An overview which raises more questions than provides answers

• Politics
• & Power
Science
Epistemology
• Schooling
• teaching

(Illeris 2009)
Biology
Philosophy
Psychology
Social sciences
Internal conditions
Learning
External conditions
Application

(overlapping)
• Behaviorists_____________________________
• Pavlov (1849 - 1936)
– Watson ( 1878 – 1958)
• Thorndike
(
1874 – 1949)
• Skinner ( 1904 – 1990)
• Bandura ( 1925 -)
• Constructivists
_____________________________________________________
• Piaget ( 1896-1980),
Socio-cultural________________________________
• Dewey (1859 – 1952)
• Vygotsky (1896-1934)
(
Bruner ( 1915 -)
Cognitive Load Theory Sweller 1988) !!
CulturalHistoricalActivityTheory_______
Vygotsky (1978 English reintroduction)
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (1978 Berkley)
Michael Cole (? Ph.d: 1962)
Jean Lave (? Ph.d :1968 -)
Yrje Engeström

• Outside control Individual initiative
•
• Behaviorism
Direct instruction constructivism
Problem based learning
• Testing Projects
• Performance/outcome Diversity/Culture
• based education CHAT

• Behaviorism is a theory of learning focusing on observable behavior and discounting
mental activity. Learning is defined simply as the acquisition of new behavior.
• Behaviorists call this method of learning
”conditioning”

• The ideas of behaviorism have their roots in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
• It was promoted by psychologists who wanted to break free of philosophy and establish
psychology as a real science which involved detailed objective observation and scientific measurement
• Any consideration of mental proces which is by definition unobservable fell outside their interest.

• Early behaviorists used animals for experiments with
stimulus- response.
• The stimulus-response can also be seen in humans. In situations where immediate response is required, practice situations are repeated endlessly until the soldier, firefighter or airline pilot wil make correct resonses in a given situation.
• Responsive practice can be explained in terms of reinforcement of particular neural pathways in the brain.
• Main objection to behaviorism in general education concerns Who has the right to condition whom for what purpose !

• Pavlov was a Russian physiologist.
• The original and most famous example of classical conditioning involved the salivary conditioning of Pavlov's dogs.
• During his research on the physiology of digestion in dogs, Pavlov noticed that dogs salivated when they ate, even saw food. In his initial experiment he sounded a bell at the time when food was presented to the dogs. The sound of the bell became for the dogs an indication that food was about to be presented and eventually the dogs would salivate at the sound of the bell irrespective of the presence of food. The dogs had been conditioned to respond to the sound of the bell producing saliva. Their behavior had been successfully modified.
• The concept for which Pavlov is famous is the conditioned reflex The phrase
"Pavlov's dog" is often used to describe someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than using critical thinking.

• The second type of conditioning is operant
conditioning, the most important type of behaviorist learning. It is more flexible in its nature and potentially more powerful.
• It involves reinforcing a behavior by rewarding it.
• Skinner is the most famous psychologist in the field of operant conditioning.
• Skinner maintained that rewards and
punishments control the majority of human behaviors, and that the principles of operant conditioning can explain all human learning.

• Skinner's political writings emphasized his hopes that an effective and humane science of behavioral control – a technology of human behavior – could help problems unsolved
• One of Skinner's stated goals was to prevent humanity from destroying itself. Skinner supported the use of positive reinforcement a means of coercion, citing Jean-Jacques
Rousseau's novel Emile: or On Education as an example of freedom literature that "did not fear the power of positive reinforcement". Skinner's book, Walden Two, presents a vision of a decentralized, localized society, which applies a practical, scientific approach and futuristically advanced behavioral expertise to peacefully deal with social problems( Brave New World)

• Bandura is a psychologist. He was professor at Stanford University.
• Bandura was influential in the transition between behaviorism and social learning theory.
• Social Learning Theory
• The initial phase of Bandura's research analyzed the foundations of human learning and the propensity of children and adults to
model their own behavior on that observed in others.
• During a period dominated by behaviorism, Bandura believed the sole behavioral modifiers of reward and punishment in classical operant conditioning were inadequate as a framework, and that many human behaviors were learnt from other humans.(cf Lave)
In 1986, Bandura published Social Foundations of Thought and
Action: A Social-Cognitive Theory.

• American psychologist worked at Teachers College at Columbia University, studying human learning, education, and mental testing.
• Thorndike put his testing expertise to work for the United States Army during World War 1.
• Among Thorndike's most notable contributions involved his research on how cats learned to escape from puzzle boxes and his related formulation of the law of effect. The law of effect states that responses that are closely followed by satisfying consequences become associated with the situation, and are more likely to recur when the situation is subsequently encountered. If the responses are followed by aversive consequences, associations to the situation become weaker. Thorndike interpreted the findings in terms of associations.
• A similar, though radically reworked idea was taken up by B.F. Skinner in his formulation of operant conditioning
The associative analysis went on to figure largely in behavioral work through mid-century, and is now evident in some modern work in behavior.
• Thorndike specified three conditions that maximizes learning:
• The law of effect stated that the likely recurrence of a response is generally governed by its consequence or effect generally in the form of reward or punishment.
• The law of recency stated that the most recent response is likely to govern the recurrence.
• The law of exercise stated that stimulus-response associations are strengthened through repetition.

