Theories of Learning

 Webinar 1

     From the three exciting days on the campus, we moved online but guess what; the feeling of isolation and lack of connection that I mentioned in my very first blog is long gone. The reason being the fact that now I have met these people in person, have talked to them and have worked with some of them as a team. In the very first webinar, all of us would be teaching; yup you read it correctly, teaching our class fellows in small groups. As intimidating as it sounds, it was not that bad, and I managed alright.

    Each group got one topic to work on and to plan by keeping in mind the competence goals and assessment criteria. As I mentioned in my previous blog, we are using jigsaw/cross over groups as a technique of planning and teaching. That is, you plan in one group and on the day of the webinar one person from each group come together to form a new group for the teaching session. Thus, every time you teach new people but planning group remains the same. I would surely write about the group dynamics and planning sessions but some other time. For now, the focus is on the teaching session and the final plan for that session. The competence goals for the first lesson and the main question for our group task are given below and I would discuss how we planned by keeping these in mind.

Competence goals

1: You understand the meaning of learning in higher education. 

2: You understand how interaction affects learning. 

Main Question

What are the theories of learning and how do they affect the planning of the teaching in your particular field and in competence-based education? Choose at least one learning theory that you use in your teaching task!

Learning theories and Planning

     Learning is defined as a process that brings together personal and environmental experiences and influences for acquiring, enriching or modifying one’s knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, behaviour and world views (UNESCO, International Bureau of Education). A fundamental task for a teacher is to think about how people learn. How do we, the teachers, know that the learning is taking place? or how to plan the lesson to increase the chances of learning.  This is where the theories of learning play their part. 

"A theory of learning aims to help us to understand how people learn. The theory that we employ (consciously or not) determines what we see, what we consider to be important and thus how we will design and implement our practice." 

(Harasim, 2017)

     

    Theories of learning are diverse in their focus of attention and scope starting from focus on visible behaviour "What is he doing and why is he doing it”. Watson, J. B. (1998)" to "What goes on in the mind" or "How knowledge is constructed through interaction with society and incoming new knowledge" and "use of technology as a source of connectivity between knowledge and individuals". 

 A learning theory basically helps a teacher to "plan" the teaching process by providing insights into what goes on when people learn, what motivates people to learn and what hinders or enables learning and thus enables "intellectual strategy selection" (Ertmer & Newby, 2013). All this planning takes place before the actual interaction between the teacher and student and after it the teacher can reflect on whether the lesson goals are achieved or not and what could be done to improve the situation.

Lesson Plan for the Session

    While planning for the lesson, we decided about such a scheme that would involve elements from different learning theories to make the students understand that you have to use the theories according to the desired outcomes of your lesson and there is no one size fit all. Keeping in mind the fact that even if the students do not have much teaching experience, they have studied all their life and thus, they came across various type of teachers, teaching methods, they understand what they liked being a student, what helped them most or what did not work at all; we planned to involve them actively throughout the lesson to achieve the learning outcomes. 

Link to the resource materials for the lesson are provided here: 

Power point presentation: Learning theories - Google Slides 

Lesson plan document: Lesson plan 1 - Group 2.docx - Google Docs

    When it comes to "theories of Learning", I was already familiar with them as during my masters I took a course titled "Teaching of English to the Students of Other Languages" (TESOL) and also taught them to masters students in "English Language Teaching" (ELT) and thus had a chance to explore the theories in detail. Also, teaching the theories to adults who are related to the field of teaching and have been learning all their lives required that the teacher acts as a facilitator and assists the students to clarify certain ideas or in case of confusions, explains with examples. 

    Now coming to the lesson, there were a few problems like one student had to leave and the other one was driving while listening and that resulted in just one person fully present. But that one person was really attentive and responsive and so it worked well, and we discussed our experiences and ideas in detail. 

Main components of the lesson

Stimulating writing assignment: Starting the lesson with a question proved to be a stimulating force that allowed the students to think about the topic, brainstorm and finally write what they already know about the theories. This activity is linked to Cognitivism as they explored the existing schemata related to learning theories in their minds. The questions also served the purpose of "Need Analysis" or "Competence analysis" by providing insights into what the students already know and how deeply the teacher needs to explain different theories. 

    In the present case, the students had somewhat prior understanding of different theories which served as a base to construct further knowledge thus Constructivism. So, I provided them basic ideas behind the theories and related examples from my experiences. I asked them how they experienced these theories as students or used these theories in their lesson plans as teachers, and this gave rise to an interesting discussion. 

