Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Information Literacy
Let me first start off by saying that the main idea behind the lecture of the 21st July 2015 was that of Learning Theories. Learning Theories basically or loosely means that manner or approach a teacher goes about teaching his learners. Various theories over the years have been studied and made available and to this day there is no single best method or learning theory. The various learning theories are; Behaviourism (this basically suggests that people are clean slates and they learn by means of reinforcements. eg. if you put your hand in a fire it will burn. This is implied by the concept of Stimulus-response - a response being provoked by an element in the environment. Here the learner is viewed as a passive learner, and his behavirou is influenced by reward or punishment. A perfect general example is the prison system. If you break the law you will be taken out of society and put in isolation, away from your family and the 'normal' society. Cognitivism deals with the notion of learning as a process of constructing, analyzing and applying information, here learners are active participants in the learning experience. Here learning involves relating information to new information. Mnemonic devices, and visual aids are used to bring the lessons home to the learners. In this concept we learned about Bloom's Hierarchy of Learning Outcomes and the most comprehensive analysis of learning objective in cognitive domain is his (Benjamin Bloom) work published in the 1950's presented in the following pattern but not exclusively in this pattern as certain stages in many situations come before other. Remembering - Understanding - Applying - Analysing - Evaluating - Creating. Social Learning focuses on how people learn from one another in a social context, people learn by means of observation and modeling others actions. Self-efficacy is important here. Constructivism is viewed as interpersonal rather than objective. Pragmatism refers to learning as a fusion of the various theories because all learners are not the same and therefore different learning theories are applied to different learners
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Daniel due to circumstances I couldn’t attend class and this learning theories is very important but have you ever came across something they called “dopamine”. It’s very interesting how the brain work and I want you to check out this website and read about “dopamine” and please come back and give me your opinion. http://www.scilearn.com/blog/dopamine-learning-brains-reward-center-teach-educators
ReplyDeleteDaniel I have read your blog and just want to add that there were educational theorists that have criticized Bloom’s Taxonomy on a few grounds.
ReplyDelete1. Learning is not sequential – Bloom’s Hierarchy seems too artificially constructed. It is a very linear, straightforward view of how humans comprehend information. Although each concept or classification has its place, researchers are beginning to see the mind as more of a web. A person might skip from knowledge to application then analyze the application, come to a conclusion (evaluation) and then re-analyze the conclusion all working toward a greater synthesis of information. Constructivist teaching has suggested that teachers need to spread higher-order thinking skills throughout a task rather than begin with the imparting of knowledge.
2. It is incomplete – Bloom concentrated his efforts on learning, yet there is little about motivation or about classroom management.
3. It is too precise – Classifying and separating learning into three spheres and nice hierarchies is a very modern, scientific view of learning. Yet, a postmodern critique would attempt to deconstruct this idea. For one, they would suggest that brain science is still in its earliest formation and that we do not entirely understand the mystery of the mind. In addition, postmodernists would suggest that many of the terms are simply artificial constructs used as ideology to conceal the messy side of learning.
4. It is individualistic – Unlike the Social Learning Theory, Bloom’s Taxonomy focuses heavily on how an individual learns. It misses what occurs when there are social forces. For example, an individual’s ability to reach “evaluation” can easily be clouded by “group think.” However, there were also many people that responded that critics make valid points. They need to keep a few things in mind. First, Bloom saw his work as scientific and therefore contributed to the larger, democratic pool of scientific research. If his theories were incomplete, this is because he saw them as always changing and he validated many outside theories. In addition, his taxonomy focuses on learning and assessment more than on how to teach. When critics take the time to read his work, they realize it was much broader than first assumed. In terms of being too precise and too individualistic, that is understandable.