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Behaviorism is the theory that human or animal psychology can be objectively studied through observable actions (behaviors.) This field of study came about as a reaction to 19th-century psychology, which used self-examination of one's thoughts and feelings to examine human and animal psychology.

Key Takeaways: Behaviorism

History and Origins

Behaviorism emerged as a reaction to mentalism, a subjective approach to research used by psychologists in the latter half of the 19th century. In mentalism, the mind is studied by analogy and by examining one's own thoughts and feelings-a process called introspection. Mentalist observations were considered too subjective by the behaviorists, as they differed significantly among individual researchers, often leading to contradictory and irreproducible findings.

There are two main types of behaviorism: methodological behaviorism, which was heavily influenced by John B. Watson's work, and radical behaviorism, which was pioneered by psychologist B.F. Skinner.

Methodological Behaviorism

In 1913, psychologist John B. Watson published the paper that would be considered the manifesto of early behaviorism: "Psychology as the behaviorist views it." In this paper, Watson rejected mentalist methods and detailed his philosophy on what psychology should be: the science of behavior, which he called "behaviorism."

It should be noted that although Watson is often labeled the "founder" of behaviorism, he was by no means the first person to criticize introspection, nor was he the first to champion objective methods for studying psychology. After Watson's paper, however, behaviorism gradually took hold. By the 1920s, a number of intellectuals, including well-regarded figures such as the philosopher and later Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell, recognized the significance of Watson's philosophy.

Radical Behaviorism

Of the behaviorists after Watson, perhaps the most well-known is B.F. Skinner. Contrasting many other behaviorists of the time, Skinner's ideas focused on scientific explanations rather than methods.

Skinner believed that observable behaviors were outward manifestations of unseen mental processes, but that it was more convenient to study those observable behaviors. His approach to behaviorism was to understand the relationship between an animal's behaviors and its environment.

Classical Conditioning vs. Operant Conditioning

Behaviorists believe humans learn behaviors through conditioning, which associates a stimulus in the environment, such as a sound, to a response, such as what a human does when they hear that sound. Key studies in behaviorism demonstrate the difference between two types of conditioning: classical conditioning, which is associated with psychologists like Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson, and operant conditioning, associated with B.F. Skinner.

Classical Conditioning: Pavlov's Dogs

The Pavlov's dogs experiment is a widely known experiment involving dogs, meat, and the sound of a bell. At the start of the experiment, dogs would be presented meat, which would cause them to salivate. When they heard a bell, however, they did not.

For the next step in the experiment, the dogs heard a bell before they were brought food. Over time, the dogs learned that a ringing bell meant food, so they would begin to salivate when they heard the bell-even though they didn't react to the bells before. Through this experiment, the dogs gradually learned to associate the sounds of a bell with food, even though they didn't react to the bells before.

The Pavlov's dogs experiment demonstrates classical conditioning: the process by which an animal or human learns to associate two previously unrelated stimuli with each other. Pavlov's dogs learned to associate the response to one stimulus (salivating at the smell of food) with a "neutral" stimulus that previously did not evoke a response (the ringing of a bell.) This type of conditioning involves involuntary responses.

Classical Conditioning: Little Albert

In another experiment that showed the classical conditioning of emotions in humans, the psychologist J.B. Watson and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner exposed a 9-month-old child, whom they called "Little Albert," to a white rat and other furry animals, like a rabbit and a dog, as well as to cotton, wool, burning newspapers, and other stimuli-all of which did not frighten Albert.

Later, however, Albert was allowed to play with a white lab rat. Watson and Rayner then made a loud sound with a hammer, which frightened Albert and made him cry. After repeating this several times, Albert became very distressed when he was presented with only the white rat. This showed that he had learned to associate his response (becoming afraid and crying) to another stimulus that had not frightened him before.

Operant Conditioning: Skinner Boxes

Psychologist B.F. Skinner placed a hungry rat in a box containing a lever. As the rat moved around the box, it would occasionally press the lever, consequently discovering that food would drop when the lever was pressed. After some time, the rat began running straight toward the lever when it was placed inside the box, suggesting that the rat had figured out that the lever meant it would get food.

In a similar experiment, a rat was placed inside a Skinner box with an electrified floor, causing the rat discomfort. The rat found out that pressing the lever stopped the electric current. After some time, the rat figured out that the lever would mean that it would no longer be subject to an electric current, and the rat began running straight toward the lever when it was placed inside the box.

The Skinner box experiment demonstrates operant conditioning, in which an animal or human learns a behavior (e.g. pressing a lever) by associating it with consequences (e.g. dropping a food pellet or stopping an electric current.) The three types of reinforcement are as follows:

Positive reinforcement: When something good is added (e.g. a food pellet drops into the box) to teach a new behavior.

