Posts

Metacognition and Embodied Learning

Image
Metacognition  Metacognition , a term that was first defined by John H.  Flavell  in 1979, is basically thinking about thinking. With metacognition, we become aware of our own learning experiences and the activities we involve ourselves in our paths toward personal and professional growth. We are better able to understand ourselves in the whole process of learning and can develop skills to think about, connect with, and evaluate our learning and interactions each day. According to Flavell,  metacognitive knowledge is “knowledge about one’s own cognitive processes or products. Metacognition has been  identified  as an essential skill for learner success. It allows students to drive their learning, build student agency, and foster a growth mindset in learning. In order to develop metacognitive skills and habits in the classroom •         First, students must have the opportunity to practice and so must be placed in situations that require metacognition. They sh
Post a Comment
Read more

Radical Constructivism

Image
Radical Constructivism Constructivism  is an approach to learning that argues that learners will not understand knowledge if they are simply taught facts as pre-existing entities. Elliott et al.(2000) define constructivism as ‘an approach to learning that holds that people actively construct or make their own knowledge and that reality is determined by the experiences of the learner’ (p. 256). Rather, each learner must not only come to knowledge on his or her own terms; he or she must actually create the knowledge from scratch. Every learner constructs a knowledge base that he or she then builds on as part of moving through the world.  Constructivism's central idea is that human learning is constructed, that learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning. This prior knowledge influences what new or modified knowledge an individual will construct from new learning experiences (Phillips, 1995). Kant’s studies on the integration of rationalism and empiri
Post a Comment
Read more

Sİtuated Learning Theory & Activity Theory

Image
Situated  Learning  Situated learning is an instructional approach developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in the early 1990s, and follows the work of Dewey, Vygotsky, and others who claim that students are more inclined to learn by actively participating in the learning experience. Situated learning emphasizes the context and application and use of knowledge, rather than memorizing isolated facts and accumulating skills.    ’The theory of situated cognition…claims that every human thought is adapted to the environment, that is,  situated ,  because what people  perceive,  how they  conceive of  their activity, and what they  physically do  develop together’’ (Clancey, 1997, p.1-2 as cited in Driscoll, 2015).  Lave and Wenger (1991) state that ‘the notion of situated learning now appears to be a transitory concept, a bridge, between a view according to which cognitive processes (and thus learning) are primary and a view according to which social practice is the primary, generativ
Post a Comment
Read more

Skinner’s Operant Conditioning Theory & Discovery Learning

Image
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning  Skinner is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning, but his work was based on Thorndike’s (1898) law of effect. It is on the matter of behavioral conditioning (not then formulated as such) which states that "Behavior that is followed by positive consequences is likely to be repeated, and behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated". Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an individual makes an association between a particular behavior and a consequence (Skinner, 1938). Skinner identified three types of responses, or operant, that can follow behavior. • Neutral operants: responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated. • Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Re
Post a Comment
Read more

Interactional Theories of Cognitive Development - Bruner & Vygotsky

Image
Interactional Theories of Cognitive Development - Bruner   & Vygotsky Bruner studied the means by which human beings interact with the environment cognitively. He states that the outcome of cognitive development is thinking. Bruner agrees with Piaget regarding the description of internal representation of experience. But Bruner emphasized continuity, the importance of language and the importance of education in cognitive development more than Piaget.  According to Bruner, one's intellectual ability evolves as a result of maturation, training and experiences through a series of three sequential stages –the enactive ,iconic and symbolic. According to Bruner learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models) provides m
Post a Comment
Read more