Writing on the Padlet: Thinking about something and then writing not only gives clarity to the ideas but in our case, it also provided a sense of permanence to what the students talked about, what they already knew, and thus served the purpose of record keeping for the teachers to visit back while reflecting on the lesson. Here, one student could not access the Padlet, so I asked her to explain her ideas and I wrote for her. A link for the Padlet has been provided here:

Padlet Link:  Learning theories (padlet.com)

Kahoot: "Games are purposeful, goal oriented and rule-based activities" (Klopfer, 2008). Here, this game served the purpose of creating a healthy competition among students and thus motivating the students to do better (Behaviourism). It acted as a mini test/assessment and thus resulted in revision, that is, if the students get the answer wrong, then the teacher explains the concept again and this resulted in clarification of ideas. 

Comparing and contrasting the theories: This technique brought clarity to the theories and helped in erasing any misunderstandings or ambiguities. 

Video: The video served the purpose of providing insights into how a teacher can make the students understand why they have to study something. I remember, when we had our very first teaching session on the campus, Radu said that often my students ask that why do we have to study these math problems and how will they help us in our real life? The technique used in the video not only ensured students` interest in the coming lessons but a chance to voice their opinions and views regarding what is important. 

A link to the video is provided here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYxCZpbKsAs 

Examples: Finally, in this section I would like to relate a few examples that can help in understanding how these theories can be used effectively. 

• Consider a situation where one student dominates the class discussion, a teacher can apply the behaviourist theory of learning by using negative reinforcement i.e., removal of attention from that student and offering speaking turn to others. 
• If a student is praised for volunteering to answer a question more students will follow (Behaviourism).
• Similarly, the idea of "unlearning" something as a result of a negative reinforcement or negative feedback by the teacher follows the behaviourist approach of learning.
• While learning a new language, the knowledge of the previous language plays its role and if the languages are similar, students learn faster. For example, English speakers learn Swedish faster as compared to Finnish because of similarities in the language. Similarly, Turkish speakers learn Finnish faster because of similarities between sounds of the two languages and the word construction techniques. Here cognitivist theory is at work. 
• Online learning by using different apps, platforms and sources that connect the students to a greater source of knowledge is Connectivism at work.

Google Jamboard: In the end, a link for Google Jamboard was provided for the purpose of feedback about the lesson. The purpose was that the teacher gets to know what students feel in terms of the content of the lesson, teaching techniques and methods. A few people responded and their feedback suggested that though the content was explained in detail and with clarity, there was too much information in slides to take into account. The reason for this is the idea that with students with different educational backgrounds and competencies, it was important to explain the theories in detail. As I said, the idea was to discuss the content according to the needs of the students. As in my case, the students were already familiar with the content, so we focused on discussing main ideas and narrating examples. 

Jamboard link: Learning Theories - Google Jamboar

Reflections on the other sessions 

    I attended sessions planned by two other groups because of the absence of the third member. Though I watched the recording to get myself acquainted with the content, but I would reflect only on the sessions that I attended.

Group 1:  How do the official documents and regulations affect the planning of the teaching in your vocational field? Where can you find all this information? 

    Pablo provided the students case scenarios and a word document with the description of laws and regulations which regulate the vocational education and teaching (VET) in Finland. The students had to come up with solutions for certain situations faced by the individuals. The cases were well built, and the written document was clear and easy to understand. This method of allowing the students to look for solutions for different scenarios in accordance with Finnish VET laws worked for me as a student because it provided me a chance to explore the text in detail and to understand the laws. The only downside was that reading took a lot of time and this resulted in less time for discussion with others.

Group 3: How does student centered approach, personalization and competence-based system affect the planning?  Can you imagine different scenarios?

    Christina discussed how planning can vary according to the educational background and situations of the students. The examples in the presentation were mathematical (too subject specific) and thus was difficult for me to grasp and the use of Pythagorean theorem was beyond my reach. still, I understood the main idea that in student centered approach, student is the center of planning and according to the needs of the students the planning of the lesson varies. In personalization, the student's previous competence is identified and acknowledged, and the session is planned according to how and what new competence he needs to acquire.

Final word 

In the end, I could say that as a whole, the webinar was a success. In my case, everything ran smoothly because I had already practiced sharing screens and rehearsed the lesson in our group with the available members. I checked that the sound worked for the video and double checked that all the links were functional. Though the overall session was somewhat long and tiring but really interesting and not only provided new knowledge but also brought new dimensions of already known things to light.

References: 

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43–71

Harasim, L. (2017). Learning Theory and Online Technologies. (2nd ed.) Routledge.

Klopfer, E. (2008). Augmented Learning: Research and Design of Mobile Educational Games. The MIT Press, Massaschusetts.

UNESCO, International Bureau of Education. Retrieved on 6th October 2022 from Most influential theories of learning | International Bureau of Education (unesco.org)

Watson, J. B. (1998). Behaviorism. Routledge, London.