Perspectives On The Psychological Process Of Learning

This unit aims to enable learners to understand the learning process and to give them the skills they need to

Constructivist Learning Theory exists under the focus of cognitive learning and has substructures of the concepts of self- efficacy, self- regulation, and metacognition as it defines how adults learn (Billings & Halstead, 2012, p. 211). Billings & Halstead (2012) explains that learning is considered a transformation in a person from personal experience. It is a continued process that encompasses understanding, clarifying, and applying meanings of knowledge that is developed. The learning theory, constructivism embraces that learning is a development. A learner constructs new knowledge by building on existing information through a process

There are several factors that have and still do influence on my own individual learning process. However some have impacted greater than others and they are as followed:

There are many different kinds of ways that people and animals learn. People can adjust the way they learn to the different situations in which they are learning and what they have to learn. One form of learning is known as conditioning. Conditioning emphasises the relationship between stimuli and responses. The two types of conditioning found are Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning. Learning may occur in different ways. Psychologists have distinguished between different types of learning, these being Observational Learning and Insight Learning.

A Developmental Perspective. Effective teaching must be planned and conducted “from the learner’s point of view”.The constructivist orientation to learning is the foundation for this perspective on teaching. From the developmental perspective, the primary goal of education or training is to develop increasingly complex and sophisticated ways of reasoning and problem solving within a content area or field of practice. (Pratt, D. D. 2002)

Cognitive and behavioral learning theories tend to dominate modern discussions of learning theories. Employed in both educational and clinical settings, both have important contributions to understanding how and why individuals learn. Is one approach statistically better than the other, or do they each have their own place where one approach may be more effective under specific circumstances? Each theory has supporters who claim the efficacy of their theory is superior. Comparison of the theories is necessary to determine if one is significantly better than the other, or even if one theory may be slightly more effective than the other. Determining if one competing theory

Learning is the relatively permanent change in behavior (Burns, 1995), and can come in the form of observable activities and internal processes. Explanations of what happens when these actions occur are known as learning theories. These theories include behaviorist, cognitivist, humanist, social learning and constructivist. In this essay behaviorist and cognitivists will be described, compared and contrasted in order to truly understand their approache.

Psychology is a broad subject filled with many different theories, several theories of which that were particularly interesting fall under the topic “The Learning Perspective”. In fact, Learning is described as the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught. This paper takes a leap further into the psychology and true meaning behind the Learning Perspective, as well as its Biological Importance in our everyday lives. The ideology behind his perspective basically revolves around the idea that behavior is trained, conditioned, reinforced and essentially reflexive. Two of the main theories are listed as follows; The Behaviorism theory and The Cognitive theory. Each theory draws a clear distinction about its differences and similarities with its connection to stimuli. For example, in both sub theories, such as Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning, an action is done and a specific response is given. What sets both theories apart are the positivity or negativity of the reward for the action. From this paper, the importance of Learning is discussed as well as the effectiveness of the different theories and its principles that define and set each other apart.

Emotions are a big part in everyone’s life. Happiness, loneliness, anger, excitement are emotions that are expressed everyday no matter where we are or what we are doing. “Do emotions help or obstruct the learning process?” This is an example of questions asked about emotions and the learning process and how it impacts the student. (Dirkx, 2001). I will be discussing the relationship between emotions and the learning process in adult learning.

When people enter the educational world, their primary goals should be student achievement and creating an environment that their students are successful in. Some of the important factors in the creation of the most effective environment are the method of teaching, their personal educational philosophy and the learning theory that brings these factors together. There are several learning theories and theorists that we as educators learn about as we go through our studies and they vary from Constructivists to Multiple Intelligences to Multisensory. As we progress in the world of education, these learning theories are

An individual will "know" things and will be able to perform different types of behaviours. Where these behaviours come from however, depends on many things. Some things are innate – therefore, one can be born with the knowledge. Learning is a process that plays a part in determining behaviour. Learning can thereby be defined as a comparatively permanent difference in behaviour and knowledge that comes from experience or training. However, other forms of learning must be acquired actively. Thus, any knowledge or behaviour that one may have without being born with, was somehow "learned". Various methods of learning have been examined through different methods such as from experimenting on the salivation level of dogs, to examining how one ties their shoelace. Conditioning on the other hand, although relatively similar to learning, is not the same as learning. It can be defined as a behavioural process whereby a response will become more frequent and more predictable in any given environment at any period of time as a result of reinforcement, while the reinforcement is usually a stimulus that is a compensation for an aspired response. A form of mental and physical behaviour that relates to learning is addiction. Addiction can be defined as an irresistible craving on a behaviour or substance whereby one will either be able unable to stop the addiction, or continue to crave it. Addictions usually increase in severity over time unless precautions or steps have been taken to

Constructivism is a coherent theory of learning that emerged as a prevailing paradigm in the last part of the twentieth century. Constructivism is a theory which brings cogitation to pedagogy (Bruner, 1966). Constructivism capitalizes on the ways in which human beings create their own personal construct of reality by understanding and experiencing the world. The main underlying assumption of constructivism is that individuals are actively involved right from the birth in constructing personal meaning.

This essay will compare and contrast three key theories of learning; Behaviourism, Cognitive Learning Theory and Constructivism.

Constructivism in the classroom usually means students are engaged in activities like experiments, or real-world problem solving to increase knowledge, followed by a reflection of how their understanding of the concept has changed (Brooks, Ed.D, n.d.). Cognitivism methods of instruction are commonly integrated with the levels found in Bloom’s Taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Bloom, 1956). The instructor must understand the prerequisite knowledge possessed by the student, and the student is encouraged to use appropriate strategies to help make the learning meaningful.

The very first thing one must know about the constructivist theory of learning is the premise that learners arrive at learning situations with prior knowledge and proceed to take and active part in building new knowledge upon that prior knowledge as they experience new things and reflect on those collected experiences (Learning Theories Knowledgebase, 2012). This theory directly contradicts the behaviorist learning theory in which learners are believed to arrive at learning situations with “clean slates” of understanding. From a behaviorist’s perspective, people learn because as they respond to negative and positive stimuli in their environment (Learning Theories Knowledgebase, 2012). While that may change observable behavior