Learning theories

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A branch of psychology that studies how people acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes through experience or instruction. Includes behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, social learning theory, and others.

Behaviorism: This theory focuses on how environmental factors influence learning and behavior. It emphasizes the role of reinforcement and punishment in shaping behavior.
Constructivism: This theory emphasizes that learners actively construct their own understanding of new information and concepts by building upon their prior knowledge and experiences.
Social learning theory: This theory stresses the importance of observing and modeling the behaviors of others in the learning process. It also emphasizes the role of reinforcement and punishment in shaping behavior.
Cognitive psychology: This theory focuses on mental processes such as memory, attention, and problem-solving. It examines how these processes contribute to learning and how they can be improved.
Information processing theory: This theory proposes that humans process information much like a computer does, through a series of steps including encoding, storing, and retrieving information.
Multiple intelligences theory: This theory proposes that individuals have different kinds of intelligence, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.
Zone of proximal development: This theory explains that learners can only advance to a certain level of knowledge or skill without assistance, but can advance further with help from a more skilled or knowledgeable individual.
Experiential learning: This theory proposes that learning occurs through a cycle of concrete experiences, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation.
Humanistic learning theory: This theory emphasizes the importance of personal growth, self-awareness, and individual choice in learning.
Sociocultural learning theory: This theory emphasizes the importance of social and cultural factors in shaping learning, including language, cultural background, and social context.
Transfer of learning: This theory examines how knowledge or skills learned in one situation can be applied to another situation.
Motivation: This topic examines the factors that influence a learner's drive to learn, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Assessment and evaluation: This topic explores the ways in which educators measure and evaluate student learning, including formative and summative assessments.
Learning styles: This topic examines the different ways in which individuals prefer to learn, including visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles.
Technology in education: This topic explores how technology can be used to enhance and support the learning process, including computer-based instruction, online-learning, and mobile learning.
Classroom management: This topic examines strategies for creating a positive and effective learning environment, including managing student behavior, building relationships, and promoting social-emotional learning.
Behaviorism: This theory focuses on the impact of actions and the resulting outcomes or consequences. It suggests that behavior is shaped by environmental factors rather than internal thoughts or feelings.
cognitivism:This theory concentrates on how individuals receive, process, store, and use information: It emphasizes cognitive abilities such as attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving.
Constructivism: This theory emphasizes that individuals build their understanding and learning from their experiences, interactions with the environment and the people around them.
Humanism: This theory emphasizes the importance of individual growth and development for personal fulfillment. It suggests that learners should be allowed to function in a positive and enriching environment.
Social Learning: This theory emphasizes the importance of observation, imitation, and modeling in the learning process. It suggests that individuals learn by observing and imitating the actions of other individuals or role models.
Constructivist Learning: This theory suggests that learners construct their own knowledge and meaning based on their experiences with the world around them. It emphasizes the importance of active, hands-on learning and collaborative problem-solving.
Connectivism: This theory argues that learning occurs when individuals are connected to a network of people or resources, enabling them to access and share information.
Brain-based Learning: This theory emphasizes the importance of brain-based research to enhance the learning process. It suggests that learning should be tailored to meet the brain’s specific needs in terms of processing information.
Epistemological Beliefs, with Qualitative Metasynthesis (EQM): This theory focuses on individual beliefs about how knowledge is acquired and used. The theory suggests that these beliefs impact how individuals learn and approach new information.
Social Constructivism: This theory suggests that individuals jointly construct an understanding of the world around them through social interactions and dialogue. It highlights the importance of group learning and conversation.
Experiential Learning: This theory emphasizes that individuals learn through personal experiences, allowing learners to transform direct experience into knowledge.
Communities of Practice: This theory proposes that learning occurs in groups of individuals who share the same interests, passions, and goal, and participate in collective activities for mutual learning and development.
Transformative Learning: This theory is focused on the idea of personal growth and transformation. It suggests that people change as they learn new concepts and ideas and that the learning process is a natural part of personal development.
Critical Pedagogy: This theory takes a social justice approach to education and suggests that learning should be empowering and provide individuals with the knowledge and skills to enact social change.
Radical Constructivism: This theory suggests that knowledge is a social construct, and it is constructed uniquely by individuals. This gives rise to multiple realities about any given topic.
Cultural-historical activity theory(CHAT): This theory suggests that learning is the result of the interaction between the people involved and the contextual factors that influence their actions. It emphasizes the role of new technology and activity-focused teaching in the learning process.
Andragogy: This theory is concerned with adult learning, and it recognizes that adults have different approaches to learning than children. It suggests that adult learners need to be actively engaged, work on problem-solving activities, and that the learning experience should be relevant to their goals or interests.
- "Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning."
- "Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained."
- "Behaviorists look at learning as an aspect of conditioning and advocate a system of rewards and targets in education."
- "Educators who embrace cognitive theory believe that the definition of learning as a change in behavior is too narrow."
- "Cognitive theory study the learner rather than their environment—and in particular the complexities of human memory."
- "Those who advocate constructivism believe that a learner's ability to learn relies largely on what they already know and understand."
- "The acquisition of knowledge should be an individually tailored process of construction."
- "Transformative learning theory focuses on the often-necessary change required in a learner's preconceptions and worldview."
- "Geographical learning theory focuses on the ways that contexts and environments shape the learning process."
- "Outside the realm of educational psychology, techniques to directly observe the functioning of the brain during the learning process, such as event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging, are used in educational neuroscience."
- "The theory of multiple intelligences, where learning is seen as the interaction between dozens of different functional areas in the brain each with their own individual strengths and weaknesses in any particular human learner..."
- "Empirical research has found the theory to be unsupported by evidence."
- "Behaviorists advocate a system of rewards and targets in education."
- "Educators who embrace cognitive theory believe that the definition of learning as a change in behavior is too narrow."
- "A learner's ability to learn relies largely on what they already know and understand."
- "Transformative learning theory focuses on the often-necessary change required in a learner's preconceptions and worldview."
- "Geographical learning theory focuses on the ways that contexts and environments shape the learning process."
- "Techniques to directly observe the functioning of the brain during the learning process, such as event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging, are used in educational neuroscience."
- "The complexities of human memory."
- "Empirical research has found the theory to be unsupported by evidence."