• Constructivism is not a brand new idea !
• The foundation for the current interest in constructivism can be traced to the work of (among others)
• Dewey, J.( 1929): My pedagogical Creed . Washington, DC:
Progressive Education Association.
• Piaget, J.(1952): The origins of Intelligence in Children.New
York: International Universities Press
• Bruner, J.(1966): Toward a Theory of instruction.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Vygotsky, L.S.(1978): Mind in society: The development of
higher mental processes. Cambridge. MA: Harvard
University Press.

• Constructivism is a theory of knowledge (epistemology that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas.
During infancy, it is an interaction between their experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns. Piaget called these systems of knowledge schemata.
• Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy, although
• Piaget's theory of constructivist and experiental learning has had wide ranging impact on learning theories and teaching methods in education and is an underlying theme of many education reform movements e.g learner-centred approach ( often promoted by the World Bank)

• Content
acquisition
Incentive
Individual
Environment

The three dimensions of learning all learning will involve these three dimensions
Content:
• MMe
Skills
Meaning and ability andand
Incentive:
Motivation
Emotion
Volition
Balance and sensitivity
Interaction:
Action
Communication
Cooperation
INTEGRATION

• During a chemistry lesson a teacher is explaining a chemical process. The students are supposed to listen and learn;
• but maybe:
• The interaction does not function because the teacher´s explanation is not good enough.
• The student´s incentive is inadequate due to lack of mental and bodily balance( e.g. inadequate nutrition, emotional disturbance)
• The student´s prior knowledge is inadequate

• Piaget was born in 1896 in Switzerland.
• Piaget developed an interest in biology and the natural world. He was educated at the University of
Neuchâtel, and studied briefly at the University of Zürich. There he published two philosophical papers.
• His interest in pscychoanalysis at the time a burgeoning strain of psychology, can also be dated to this period.
• Piaget moved from Switzerland to Paris, France after his graduation and he taught at the Grange-
Aux-Belles Street School for Boys. The school was run by Alfred Binet (intelligence test) and Piaget assisted in the marking of Binet's intelligence tests and he noticed that young children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions.
• Piaget did not focus so much on the fact of the children's answers being wrong, but that young
children consistently made types of mistakes that older children and adults did not. This led him to the theory that young children's cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults.
• Ultimately, he was to propose a global theory of cognitive developmental stages in which individuals exhibit certain common patterns of cognition in each period of development. Piaget had three children, whom Piaget studied from infancy.
• In 1964, Piaget was invited to serve as chief consultant at two conferences at Cornell University and
University of California The conferences addressed the relationship of cognitive studies and
curriculum development and strived to conceive implications of recent investigations of children's cognitive development for curricula

• Dewey´s pragmatism
• Freud´s psychoanalysis
• Durkheim´s social life
• Hall + Binet´s biological conception of the child

• The four development stages are described in Piaget's theory as:
• Sensormotor stage from birth to age 2. Children experience the world through movement and senses (use five senses to explore the world).
During the sensorimotor stage children are extremely egocentric, meaning they cannot perceive the world from others' viewpoints. , divided into six substages
• Preoperational stage from ages 2 to 7 (Acquisition of motor skills).
Egocentrism begins strongly and then weakens. Children cannot conserve or use logical thinking.
• Concrete operational stage: from ages 7 to 12 (children begin to think logically but are very concrete in their thinking). Children can now conserve and think logically but only with practical aids. They are no longer egocentric.
Formal operational stage from age 12 onwards (development of abstract reasoning). Children develop abstract thought and can easily conserve and think logically in their mind.

• Assumes that the learner him/herself construes his/her learning structures .
• These structures exist in the brain as dispositions described by a psychological metaphor as mental schemes.(Piaget)
• The concept of scheme is used to classify what we subjectively connect and recall in relation to a particular topic.
• Mental patterns is similarly used as a concept in relation to incentive and interaction dimensions.
• It is no archive, but traces of circuits between billions of neurons that have been active earlier. In brain research called engrams.

