Learning Theories-

Behaviorism-
Cognitivism-Social constructivism-Humanism
Learning Styles-Multiple Intelligences-
Emotional Intelligence-Blooms
Taxonomy
What are Learning Theories?
So what are educational learning theories
and how can we use them in our teaching
practice?
There are 3 main schema’s of
learning theories;
Behaviourism, Cognitivism and
Constructivism.
Way back in ancient Greece, the
philosopher, Plato, first pondered the
question "How does an individual learn
something new if the subject itself is new
to them" ?
In this complete summary, we will look at the work of the following learning
theorists.
1. Jean Piaget.
2. Lev Vygotsky.
3. Bloom's Domains of Learning.
4. Gagne's Conditions of Learning.
5. Jerome Bruner.
6. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
7. Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences.
8. Erikson's 8 Stages of Psychological Development.
 9. Kolb's Experiential Theory.
10. The Peter Principle.
11. Laird's Sensory Theory.
 12. Skinner's Behaviourist Theory.
13. Roger's Humanist Theory.
14. Canter's Theory of Assertive Discipline.
15. Dreikur's Classroom Management Theory.
Despite the fact there are so many
educational theorists, there are three
labels that they all fall under.
Behaviourism, Cognitivism and
Constructivism.
Learning Theories – Behaviourism
Cognitivism
Constructivism
Behaviourism –

Behaviourism is based on the idea that

knowledge is independent and on the exterior
of the learner.
In a behaviourist's mind, the learner is a
blank slate that should be provided with the
information to be learnt.
Through this interaction,new associations are
made and thus learning occurs.
Learning is achieved when the provided
stimulus changes behaviour.
A non-educational example of this is the
work done by Pavlov.
Through his famous "salivating dog"
experiment, Pavlov showed that a stimulus
(in this case ringing a bell every time he fed
the dog) caused the dog to eventually start
salivating when he heard a bell ring.
The dog associated the bell ring with
being provided with food so any time a
bell was rung the dog started salivating, it
had learnt that the noise was a precursor
to being fed.
Look at this example given by a teacher:

I use a similar approach to classroom

management.
I have taught my students that if I stand in a
specific place in the classroom with my arms
folded, they know that I'm getting frustrated with
the level of noise and they start to quieten down
or if I sit cross-legged on my desk, I'm about to
say something important, supportive and they
should listen because it affects them directly.
Behaviourism involves repeated actions,
verbal reinforcement and incentives to
take part.
It is great for establishing rules, especially
for behaviour management.
Behaviourism: a definition
Behaviourism is a theory of learning focusing on
observable behaviours and discounting any mental
activity.
Learning is defined simply as the acquisition of new
behaviour.
Behaviourists call this method of learning ‘conditioning’.
Two different types of conditioning are described and
demonstrated as viable explanations of the way in
which animals and humans alike can be ‘taught’ to do
certain things.
 Classical conditioning This involves the reinforcement of a natural
reflex or some other behaviour which occurs as a response to a
particular stimulus.
 A well-known example of this type of conditioning,the first of its
kind,is the work of Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist at the start
of the twentieth century, who conditioned dogs to salivate at the
sound of a bell.
 He noticed that dogs salivated when they ate, or even saw, food.
In his initial experiments he sounded a bell at the time when food
was presented to the dogs.
 The sound of the bell became, for the dogs, an indication that
food was about to be presented and eventually the dogs would
salivate at the sound of the bell irrespective of the presence of
food.
 The dogs had been conditioned to respond to the sound of the
bell by producing saliva.Their behaviour had been successfully
modified. We talk about conditioning and conditioned responses
in a general way.
Feelings of fear at the sound of the
dentist’s drill or at the sight of a syringe in
preparation for an injection are examples
of conditioned responses. Pavlov identified
four stages in the process of his classical
conditioning and what follows from the
initial connection between stimulus and
response: acquisition, extinction,
generalisation and discrimination.
Pavlov identified four stages in the
process of his classical conditioning and
what follows from the initial connection
between stimulus and response:
acquisition, extinction, generalisation and
discrimination.
Acquisition :
The acquisition phase is the initial learning
of the conditioned response – for
example, the dog salivating at the sound
of the bell.
Extinction :
Once learnt, a conditioned response will
not remain indefinitely.
Extinction is used to describe the
disappearance of the conditioned response
brought about by repeatedly presenting
the bell, for example, without then
presenting food.
Generalisation :
 After a conditioned response to one
stimulus has been learnt, it may also
respond to similar stimuli without further
training.
