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What Are Learning Theories?

Decent Essays

What are learning theories?
Learning theories are conceptual frameworks describing how knowledge is absorbed, processed, and retained during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a world view, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained. Although there are many different approaches to learning, there are four basic types of learning theory: behaviorism, cognitive constructivist, social and cultural constructivist, and constructivism.
Theories
There are four dominant theories used in educational psychology. They are: behaviorism, social and cultural, cognitive, and constructivism. These theories are displayed in multiple ways in the classroom and help teachers to teach their students.
Behaviorism is a learning theory entered around objective observable behavior. It discounts any independent activities of the …show more content…

I believe that constructivism learning best supports teaching and learning for my discipline. This is because this learning theory is centered around students being able to learn in an environment where they can apply or be exposed to real life skills in the cognitive sense. Constructivist teachers encourage their students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain a better understanding of what they are doing. I believe that having students question themselves and their strategies they would become expert learners. When this is done they will then have gained tools to help broaden their learning.
I would have students reflect on their experiences. When they do this, they would find that their ideas gained or increased in complexity and power, and they would develop increasingly strong abilities to integrate new information. With using this theory in the classroom, I would be tapping into and triggering student’s innate curiosity about the world and how things

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