Erguvan Uras

Piaget's  (1936)  theory  of cognitive  development  explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive  development  as a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Piaget, c oncerned with children (rather than all learners) and focused on development (rather than learning).He proposed discrete stages of development. Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small number of innate schemas. These schemas are cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes . In addition to creating new schemas, children can adapt their existing schemas based on new experiences. Assimilation  is using an existing schema and applying it to a new situation or object. Accommodation  is changing approaches when an existing schema doesn’t work in a particular situation. Equilibration  is ...

Meaningful Learning The  Meaningful Learning Theory  is attributed to David Ausubel. According to this theory, students are considered to be the center of the teaching learning process, and the teachers are the facilitators. Meaningful Learning occurs when the new information is related to prior knowledge. According to this theory learning of new knowledge relies on what is already known. That is, construction of knowledge begins with our observation and recognition of events and objects through concepts we already have. We learn by constructing a network of concepts and adding to them. Ausubel also stresses the importance of reception rather than discovery learning, and meaningful rather than rote learning. Meaning is created through some forms of representational equivalence between language and mental context. There are two processes involved: First discovery: Reception, which is employed in meaningful verbal learning. Second: Discove...

Cognitive Information Processing and Self regulated Learning Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) CIP theory refers to information processing, applied to various theoretical perspectives dealing with the sequence and execution of cognitive events. It is the human mind’s activity of taking in, storing, and using information. The whole system is guided by control processes that determine how and when information will flow through the system.  Stimuli from the environment (sights, sounds, smell, etc.) constantly bombard our body’s mechanisms for seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling. Sensory memory is the initial processing that transforms these incoming stimuli into information so we can make sense of them. Short-term memory: a limited-capacity memory system which is relatively longer. SS can keep track of 7 +/- items without external help. There are several ways of holding more bits of information. For example ' Chunking'  of information can lea...

  Motivation is a piviotal concept in most theories of learning. In most forms of behaviorial theory, motivation was strictly a function of primary drives such as hunger, sex, sleep, or comfort. According to Hull's drive reduction theory, learning reduces drives and therefore motivation is essential to learning. The degree of the learning achieved can be manipulated by the strength of the drive and its underlying motivation. It can be said that the fundamental aim of  motivation is to stimulate and to facilitate learning activity. Learning is an active process that needs to be motivated and guided toward desirable ends. Origins and determinants of motivation is different according to the behaviorists and cognitivists. Behaviorists sees physiological needs such as food, sleep as the determinants of motivation, whereas according to the  cognitivists, cognitive processes are mediators of motivation such as not just any food b...

Brain based learning (BBL) Brain based learning (BBL) is a holistic approach for learning and basically refers to  teaching  methods, lesson designs, and school programs that are  based  on the latest scientific research about how the  brain  learns, including such factors as cognitive development. There are several principles of BBL. Below twelve principles are given in relation to teaching.        The brain is a parallel processor, meaning it can perform several activities at once, like tasting and smelling. Teaching should include several methods for learning at the same time. Learning engages the entire physiology, whole body hence hands on activities are important. The search for meaning is innate therefore learning environment should satisfy curiosity.   The search for meaning comes through patterning.This means teaching should present information in a way that allows brain to extract patterns. Emotions are criti...

Experimental  Approaches  to Learning In addtition to epistemological theories, there are also some e xperimental   approaches to learning. These approaches can be defined as systematic and scientific  approach  to research in which the researcher manipulates one or more variables, and controls and measures any change in other variables.  The origins of behaviorist learning theories may be traced backed to the late 1800's and early 1900's with the formulation of "associationistic" principles of learning. The general goal was to derive elementary laws of learning and behavior that may then be extended to explain more complex situations.  Ebbinghaus  is considered to be the first psychologist that systematically  studied learning  and memory. He developed a system recognizing the fact that learning is always affected by prior knowledge and understanding. He conducted a series of tests on himself, which included memorization and forg...

Incredible Human Mind - How do We L earn ? Learning theories  can be defined as an organized set of principles explaining how individuals acquire, retain, and recall knowledge. In order to build a learning theory; results, means and inputs are the required components. There are different approaches to learning each representing a variety of disciplinary perspectives.  Behaviorists discuss that learning is a passive absorption and could be fully understood in terms of observable events whereas cognivitists believes that learning is an active assimilation and accommodation of new information to existing cognitive structures. The third approach, social constructivism,  argues that learning is a social enterprise and dependent on the individuals' interactions with their culture and society. Despite the differences in learning theories they all share the idea that learning causes a persisting change in human performance or perfo...