• Cumulative( or mechanical) learning.( isolated formation – not part of anything else – no personal meaning).When a scheme is established. Most important in early childhood.
• Assimilative learning.Most common type of learning.
Learning by addition. New element is linked to a scheme that is already established.
• Accomodative (or transcendent) learning. Breaks down and transforms (parts of) an existing scheme.(difficult process)
Expansive (transformative, significant) learning.
personality changes, characterised by a restructuring of a cluster of schemes and patternes ( crisis like situation)

• Piaget's theory, however vital in understanding child psychology, did not go without scrutiny. A main figure whose ideas contradicted Piaget's ideas was the
Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky stressed the importance of a child's cultural background as an
effect to the stages of development. Because different cultures stress different social interactions, this challenged Piaget's theory that the hierarchy of
learning development had to develop in succession.
Vygotsky introduced the term Zone of proximal
development as an overall task a child would have to develop that would be too difficult to develop alone.

• Vygotsky was a student of literature, philosophy and estetics(humanities & social sciences) who plunged into pscychology.
• Born into Jewish family in Russia. Vygotsky was especially interested in the philosophy of history.
He also looked for an alternative to Cartesian dualism.
• He got a position at a local teachers college and becase interested in the physically handicapped before he moved to Moscow and got a ph.d. at the Moscow Institute of Psychology.

• Vygotsky´s thesis was on the psychology of art
The title reveals that to Vygotsky psychology was a method of uncovering the origins of higher forms of human consciousness and emotional life rather than elementary behavioral acts.
• 1924 Vygotsky delivered a vehement attack on the reflexologists.: Scientific ppsychology cannot
ignore the facts of consciousness thus challenging Pavlovians

• Be developmental. Vygotsky perceived development as a dynamic process.
• Solve the problem of interrelation between higher mental functions and lower elementary functions
• Take socially meaningful activity as an explanatory principle.
• Language and speech occupy a special place.(thought and speech have different roots)
• Wanted to find a ”third way” between scientific and philosophical psychology.

• Scientific concepts originate in the highly structured and
specialized activity of classroom instruction and impose on the chile logically defined concepts.
• Spontaneous concepts emerge from the child´s own reflections on everyday experience.
• Scientific concepts are not assimilated but undergo substantial
development depending on the existing level of a child´s ability to comprehend concepts. This level of comprehension is connected
with the development of spontaneous concepts.
• Spontaneous concepts in working their way upwards toward greater abstractness clear a path for scientific concepts on the downward development toward greater concreteness.

• Emphasis is on interaction between the learner and others.
• Language has a high priority
• Dialogue with peers or more knowledgeable others
• The Zone of proximal development
• Recent educational tool: Collaborative learning

(Pritchard 2009)
• Both were constructivists. Both Piaget and
Vygotsky believed that individuals actively construct their own knowledge and underrstanding.
• Vygotsky stressed the importance of the social
interaction in which an individual participates.
Piaget stressed the inner motivation to balance new information with existing knowledge and understanding.

Vygotsky
• Social constructivism
• Children learn through being active
• Learning is a socially mediated activity
• Emphasis on the role of the teacher or more knowledgeable other as a scaffolder
Piaget
• Cognitive constructivism
• Children learn through being active
• Children operate as ”lone scientists”
• If a child is shown how to do something rather than being encouraged to discover for himself, understanding might be inhibited

Vygotsky
• The teacher is a mentor who provides the challenges that the child needs for achieving more
• Development is fostered by
collaboration ( in the zone of proximal development and not strictly age related.
Piaget
• The teacher is the provider of artefacts needed for the child to work with and learn from
• Cognitive growth has a
biological, age related developmental basis

Vygotsky
• Development is an internalisation of social
experience. Children can be taught concepts that are just beyond their level of development with appropriate support.
• What the child can do with an adult today, they can do alone tomorrow.
Piaget
• Children are unable to extend their cognitive capabilities beyond their stage of development.
• There is no point in teaching a concept beyond current stages of development.

• Research support for constructivist teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting these techniques and other research contradicting those results.
• ( Tobias, S., Duffy, T.M.(eds)(2009): Constructivist
Instruction. Success or Failure? New York:
Routledge)

• So even though constructivism is accepted at the epistemological level it is hotly debated to
what extent learning and teaching can be based on that notion.

• Students who had practice with feedback had better performance and more positive attitudes than those students who did not have opportunities for practice.
• Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark suggest that novices be taught with direct
methods of instruction like worked examples. Sweller (2006) discusses the worked-example effect as a alternative to problem-solving for
novices. However practice with feedback is condoned and even encouraged by Sweller and his associated because these types of learning are important for those who already acquired a schema (Kalyuga, Ayres,
Chandler, & Sweller, 2003) therefore there is no conflict between
Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark's views, and those of Klein and Sullivan. Each agrees that the learner be given practice with feedback. Kirschner et al.
(2006) propose instruction should, however, begin with worked examples.
• Studying examples as an alternative to active learning strategies

• In the past few years outcome-based education/performance-based education policy has begun to limit instructors to only using those techniques that have been shown
to be effective. In the United States for instance, the No Child Left Behind requires those developing instruction to show evidence of its "effectiveness."