new learning theory

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A discussion of the trends in learning theory and the practical implications for instructional design.

Tell me and I'll forget;show me and I may remember;involve me and I'll understand.

- Chinese Proverb

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Overview

Theory

Constructivism

Behvaviorism

Cognitivism

Introductory Remarks

Applications

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The goal of this presentation is to stir your imagination...

- to get you to challenge your assumptions about how to develop training.

- to get you to reflect on the nature of learning

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“The field of instructional design has enjoyed considerable success over the last two decades...

Based largely on behavioristic premises ID is adjusting to cognitive ways of viewing the learning process.”

but it is now facing some of the pains expected along with its growth.

Quoted from “Cognitive approaches to Instructional Design”, Wilson, Jonassen and Cole

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“In attempting to simplify learning in order to improve instructional efficiency and effectiveness, Instructional Systems Technology may be short circuiting relevant mental processing.

Quoted from “Objectivism vs.. Constructivism: Do We Need a New Philosophical Paradigm?” , D. Jonassen ETR&D Vol. 39, No. 3. PP 5-14 ISNN 1042-1629

Designers attempts to simplify learning risk supplanting the complexity that is inherent in the learning process or the task to be learned.”

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The digital environment poses several problems for Instructional designers:

- New digital technologies must be understood in order to develop course content.

- Our increasing use of e-learning requires familiarity with new software tools.

- e-learning, with its lack of personal contact, places an additional burden on the curriculum.

- Students are now knowledge workers whose tasks are difficult to define.

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“Hostility toward theory usually means an opposition to other people’s theories and an oblivion to one’s own.”

Terry Eagleton

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- explain

We use theories to help us:

- understand

A theory is nothing more than a plausible explanation.

- predict

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Everyone carries around with them their own personal theories

We use theories to guide our perceptions and actions.

Theories are what we use to understand an otherwise impossibly confusing world.

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What is theory ?

Theory provides a general explanation for observations made over time.

Theory explains and predicts behavior.

Theory can never be established beyond all doubt.

Theory may be modified.

Theories are seldom thrown out completely but in some cases have been widely accepted for a long time and then disproved.

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“Theory places things in a causal context that is wider than the causal context provided by common sense.”

Paul Feyerabend

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“Theories are built on piles driven down into the swamp; not down to any given base. Although they are really firm enough to carry the structure.”

Karl Popper

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Instructional design and development must be based on some theory of learning or cognition.

Truly effective design is enabled only when the developer has developed reflexive awareness of the theoretical basis underlying the design.

Why all this talk about theory?

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Florida State UniversityMasters in distance LearningEDP 5216 Theories of Learning and Cognition in Instruction

Syracuse UniversityMaster in Instructional DesignIDE 614 Instructional Design Theory and practice

University of South AlabamaMS Instructional Design & DevelopmentEPY 502 Psychological Principles of Learning

Boise StateMS Instructional and performance TechnologyIPT 535 Learning Theory for Instructional Designers

Utah State UniversityMS Instructional DevelopmentInst. 6260: Instructional Design Theory

Rhodes UniversityMA in Distributed LearningDL 501 Learning Theory and its Application in the Design &Development of Distributed Learning

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There is said to be a qualitative change in society in these times. It is variously labeled post industrialism, the information age or postmodernism.

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Newtonian Physics Quantum PhysicsContinuum

Newtonian Physics Quantum PhysicsRupture

The Structure of Scientific RevolutionsThomas Kuhn 1962

What followed was chaos theory, fractal theory and other indeterminancy theories that are redefining the natural sciences

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Modernism / Postmodernism

“Contemporary societies with their new technologies, novel forms of culture and striking economic, social and political transformations….

constitute a decisive rupture with previous forms of life, bringing to an end the modern era.”

The Postmodern Turn, Best & Kellner 1997

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The Postmodern Condition: A Report on KnowledgeJean Francois Lyotard 1979

Unquestioning belief in Reason & RationalityEmpiricism and ObjectivismApodictic Truth

Postmodernism challenges the concept of Metanarratives:

IdealismFaith in Progress

In postmodernity, society confronts its own rationalist and technicist myths (truth, reason, freedom, totality and representation just as earlier society confronted the naturalist and religious myths of feudalism.

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Modernism Postmoderism

Quantitative emphasis

So what’s the relevance of Postmodernism for instructional design?

Objectivism Subjectivism

Qualitative emphasis

Instructivism Constructivism

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I say Instructivism I say Constructivism

However, all are not in agreement.

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What is the dominant learning theory under which most insructional design is developed

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Behaviorism is the school of psychology that seeks to explain human behavior entirely in terms of observable and measurable responses to environmental stimuli.

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Learning is a gradual strengthening of the learned relationship between cue and behavior

The relationship is strengthened by reinforcement.

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Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods,

nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness.”

J. B. Watson Speech, 1913

Some History

“Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science.

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Stimulus Response

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Criterion Referenced Instruction is based on Behaviorist theory.

• A stimulus is provided, usually in the form of a short presentation or a reading assignment.

• A response is required, often in the form of the answer to a question.

• Feedback is given as to the accuracy of the response.

• Inaccurate responses result in either a repetition of the original stimulus or a somewhat modified and often simpler version of it.

