Learning theories

Principles

Knowledge is constructed.

People learn to learn.

Learning is an active process.

Learning is contextual and is a social activity.

Motivation is key.

Strengths

Promotes student agency

Develops advanced skills

Promotes diverse viewpoints

Higher retention of learned material

Schema accommodation

Limitation

Lack of structure

Grading is often removed

Time consuming

Expensive

Principles

Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.

Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.

Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes.

Strengths

Fosters collaborative skills.

Shifts the learning responsibilities from the teacher to the student.

Supports individual perspectives and the diversity of opinions.

Limitation

Teachers may have difficulty transitioning to leadership role to a partnership role.

Students feel anxiety from being singled out according to their ability levels.

Keys

Presents human growth- as conflicts, inner and outer, which the vital personality emerge.

Actives forces in a person shapes the specific content of his life.

Strengths

Emphasizes the influence that social relationships have on development.

Provides a broad framework from which to view development throughout the entire lifespan.

Limitation

Explains more psychosocial development than explaining how and why it occurs.

Fails to detail exactly what type of experiences are necessary at each stage

Key feactures

Stimulus-Response

Observable behavior

Response behaviors

Positive feedback

Environment

Strengths

Provides clear predictions

Real life applications

Emphasizes objective measurement

Limitation

Ignores mediational processes

Ignores biology

Too deterministic

Learner as information-processor

Absorbs information

Undertakes cognitive operations on it.

Stocks information in memory.

Key features

Study how is information processing.

Learners are active.

Development occurs in unique and distinct stage

Limitations

Cognitive processes cannot be observed

Ignores other factors towards
behaviour.

Assumes that all people's cognitive processes are the same.

Little attention to the impact of social factors.

Strengths

Explain how learning and skills changes over the course of a lifetime.

Emphasize the need for learners to interact with their environment.

Understand how problem solving changes throughout childhood