Noah Burdett
85275048
Personal Learning Theory
Human learning is a process of metacognatively building on, and making connections to,
existing knowledge through meaningful interaction with one’s physical, social and cultural
environments. My personal learning theory is therefore, informed from social cognitive and
constructivist approaches.
Lev S. Vygotsky argued that “humans are embedded in a socio-cultural matrix and
human behaviour (learning) cannot be understood independently of this ever present matrix,”
(Miller, 2002, p.368). I agree that culture is central to learning as culture dictates the knowledge
and skills members need to function within their given culture. Culture dictates what types of
knowledge is valued and thus desired to be learned/taught.
Within a culture there exist a series of environments. Physical environments are key to
learning as they provide contexts for interactions including: learner-knowledge, learner-social,
learner-self, and learner-artifacts. It is within the context of a safe physical environment that
prior knowledge can be assessed. More capable members of the social group can then construct
knowledge through scaffolding a learner through zones of proximal development.
Within the physical environment exists a social environment. The social environment
allows a learner to participate in communities and observe others and acquire knowledge, rules,
strategies, skills, beliefs and attitudes (Schunk, 2004, p.83). Not all learning events will have the
same magnitude of importance to a learner. The cognitive reaction and pathways of
interconnected development will vary depending on the relevance to the learner. Learning is
therefore a social culturally imbedded process, but it is also an individual process driven by
motivation, metacognition, and the subsumption (Novak, 1998) of relevant information to the
learner.
Culture informs what is learned in the physical and social environments. The creation of
knowledge is through a process of meaningful interactions within communities that allow the
learner to be scaffolded and use metagocnative processes to build upon prior-knowledge.
Miller, P. H. (2002). Theories of Developmental Psychology, 4th Ed. (pp. 367-396; Vygotsky’s
Socio-Cultural Approach). New York: Worth.
Novak, J. D. (1998). Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative
Tools in Schools and Corporations (pp. 49-78; ch 5 – Ausubel’s Assimilation Learning Theory).
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Schunk, D. H. (2004). Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective, (pp. 83-136; ch-3- Social
Cognitive Theory). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.