Negative reinforcement: When something bad is removed (e.g. an electric current stops) to teach a new behavior.

Punishment: When something bad is added to teach the subject to stop​ a behavior.

Influence on Contemporary Culture

Behaviorism can still be seen in the modern-day classroom, where operant conditioning is used to reinforce behaviors. For example, a teacher may give a prize to students who perform well on a test or punish a student who misbehaves by giving them time in detention.

Though behaviorism was once the dominant trend in psychology in the mid-20th century, it has since lost traction to cognitive psychology, which compares the mind to an information processing system, like a computer.

Baum, W. "What is behaviorism?" In Understanding Behaviorism: Behavior, Culture, and Evolution, Third Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017.

Kim, E. "Differences between classical and operant conditioning." 2015.

Wozniak, R. "Behaviourism: The early years." Bryn Mawr College, 1997.

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Behaviorism: The Psychological Theory of Stimulus-Response

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Behaviorism is the theory that psychology can be objectively studied through observable actions. Key figures include Pavlov, Skinner, and Watson.

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Constructivism is an important learning theory that educators use to help their students learn. Constructivism is based on the idea that people actively construct or make their own knowledge, and that reality is determined by your experiences as a learner. Basically, learners use their previous knowledge as a foundation and build on it with new things that they learn. So everyone's individual experiences make their learning unique to them.

Constructivism is crucial to understand as an educator because it influences the way all of your students learn. Teachers and instructors that understand the constructivist learning theory understand that their students bring their own unique experiences to the classroom every day. Their background and previous knowledge impacts how they are able to learn. Educators are able to use constructivist learning theory to help their students understand their previous knowledge. If you're a current or aspiring educator, it's important to get the education and credentials you need. But it's also important to understand learning theories and how they impact you and your students. This guide will tell you more about the constructivist learning theory and how it helps you as a teacher.

There are many specific elements and principles of constructivism that shape the way the theory works and applies to students. Learn about the different principles of constructivism and how they make up the whole theory.

Knowledge is constructed. This is the basic principle, meaning that knowledge is built upon other knowledge. Students take pieces and put them together in their own unique way, building something different than what another student will build. The student's previous knowledge, experiences, beliefs, and insights are all important foundations for their continued learning.

People learn to learn, as they learn. Learning involves constructing meaning and systems of meaning. For example, if a student is learning the chronology of dates for a series of historical events, at the same time they are learning the meaning of chronology. If a student is writing a paper about history, they are also learning principles of grammar and writing as well. Each thing we learn gives us a better understanding of other things in the future.

Learning is an active process. Learning involves sensory input to construct meaning. The learner needs to do something in order to learn, it's not a passive activity. Learners need to engage in the world so they are actively involved in their own learning and development. You can't just sit and expect to be told things and learn, you need to engage in discussions, reading, activities, etc.

Learning is a social activity. Learning is directly associated to our connection with other people. Our teachers, our family, or peers, and our acquaintances impact our learning. Educators are more likely to be successful as they understand that peer involvement is key in learning. Isolating learnings isn't the best way to help students learn and grow together. Progressive education recognizes that social interaction is key to learning and they use conversation, interaction, and group applications to help students retain their knowledge.

Learning is contextual. Students don't learn isolated facts and theories separate from the rest of our lives-we learn in ways connected to things we already know, what we believe, and more. The things we learn and the points we tend to remember are connected to the things going on around us.

Knowledge is personal. Because constructivism is based on your own experiences and beliefs, knowledge becomes a personal affair. Each person will have their own prior knowledge and experiences to bring to the table. So the way and things people learn and gain from education will all be very different.

Learning exists in the mind. Hands-on experiences and physical actions are necessary for learning, but those elements aren't enough. Engaging the mind is key to successful learning. Learning needs to involve activities for the minds, not just our hands. Mental experiences are needed for retaining knowledge.

Motivation is key to learning. Students are unable to learn if they are unmotivated. Educators need to have ways to engage and motivate learners to activate their minds and help them be excited about education. Without motivation, it's difficult for learners to reach into their past experience and make connections for new learning.

There are different types of constructivism that educators can use to find success with this learning theory.

Cognitive. Cognitive constructivism focuses on the idea that learning should be related to the learner's stage of cognitive development. These methods work to help students in learning new information by connecting it to things they already know, enabling them to make modifications in their existing intelligence to accommodate the new information. Cognitive constructivism comes from the work of Jean Piaget and his research on cognitive development in children.

Social. Social constructivism focuses on the collaborative nature of learning. Knowledge develops from how people interact with each other, their culture, and society at large. Students rely on others to help create their building blocks, and learning from others helps them construct their own knowledge and reality. Social constructivism comes from Lev Vygotsky, and is closely connected to cognitive constructivism with the added element of societal and peer influence.