If a child is bitten by a dog, the child may
fear not only that particular dog, but all
dogs.
Discrimination
Discrimination is the opposite of
generalisation.An individual learns to produce
a conditioned response to one stimulus but
not to another similar stimulus.
For example, a child may show a fear
response to freely roaming dogs, but may
show no fear when a dog is on a lead, or
distrust Alsatians but not Jack Russell
terriers.
Cognitivism :
In contrast to behaviourism, cognitivism
focuses on the idea that students process
information they receive rather than just
responding to a stimulus, as with
behaviourism.
There is still a behaviour change evident,
but this is in response to thinking and
processing information.
Cognitive theories were developed in the
early 1900s in Germany from Gestalt
psychology by Wolfgang Kohler.
In English, Gestalt roughly translates to
the organisation of something as a whole,
that is viewed as more than the sum of its
individual parts.
In cognitivism theory, learning occurs
when the student reorganises information,
either by finding new explanations or
adapting old ones.
This is viewed as a change in knowledge
and is stored in the memory rather than
just being viewed as a change in
behaviour.
Cognitive learning theories are mainly
attributed to Jean Piaget.
Examples of how teachers can include
cognitivism in their classroom include
linking concepts together, linking concepts
to real world examples, discussions and
problem solving.
Cognitive, constructivist learning:
Constructivist theories :
The area of constructivism, in the field of learning,
comes under the broad heading of cognitive science.
Cognitive science is an expansive area.
It has its roots in the first half of the twentieth
century at a time when academics from the
disciplines of psychology, artificial intelligence,
philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience and
anthropology realized that they were all trying to
solve problems concerning the mind and the brain.
Cognitive science: a definition Cognitive
scientists study (among other things) how
people learn, remember and interact, often
with a strong emphasis on mental processes
and often with an emphasis on modern
technologies.
Cognitive science investigates ‘intelligence
and intelligent systems, with particular
reference to intelligent behaviour’ (Posner
1984).
Constructivism.
Constructivism is based on the premise that
we construct learning new ideas based on
our own prior knowledge and experiences.
Learning, therefore, is unique to the
individual learner.
Students adapt their models of
understanding either by reflecting on prior
theories or resolving misconceptions.
Students need to have a prior base of knowledge
for constructivist approaches to be effective. 
Bruner’s spiral curriculum (see below) is a great
example of constructivism in action.
As students are constructing their own knowledge
base, outcomes cannot always be anticipated,
therefore, the teacher should check and challenge
misconceptions that may have arisen.
When consistent outcomes are required, a
constructivist approach may not be the ideal
theory to use.
Bruner’s Spiral Curriculum (1960).
Cognitive learning theorist, Jerome Bruner
based the spiral curriculum on his idea
that “We begin with the hypothesis
that any subject can be taught in
some intellectually honest form to
any child at any stage of
development”.
In other words, he meant that even very
complex topics can be taught to young
children if structured and presented in the
right way.
The spiral curriculum is based on three
key ideas.
Students revisit the same topic multiple
times throughout their school career. This
reinforces the learning each time they
return to the subject.
The complexity of the topic increases each
time a student revisits it.
This allows progression through the
subject matter as the child’s cognitive
ability develops with age.
When a student returns to a topic, new
ideas are linked with ones they have
previously learned.
The student’s familiarity with the
keywords and ideas enables them to
grasp the more difficult elements of the
topic in a stronger way.
As students are constructing their own
knowledge base, outcomes cannot always
be anticipated, therefore, the teacher
should check and challenge
misconceptions that may have arisen.
When consistent outcomes are required, a
constructivist approach may not be the
ideal theory to use.
Examples of constructivism in the
classroom include problem-based
learning, research and creative projects
 and group collaborations.
1.Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development.
Piaget is an interesting character in
Psychology.
His theory of learning differs from many
others in some important ways:
First, he focuses exclusively on children;
Second, he talks
about development (not learning per se)
and Third, it’s a stage theory, not a linear
progression theory. OK, so what’s he on
about?
Well, there are some basic ideas to get your head
around and some stages to understand too.
The basic ideas are:
Schemas: The building blocks of knowledge.
Adaptation processes: These allow the
transition from one stage to another. He called
these: Equilibrium, Assimilation and
Accommodation.
Stages of Cognitive development:
Sensorimotor; Preoperational; Concrete
Operational; Formal Operational.
So here’s how it goes. Children develop 
Schemas of knowledge about the world.
These are clusters of connected ideas
about things in the real world that allow
the child to respond accordingly.
When the child has developed a
working Schema that can explain what they
perceive in the world, 
that Schema is in a state of Equilibrium.
