Week 1 - Learning Theories

Hey guys it's Jess!
A big welcome to my first blog!

Today I am here to tell you about learning theories and what I have learnt over the past week about them. 

Learning Theories
Did you know that learning theories are an attempt to describe how a person learns? 

Source: Google Images Behaviourism

Behaviourism
As we look at behaviourism some of you may know or have heard it be referred to has 'objectivism'. Students begin to learn an activity through practice, positive reinforcement and re-shaping what they have learnt. This past two weeks I learnt from lecture notes and my own research that behaviourism is not a high order thinking process rather it is used for low level content and routine skill development. 

Cognitivism
This theory is broken into a three stage model that includes the sensory register, working memory and long term memory. 

Source http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/learning/memory.html

Sensory Register
Is information first accessed through the senses. 
Working Memory
Although limited in the number of individual elements takes short term memory and helps store this in the brain as long term memory
Long Term Memory
Some cognitivists believe that information is best stored in 'schemas' (can be described as linked maps) and new information from the working memory is taken and linked to schemas that have already been made in the brain. 

Constructivism

Source: Google Images

Vygotsky (1962) said that social interaction is a very important part of learning. We also have a Zone of Proximal Development which can be the distance between the development level of myself as an independent problem solver compared to the development of myself with help of a teacher or collaborative work with more capable peers (SimplyPsychology, n.d.). 


Connectivism
Connectivism was posed by George Siemens as the learning theory for the digital age (how funny that is me). Siemens also stated that it is now harder to know everything and it is better to know what we are looking for and where to find it than it is to know. 

Well there are the four learning theories, which is the best to use when? That's another question for another day. 
Thank-you for reading and I will see you next week! 

References
SimplyPsychology. (n.d). Zone Of Proximal Development. Retrieved from: http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html