Radical. Radical constructivism is very different from cognitive and social constructivism. It focuses on the idea that learners and the knowledge they construct tell us nothing real, only help us function in our environment. The overall idea is that knowledge is invented, not discovered. The things we bring to the table make it impossible for us to have truth, only interpretations of knowledge. This theory was developed by Ernst von Glasersfeld in 1974.

It's important to understand how teachers can apply constructivism inside their classroom to create a unique learning environment for students. In constructivist classrooms, the teacher has a role to create a collaborative environment where students are actively involved in their own learning. Teachers are more facilitators of learning than actual instructors. Teachers must work to understand the preexisting conceptions and understanding of students, then work to incorporate knowledge within those areas. Teachers will also need to adjust their teaching to match the learner's level of understanding.

Constructivist classrooms rely on four key areas to be successful:

Shared knowledge between teachers and students.

Shared authority between teachers and students.

Teachers act as a guide or facilitator.

Learning groups consist of small numbers of students.

Constructivist classrooms are often very different from normal classrooms in many ways. Constructivist classrooms focus on student questions and interests, they build on what students already know, they focus on interactive learning and are student-centered, teachers have a dialogue with students to help them construct their own knowledge, they root in negotiation, and students work primarily in groups.

Constructivist classrooms often have teachers who do small group work, collaborative and interactive activities, and open dialogues about what students need in order to find success.

The biggest criticism of constructivist learning is its lack of structure. Some students need highly structured and organized learning environments to thrive, and constructivist learning focuses on a more laid-back method to help students engage in their own learning.

Grading is often removed from constructivist classrooms and places more value on student progress, which can lead to students falling behind and not meeting standardized grading requirements.

If you are hoping to become a teacher, a degree is crucial to getting on the right path. Additionally, it's valuable for teachers to understand different learning theories and how they impact their classroom and their students.

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Constructivism is an important learning theory based on the idea that learners build on their existing foundation to learn new information. Learn more about constructivism and how it impacts education.

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Transfer of Learning - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

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Robert E. Haskell, in Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, 2004

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Big Ideas and Links to Theories Overview F 09

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Ten Cornerstones of Cognitive Learning Sciences

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Ten Cornerstones of Cognitive Learning Sciences

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Ten Cornerstones of Cognitive Learning Sciences 19

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Learn: The growth mindset (article) | Khan Academy

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It should. Information Processing Theory uses a computer model to describe human learning. Information comes in, it gets processed, and then it gets stored and retrieved.

Of course this is an oversimplification of human learning, but it gives us a good overview and simile by using the computer model. (In other words, this theory takes advantage of our computer schemas to help us understand it.) Here is a simplified breakdown of the process:

Step 1: Information is sensed and registered. In human terms, this means that we sense, or perceive, something in our environment and it and a decision is made as to whether or not to attend to it. Is it important? Is it stimulating? Is it perceivable?

Step 2: Information is momentarily held in short-term, or working, memory. Fairly robust research indicates that we can hold approximately 7 "chunks" of information at any one time in working memory. If the information is not rehearsed or otherwise actively used, it is likely to be lost.

Step 3: Information is encoded and put in long-term memory. Encoding occurs while information is in working memory, often by connecting it to existing knowledge (or schemas). Well-organized information is easier to encode because it will be "filed" in a more easily findable location.

Step 4: Information is retrieved. Depending on how well it was encoded (which largely has to do with how much it was worked with in working memory), information is retrieved with the right environmental cues.

Throughout: Executive functioning is at work. The executive function plays many roles, mainly that have to do with self-regulation. The executive function is responsible for maintaining attention, planning ahead, organization of thoughts, task completion, adaptation to unexpected changes or obstacles, and emotion regulation. Some of this is controlled by the individual (e.g., individuals with ADHD have more difficulty maintaining attention) and some is determined by the nature of the information and task (Is it interesting? Is it active? Is it well organized?).

What can I do to ensure information is stored and retrievable?
1. Work to sustain students' attention.

Provide a "break" every 10-15 minutes. Even the best students' attention wanes after about 15 minutes. Try to plan class time or lectures in "chunks" of about 15 minutes, at which point you should provide students with a break. The "break" does not mean a break from thinking - simply a break from one activity by beginning another. For example, you might show a demonstration of your concept on a DVD or internet clip, or you could have students discuss the concept with one another for a few minutes. Taking breaks serves to hit the "refresh" button on students' attention.

Keep students active in the learning process. Instead of just listening to information, are there ways they can learn it more actively? For example, you might have a discussion about the concept, coaching students as they work through their understanding. You might have them try to find the solution to the problem. When students are active, they will naturally be more attentive.

