PE1 - Chapter1: Learning Theories

Some BASIC Concepts

Education is a broad concept, referring to all the experiences in which students can learn something.

Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines.

The study of how learning occurs is part of neuropsychology, educational psychology, learning theory, and pedagogy.

Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness.

Learning Theories
In psychology and education, learning theories are attempts to describe how people learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning. A learning theory is an organized set of principles explaining how individuals learn, that is, how they acquire new abilities and/or knowledge.

Learning has been studied for hundreds of years, and many theories have been proposed to explain it.
These theories are generally categorized in three approaches:
- the behavorial appraoch,
- the cognitive approach, and
- the constructivist approach.

Psikoloji ve eğitimde, öğrenme kuramları, insanların nasıl öğrendiğini açıklama girişimleridir, böylelikle karmaşık öğrenme sürecini anlamamıza yardımcı olurlar.

Learning Theories
In psychology and education, learning theories are attempts to describe how people learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning. There are basically three main perspectives in learning theories, Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism.

Öğrenme Kuramları
Psikoloji ve eğitimde, öğrenme kuramları, insanların nasıl öğrendiğini açıklama girişimleridir, böylelikle karmaşık öğrenme sürecini anlamamıza yardımcı olurlar. Öğrenme kuramlarında temel olarak üç temel bakış açısı vardır: Davranışçılık, Bilişselcilik ve Yapılandırmacılık.
Inherently: doğal olarak, doğuştan var olan; bir şeyin aslında veya tabiatında mevcut olan.

Behaviorism
Behaviorism is an approach to Psychology which purports that learning is the result of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a process both named and investigated by B. F. Skinner. Behaviorists are particularly interested in observable and measurable changes in behavior.

Davranışçılık, öğrenmeyi edimsel koşullanmanın sonucu olarak gösteren (ifade eden) psikoloji yaklaşımıdır. Edimsel koşullanma Skinner tarafından araştırılmış ve adı konmuş bir süreçtir. Davranışçılar, özel olarak, davranıştaki gözlemlenebilir ve öğrenilebilir değişiklikle ilgilenirler.

Behaviorism is a worldview that assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli. The learner starts off as a clean slate (i.e. tabula rasa) and behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. Both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement increase the probability that the antecedent behavior will happen again. In contrast, punishment (both positive and negative) decreases the likelihood that the antecedent behavior will happen again.

Originators and important contributors: John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, E. L. Thorndike (connectionism), Bandura, Tolman (moving toward cognitivism)

Cognitivism
Beginning in the 1960’s and 1970’s, cognitive theories of learning, such as the information perspective, began to hold sway. Cognitivism became the dominant force in psychology in the late-20th century, replacing behaviorism as the most popular paradigm for understanding mental function. Cognitive psychology is not a wholesale refutation of behaviorism, but rather an expansion that accepts that mental states are appropriate to analyze and subject to examination.

This was due to the increasing criticism towards the end of the 1950s of behaviorist models.
1960 ve 1970lerden başlayarak, bilişsel öğrenme kuramları, “bilgi bakış açısı” gibi (Bilgiyi İşleme Kuramı’nı kasdediyor) hakim olmaya başlamıştır.

Bilişselcilik, zihinsel işlevleri anlamada en gözde (en tutulan, yaygın) paradigma haline gelerek davranışçılığın yerini almış ve 20. yüzyılın sonlarında psikolojideki baskın güç haline gelmiştir. Bilişsel psikoloji, davranışçılığın toptan reddinden ziyade, zihinsel durumları incelemeye değer ve analiz için uygun bulan, onun (davranışçılığın) genişlemiş halidir. Bu, 1950lilerin sonlarına doğru davranışçı modellere yöneltilen eleştirilerin artmasından dolayıdır.


Constructivism
Today, constructivism is the focus of much research. The basic concept of this theoretical perpective is that knowledge cannot be transmitted to learners; rather, they must construct knowledge for themselves, usually within a social context. Constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge. In other words, "learning involves constructing one's own knowledge from one's own experiences.Constructivist learning, therefore, is a very personal endeavor, whereby internalized concepts, rules, and general principles may consequently be applied in a practical real-world context.The teacher acts as a facilitator who encourages students to discover principles for themselves and to construct knowledge by working to solve realistic problems.

Günümüzde yapılandırmacılık pek çok araştırmanın odağındadır. Bu kuramsal bakış açısının temel kavramı, bilginin, öğrenenlere transfer edilemeyeceğidir (aktarılamayacağıdır). Bunun yerine, öğrenenler genellikle sosyal bir bağlamda bilgiyi kendilkeri için yapılandırırlar, Yapılandırmacılık öğrenmeyi, öğrenenin mevcut ve geçmiş bilgisini temel alarak, (..... bilgisinin üzerine) yeni kavram ve fikirleri inşa ettiği veya yapılandırdığı bir süreç olarak görür. Diğer bir deyişle, öğrenme, kişinin kendi bilgisini kendi deneyimlerinden (yaşantısından) yapılandırmasıyla ilgilenir. Yapılandırmacı öğrenme, çok kişisel bir çabadır, öyle ki, bunun sonucunda, içselleştirilmiş kavramlar, kurallar, genel ilkeler gerçek yaşam bağlamında uygulamaya konabilirler (uygulanabilirler). Öğretmen, öğrencileri gerçek yaşam problemlerini çözerken bilgilerini yapılandırmaları ve ilkeleri keşfetmeleri için cesaretlendiren bir kolaylaştırıcı gibi çalışır (görev yapar, hareket eder).

Instructional Technology and Learning Theories
Today, there are many exciting developments taking place in instructional technology. For one thing, we see new developments related to the applications of learning theories. Theoretical perspectives of learning and their implications for instruction were founded on the works of Edward L. Thorndike and B. F. Skinner, researchers who took a behavioral approach to learning.

However, beginning in the 1960’s and 1970’s, cognitive theories of learning, such as the information perspective, began to hold sway. Today, constructivism is the focus of much research.

The basic concept of this theoretical perpective is that knowledge cannot be transmitted to learners; rather, they must construct knowledge for themselves, usually within a social context. Although instructional technology remains linked in many people’s minds to its behavioral roots, it is safe to say that the great majority of instructional technologists today accept the cognitive view, and the constructivist perspective where much of the current research and development of the field is taking place. Although the application of the constructivist perspective to the practice of designing, implementing, and evaluating instruction is not always clear, there seems to be a shift today from a more teacher-centered perspective to a more learner-centered perspective.