When the child uses the schema to deal with
a new thing or situation, that Schema is
in Assimilation and Accommodation happe
ns when the existing Schema isn’t up to the
job of explaining what’s going on and needs
to be changed.
Once it’s changed, it returns
to Equilibrium and life goes on. Learning
is, therefore, a constant cycle of
Assimilation; Accommodation;
Equilibrium; Assimilation and so on…
Allthat goes through the 
4 Stages of Cognitive Development, which
are defined by age:
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive
Development.
The Sensorimotor Stage runs from birth to
2 years and the child spends their time
learning basic Schemas and Object
Permanence (the idea that something still
exists when you can’t see it).
The Preoperational Stage runs from 2
years to 7 years and the child develops more
Schemas and the ability to think
Symbolically (the idea that one thing can
stand for another; words for example, or
objects).
At this point, children still struggle with
Theory of Mind (Empathy) and can’t really
get their head around the viewpoints of
others.
The Concrete Operational Stage runs
from 7 years to 11 years and this is the
Stage when children start to work things
out in their head rather than physically in
the real world.
They also develop the ability
to Conserve (understand that something
stays the same quantity even if it looks
different).  
The Formal Operational Stage runs
from 11 years into adulthood and this is
where abstract thought develops, as does
logic and cool stuff like hypothesis testing.
According to Piaget, the whole process is
active and requires the rediscovery and
reconstructing of knowledge across the
entire process of Stages.
Understanding the Stage a child is in
informs what they should be presented
with based on what they can and cannot
do at the Stage they’re in.
Piaget’s work on cognitivism has given rise to some brilliant
work from people like John Sweller who developed the
fantastic Cognitive Load Theory and John Flavell’s work on 
metacognition
2. Vygotsky’s Theory of Learning.
Lev Vygotsky
Vygotsky takes a different approach to Piaget’s idea
that development precedes learning.
Instead, he reckons that social learning is an integral
part of cognitive development and it is culture, not
developmental Stage that underlies cognitive
development.
Because of that, he argues that learning varies across
cultures rather than being a universal process driven by
the kind of structures and processes put forward
by Piaget.
Zone of Proximal Development.
He makes a big deal of the idea of the 
Zone of Proximal Development in
which children and those they are learning
from co-construct knowledge. Therefore,
the social environment in which children
learn has a massive impact on how they
think and what they think about.
They also differ in how they view
language.
For Piaget, thought drives language but
for Vygotsky, language and thought
become intertwined at about 3 years and
become a sort of internal dialogue for
understanding the world.
And where do they get that from?
Their social environment of course, which
contains all the cognitive/linguistic skills
and tools to understand the world.
Vygotsky talks about Elementary Mental
Functions, by which he means the basic cognitive
processes of Attention, Sensation, Perception and
Memory.
By using those basic tools in interactions with their
sociocultural environment, children sort of improve
them using whatever their culture provides to do
so. In the case of Memory, for example, Western
cultures tend towards note-taking, mind-maps or
mnemonics whereas other cultures may use
different Memory tools like storytelling.
In this way, a cultural variation of
learning can be described quite
nicely.
What are crucial in this learning theory
are the ideas of Scaffolding, the Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD) and
the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO).
More Knowledgeable Other.
The MKO can be (but doesn’t have to be) a
person who literally knows more than the
child. Working collaboratively, the child and
the MKO operate in the ZPD, which is the bit of
learning that the child can’t do on their own.
As the child develops, the ZPD gets bigger
because they can do more on their own and
the process of enlarging the ZPD is called 
Scaffolding.
Vygotsky Scaffolding.
Knowing where that scaffold should be set is
massively important and it’s the MKO’s job to do
that so that the child can work independently
AND learn collaboratively.
For Vygotsky, language is at the heart of all this
because a) it’s the primary means by which the
MKO and the child communicate ideas and b)
internalising it is enormously powerful in
cementing understanding about the world.
That internalisation of speech
becomes Private Speech (the child’s
“inner voice”) and is distinct from Social
Speech, which occurs between people.
Over time, Social Speech becomes Private
Speech and Hey Presto! That’s Learning
because the child is now collaborating
with themselves!
The bottom line here is that the richer the
socio-cultural environment, the more tools
will be available to the child in the ZPD
and the more Social Speech they will
internalize as Private Speech.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out,
therefore, that the learning environment
and interactions are everything.
Bloom’s Domains of Learning.
In 1956, American educational
psychologist, Benjamin Bloom, first
proposed three domains of
learning; cognitive,
affective and psycho-motor.
