback with opportunities to revise/edit and resubmit
• metacognition and reflection on learning
• collaboration, performance, problem-solving
• 'advanced organizers' to help sort information/see connections across concepts
• inquiry based on content area & how knowledge is built within it
• teacher as model; teacher as expert in field who can demonstrate how to process/think through material; teacher as coach

Organizing People: 

• Groups/collaborative opportunities
• knowing what structure suits the goal (individual vs. pairs vs. small groups)
• Community built on norms
• roles to build on strengths within groups
• teach each other about their homes/cultures in connection to school experiences
• work with colleagues to create vertical alignment 

Text to Self Connection Reflection: I remember having lunch one day with a table of teachers. We ranged in years of experience. One of the first year teachers shared that he'd tried groups in his classroom and they had not worked at all. The more veteran teacher (more veteran than me) and who was also his department chair, nodded and stated that was the reason she never broke students into groups or relied on group assignments. Not feeling as though I could speak against her sentiments, I sat in silence. I didn't want a first year teacher to believe that collaborative learning just didn't work and that he should abandon it after a first attempt, but I didn't have the fortitude to speak up and I wish I had.  I think too often teachers avoid doing collaborative work because they have applied it to a situation where it may not have been the best structure for the goal. I also think too often teachers avoid it because they believe it requires them to relinquish control.  It can be messy. It can be loud. It can seem as though it isn't going the way you intended, but the benefits of collaborative learning far outweigh the fears of creating a loud mess. It can be organized chaos.  The kids will get off topic, but then they will get back on topic. If we don't give them the opportunities to participate in collaborative ways, then they never will learn how to negotiate these types of interactions. It takes work. It takes the chance of it failing and having to talk about why it failed and then doing it again.  These are the things I would have told this first year teacher. 

The Relation of Theory to Practice

"Learning to teach thus demands that we understand both the general and the particular, seek theoretical insights that give meaning to what we do, and raise skeptical questions about what we think we know" (Darling-Hammon, Rosso, Austin, Orcutt, & Martin, p. 19)

The Subject Matter of the curriculum--> the diverse capabilities of students --> and teachers' responsibilities to design implement instruction. 


Definition of a Theory: 

• both an explanation and model of how things work
• How does learning happen?; What influences students' development?; What motivates students to learn? 
• an idea that explains a set of relationships that can be tested; if it can be tested through rigorous research, then theory has empirical grounding
• Theory is developed from research as well as practical experience and systematic observation. 
• A theory is modified over time on the basis of practitioners' insights as well as the work of researchers. 
• Theories are interconnected. 

Applying Theory to Practice: 

• can be applied across contexts; not just limited to one situation
•