Learning theory and Cognitivism

In reading the blogs discussion of Bill Kerr, Stephen Downes, and Karl Kapp it was apparent the these individual had different views on role of behaviorism and, cognitivism. As they when back and forth, I started thinking about the learning theory I supported, I realized in a sense, I support both behaviorism and cognitivism.

I am quite sure throughout by career, I have use both learning theories in developing instructional materials, strategies and techniques in teaching my students. The behaviorist position that learning is observable and the environment shapes behavior, and the principles of contiguity and reinforcement are essential in explaining the learning process. I have used reinforcement when teaching, by rewarding my students when they do well whether it was through high grades or stickers on test results that were over 75%.

I understood Kerr's statement about how he feel about the isms. From my experience, I too feel there are to many isms associated with students' learning. However, what are we to think about how our students learn. Should we accept the behaviorist position that students learning comes from stimuli in environment and that learning is reinforce by positive reward/reinforcement and take a cognitivist's position that states students learning is similar to how a computer work. The cognitivist believe from reading the Kerr, Drownes, and Kapp blogs that learning occurs internally.

In my field we are responsible for teaching our students soft skills as well as hard skills. No matter what subject I am teaching I focus on helping my students develop affective skills through the use of rewarding the appropriate behavior, and effective skill though using a cognitive approach. I adhere to the principle that students learn through input, processing, and output. I believe the input comes for visual or audio perspective and the processing is when the students either use prior knowledge, experience, reconstruction or organization of the data in such a way that they come up with the desire output. The is preagated definitely on my instructional design for the particular lesson. Since I have been teaching computer concepts for so many years I disagree with Kerr's statement that "the mind is not like a computer, at least, not like most any computer we've build, and depicting the mind as analagous to (and governed by the rules governing) symbol system processors is to misrepresent it in a fundamental way" (Kerr 2007).

I have seem over the years how students process information and have notice they take in input from either the broad, the textbooks, and lectures and reorganize the informaiton in order to render a response in the form of output.

I also agree with with Kerr's when he said that “learning” is not one thing…it is a multi-layered word that tends to get treated as if it were just one thing…and it’s not. It is multi-facetted and that is why developing new models for “learning” is so difficult…there are too many levels for one school of thought or one model to do it all (Kerr 2007).

Link to a video on behaviorism and cognitivism.
YouTube - behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism part1

Link to Kerr's, Drownes, and Kapp blogs
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html

http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/2007/01/out-and-about-discussion-on-educational.html

Webcast on K-12 Mathematics

Checkout this webcast about K-12 Mathematics: What should students learn and when should they ... File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick ViewWhat should students learn and when should they learn it? A National Conference .... The archive of the conference webcast will be available at: ...www.mathcurriculumcenter.org/conferences/standards/agenda.pdf

Belief on How People Learn and Learning Theory and Educational Technology

What are your beliefs about how people learn best?
I believe that people learn more from their environment. Children are like aliens to me they learn from many stimuli that are in the immediate environment. Children and adult learners learn from touching, feeling, experimentation, exploring and questioning? There are many learning theories; however, Driscoll (2005) definition of learning is “a persisting changes in performance potential that result from experience and interaction with the world” (p.1). A theory of learning to me, include asking questions and exampling the answers. Or by exploring different ideas through the use of a hypothesis and step by step examination of the hypothesis and coming to a conclusion. In an article about learning, www.funderstanding.com listed are 12 different theories on how people we learn. Constructivism, Behaviorism, Piaget’s Developmental Theory, Neuroscience, Brain-Based Learning, Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, Right Brain/Left Brain Thinking, Left Brain vs. Right Brain Teaching Technique, Left Brain vs. Right Brain Function in Learning, Communities of Practice, Control Theory, Observational Learning, and Vygotsky and Social Cognition..
Each of these theories is relative to how people learn and why people learn. Behaviorism is a learning theory that only focuses on objectively observable behaviors and discounts any independent activities of the mind. Behavior theorists define learning as nothing more than the acquisition of new behavior based on environmental conditions. I agree with this definition to some degree, but also, I think that one most take into account constructivism as a philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in. Each of us generates our own “rules” and “mental models,” which we use to make sense of our experiences. Learning, therefore, is simply the process of adjusting our mental models to accommodate new experiences, (Funderstanding 1998-2008, section 1-2).
Learning takes place through many mediums and set of instructions, therefore, all of the theories listed above have some relativity when we speak of how people learn.
What is the purpose of learning theory in educational technology?
Educational technology purpose is to assist students in the learning process. Because we are dealing with a generation of technophiles who spend the majority of the time interfacing with computer technology, I feel the old way of instructing our students is obsolete. Teachers are learning that the digital age is upon us, and unless we integrate technology in all our curricula we will lose of learners. While observing my grandchildren, who are school age, I have noticed that they utilize the internet and computers at least three to four hours a day. One of my granddaughters likes to write as well as writing in a hardcopy journal, she uses Microsoft Word to journal. She is constantly on the computer interfacing with social networking site. Her parent encourages her to use homework sites for homework tutoring such as: Math help, homework help, and online tutoring websites. www.homeschoolmath.net/online/math_help_tutoring.php

In Siemens paper, he says a growing disconnects in the tools and methods of classroom activity and those of youth culture and larger society is evident. Lenhart, Madden, Rankin, Macgill, and Smith (2007) report that 93% of teenagers are online and that their Internet use is growing (p. 2). The National School Boards Association (2007) reports that 96% of students have used social technology, with 71% reporting weekly use of social networking tools. Even in formal learning, students use communication technologies extensively to support their learning activities (Conole et al., 2006, p. 48). EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research’s research indicates undergraduate learners spend an average of 18 hours per week in online activities (Salaway & Borreson Caruso, 2007, p. 40). The growing prominence of networked technologies for formal and informal learning suggests substantial pressures for education institutions to adapt their models to better suit the interests and digital literacy skills of a growing percentage of the learning population (Siemens 2008, p. 7).

References:
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Funderstanding, (1998-2008). About Learning. The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
Siemens, G. (2008, January 27). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. Retrieved from http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf

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