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New learning theory is the shift in focus from stimulus response associations to mental representations.

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What are these new learning theories?

Cognitivism

Constructivism

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“Learning, according to cognitive psychology, is concerned not so much with behavioral responses but rather with what learners need to know and...

how they acquire it.”

David Jonassen

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Cognitive theories of learning focus on the mind and attempt to model how information is received by accommodation or assimilation, and then restored and recalled

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Stimulus ResponseAssimilation

orAccommodation

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The mind has the ability to:

formulatesynthesizeanalyze

received information and stimuli,

and extract from -

in order to produce outputs that cannot be directly attributed to the inputs given.

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What does assimilation and accommodation have to do with developing curriculum?

More about Assimilation & Accommodation

Curriculum Content should vary depending on whether information will be assimilated or accommodated

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A Cognitive Model

Input ResponseSensoryMemory

Short TermMemory

Long TermMemory

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Constructivism builds on cognitive theory and holds that knowledge is not passively received, but is actively built up (Constructed) by the thinking subject.

Constructivism advocates Active Learning

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Learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current and past knowledge.

The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on cognitive structures to do so.

Cognitive structures which can be thought of as schemas or mental models provide meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to go beyond the information given.

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Ideas and thoughts cannot be communicated in the sense that meaning is packaged into words and images and communicated to students who unpack the meaning.

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Information

Information

Information

Information

Enough already!

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According to constructivist learning theory:

Knowledge encoded from data by learners themselves will be more flexible, transferable, and useful….

than knowledge encoded for them by experts and transmitted to them by an instructor or other delivery agent.

If you don’t take anything else away from this presentation, please reflect on and try to internalize this and the next slide...

Learners learn best when they discover or are led to discover for themselves.

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Students must be enabled to construct their own meanings with the aid of curriculum.

Each student must be enabled to build her or his own conceptual constructs that will enable the ordering of knowledge for use in unique work situations.

Learners learn best what they discover or are led to discover for themselves.

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“The idea of learner control is essential to constructivism because constructivist learning relies on the learner doing the work of learning”

(Dershem 1996)

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Learning is a social, collaborative activity

Learners can only interpret information in the context of their own experiences.

Learning occurs most effectively in context.

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We try to design curriculum that will result in students acquiring the discreet knowledge they need.

and construct meaning relative to their own needs backgrounds and interests.

However they will interpret the curriculum in the context of their own experiences and existing knowledge,

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Students build on their pre-existing knowledge

- to actively construct new knowledge collaboratively,

- following learning paths that suit their own interests and needs.

- in a rich contextual setting,

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Too often our curriculum teaches students to follow rules or procedures,

which they aren’t inclined to do.

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Resist the temptation to be solely driven by content that is easily developed and measured.

Be sensitive to subtle yet highly valued outcomes and effects.

It may or may not be possible to reduce what is to be learned down to facts or procedures

Many important learning outcomes can’t be easily measured.

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In day to day practice knowledge workers make innumerable judgements of quality for which they cannot state adequate criteria, and they display skills for which they cannot state rules or procedures.

D. A Schon The Reflective practitioner

In other words, the work of experts can’t be reduced to easily taught processes or tasks, and training based only on objective analysis cannot make experts.

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Knowledge workers need:

- conceptual understanding

- non-procedural problem solving skills.

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“The only remedy is to design rich learning experiences and interactions.

The best analysis almost always falls short of the mark.

Then learners can pick up, on their own, that which would be missed by letting content be driven strictly by analysis.”

Brent Wilson , The Postmodern Paradigm

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• but must be given the opportunity to accommodate certain information.

• will build cognitive structures or mental models as they learn.

• will interpret information in the context of their own experience.

• can make the sum of the curriculum equal to more than the parts

• But only If given the opportunity by the curriculum

Given the chance with the right curriculum, students:

• can assimilate much new information into their exiting structures.

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Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques

Use progressive disclosure through hints to encouragestudent to think before giving them the answers.

Provide reflection exercises as learning devices. Have students look back over their efforts tocomplete a task and analyze their own performance.

Use Metaphors or analogies to help studentsmake connections with their existing knowledge.

Use modeling – Show how a process unfolds and tell how and why it happens that way.

Provide coaching : anticipate questions, defineterms, define concepts.

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Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques

Use scaffolding – Support learners with parts of the task and gradually provide less support (fading).

Use guided discovery techniques.

Provide multiple representations of content anddifferent perspectives.

Provide multiple paths to learning elements to givestudents choices of ways to learn.

Use concept maps to show relationships.

Acknowledge complexities – don’t over-simplify by reducing work to tasks.

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Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques

Use case studies and stories.

Employ Socratic Dialogue by asking leading questions.

Provide role-playing exercises.

Have students articulate, i.e, think about and give reasons for their decisions and strategies.

Focus on how work actually gets done rather than on tasks.

Revisit the same material at different times from different conceptual perspectives.

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Cognitivist & Constructivist Techniques

Make students aware of the knowledge building process.

Give students the opportunity to explore for solutions, to try out different strategies and hypotheses.

Provide exploration opportunities.

Ask questions that create cognitive dissonance and that require thought rather than recall.

Provide exercises so that students generate their own meaning.

Make use of cognitive task analysis.

Use evaluation techniques other than just a criterion test.