Bloom worked in collaboration with David
Krathwohl and Anne Harrow throughout
the 1950s-70s on the three domains.
The Cognitive Domain (Bloom’s Taxonomy).
This was the first domain to be proposed in 1956
and it focuses on the idea that objectives that are
related to cognition could be divided into
subdivisions and ranked in order of cognitive
difficulty.
These ranked subdivisions are what we commonly
refer to as Bloom’s taxonomy. The original
subdivisions are as follows (knowledge is the
lowest with evaluation being the most cognitively
difficult):
Knowledge
Understanding
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
The highlights of this revision were
switching names of the subdivisions from
nouns to verbs, thus making them easier
to use when curriculum and 
lesson planning.
The other main change was the order of
the top two subdivisions was reversed.
The updated taxonomy is as follows:
The Affective Domain.
The affective domain (sometimes referred
to as the feeling domain) is concerned
with feelings and emotions and also
divides objectives into hierarchical
subcategories. 
The affective domain is not usually used
when planning for maths and sciences as
feelings and emotion are not relevant for
those subjects.
However, for educators of arts and
language, the inclusion of the affective
domain is imperative wherever possible.
Rogers’ Humanist Theory.
Developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers in
the 1980s, facilitative learning is a humanistic approach to
learning.
Humanism.
Humanism was developed to contrast cognitivism and
behaviourism. Both Rogers and Maslow based their work in
humanism. The key perspectives of humanism are as follows:
People have a natural desire to learn in order to achieve self-
actualisation.
Itis not the outcome that is the most
important part of education, it is the
process of learning itself.
The students themselves should be in
control of their learning and it should be
achieved through observing and exploring.
The teacher should be an encouraging role
model, motivating, guiding and supporting
students on their own personal journey.
Itis not the outcome that is the most
important part of education, it is the
process of learning itself.
The students themselves should be in
control of their learning and it should be
achieved through observing and exploring.
The teacher should be an encouraging role
model, motivating, guiding and supporting
students on their own personal journey.
Facilitative Learning.
Rogers’ views the teacher as a facilitator
to learning rather than just a conveyor of
knowledge. The success of the teacher is
in their ability to build positive
relationships with students.
Roger’s proposed three attitudinal core characteristics that a
teacher should possess for facilitative learning to be successful:
Realness. The teacher should be themselves and use their own
personality when teaching.
Being “real” with students breeds an ethos of trust between
students and a teacher.
The teacher should be able to convey their feelings rather than just
being a monotonal, monochromatic robot.
Prizing, Accepting and Trusting. 
A teacher should care about their students and accept their
feelings, regardless of whether they assist or detract from learning.
Through these characteristics, deeper trust and respect is built.
Empathy. Understanding the student’s perception of learning and
their feelings.
The effectiveness of facilitative learning
also requires certain traits to be present in
the student.
They should be motivated, aware of the
facilitative conditions they have been
provided with and aware that the task
they have been given is useful, realistic
and relevant.
Learning Theories FAQ
What are Learning Theories?
Since Plato, many theorists have emerged, all with their different take
on how students learn. Learning theories are a set of principles that
explain how best a student can acquire, retain and recall new
information.
What is Behaviourism?
Behaviourism involves repeated actions, verbal reinforcement and
incentives to take part. It is great for establishing rules, especially for 
behaviour management. Behaviourism is based on the idea that
knowledge is independent and on the exterior of the learner. In a
behaviourist’s mind, the learner is a blank slate that should be
provided with the information to be learnt. Through this interaction,
new associations are made and thus leaning occurs. Learning is
achieved when the provided stimulus changes behaviour.
What is Cognitivism?
In contrast to behaviourism, cognitivism focuses
on the idea that students process information
they receive rather than just responding to a
stimulus, as with behaviourism. There is still a
behaviour change evident, but this is in response
to thinking and processing information. In 
cognitive load theory, learning occurs when the
student reorganises information, either by
finding new explanations or adapting old ones.
What is Constructivism?
Constructivism is based on the premise that we
construct learning new ideas based on our own
prior knowledge and experiences. Learning,
therefore, is unique to the individual learner.
Students adapt their models of understanding
either by reflecting on prior theories or resolving
misconceptions. Students need to have a prior
base of knowledge for constructivist approaches
to be effective. Bruner’s spiral curriculum is a
great example of constructivism in action.
DEFINITIONS OF LEARNING
LEARNING STYLES
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES:
Linguistic
Logical
Musical/Spatial
Kineasthetic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalistic
Existential
The four styles are:
Activists
Reflectors
Theorists
Pragmatists