Explicitly draw attention to the most important concepts. By simply stating, "This is important - you need to understand this," students' attention will at least momentarily become focused. ( Warning: Although, "This will be on the test," will certainly gain students' attention, it promotes an extrinsic motivation orientation rather than anintrinsically motivated mastery orientation. It is better practice to emphasize the information's importance because of the value of the knowledge to the individual.)

2. Get the working memory working.

Provide opportunities for students to actively work with the course information. In class, out of class, or online, there are many strategies that can get students to think more deeply about information. Some possibilities include: Discussions (in pairs, small groups, or with the whole class), worksheets, informal quizzes, written student summaries (e.g., 1-minute papers), case studies, problem sets, and larger projects.

Encourage student organization of their thoughts. As a method that both gets students thinking about material and helps them organize it, consider having them chart, map, or write an outline of the concept - some activity that requires them to organize the information.

"Memory is the residue of thought."
(Willingham, 2009)
3. Organize information for better storage and retrieval.

Provide an overview of the lesson. For example, you might wish to put up an outline of the lesson for the day.

Map concepts as you go. This need not be done in a formal map; simply organize information visually for students using circles, lines, and boxes (or tables) to assist them with understanding the relationships among concepts.

Explicitly point out relationships between new information and information students already know. This strategy helps students understand how new concepts fit into the organization of concepts with which they are already familiar.

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How to present information so humans can remember and learn it.

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How does the mind work-and especially, how does it learn? Teachers' instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on?
Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field of researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind. In this regular American Educator column, we consider findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application.

Question: Growth mindset has become a wildly popular theory in the last 15 years, due not only to a book that has sold more than 2 million copies ¹ and a TED Talk that's been viewed more than 14 million times ² but also to countless professional development sessions, Pinterest boards, and blog posts. It's no wonder that in a 2016 survey of American teachers, just 4 percent said they were "completely unfamiliar" with mindset theory. ³

Is there any substance behind the hype?

Answer: In this article, I'll review research suggesting that there's good evidence for the psychological validity of the theory and that the theory can be used to help students. But the theory is highly focused, and its target is broad. While mindset theory addresses one aspect of student motivation (which is affected by many other things), student success is determined not just by motivation, but by other factors as well. Hence, even if we develop an intervention that increases growth mindset, we should expect that these other factors-the school or classroom context, for example-will influence both the size of that increase and the impact it has on students' learning. In short, increasing children's growth mindsets may be beneficial, but it's not a silver bullet solution to motivation, and the challenge of changing mindsets should not be underestimated.

From the 1910s until about 1960, American psychologists did not include mental life in their theories; they focused on behavior that could be observed because that was deemed to guarantee objectivity and rigor. ⁴ To the extent that researchers considered motivation, they thought of it as a response to rewards and punishments in the classroom, or as an internal "drive" that a student either had or didn't have. But theoretical developments and data gathered in the 1950s made it increasingly obvious that some aspects of people's behavior were difficult to explain without including their thoughts. ⁵

Mindset theory grew out of this perspective. In the early 1970s, psychology professor Carol Dweck suggested that your persistence on a task is not determined solely by your success or failure, but by how you interpret setbacks, ⁶ which in turn is shaped by your beliefs about intelligence. ⁷ If you believe intelligence is fixed-you're born with an amount of smarts that can't really be changed-then how well you do on intellectual tasks shows how much you have of that fixed quality. But that's not true if you believe intelligence can be developed. If you can get smarter by working harder or using new strategies, poor performance on a task doesn't mean you're less intelligent; it just means you haven't learned that particular content or skill yet.

The theory suggests that your belief about intelligence predicts not only how you interpret setbacks, but also the types of tasks you're likely to select. If you think intelligence is fixed and task performance reveals your intelligence, then you're motivated to select easy tasks so that you'll look smart. But if you think intelligence can be developed and task performance reveals your level of mastery, then you're more likely to select challenging tasks that allow you to learn something new. Thus, we might expect people with a growth mindset to show greater academic achievement than those with a fixed mindset because they more often take on challenging tasks, and because they are more likely to persist in those tasks when they fail.

Early Research

In the 1980s and 1990s, Dweck and her collaborators conducted research to test these predictions, and the results were encouraging. In one study, researchers told children that it was important to succeed in a task. ⁸ Some children were led to believe that they were not very good at the task, and they essentially stopped trying. They thought that their mistakes meant they couldn't succeed. Other children were told that they were doing the task well; the researcher told these children that they must have had a lot of ability for the task. These children worked hard-they wanted to maintain their success-but they also passed up the opportunity to learn more. Given a choice between easy or more challenging versions of the task, they picked the easy version to be sure that they continued to succeed.

A third group of children was told that the main purpose of the task was to learn rather than to perform well. For them, it didn't matter whether they thought their current level of skill was high or low. They persisted, and given a choice, they opted for more challenging versions of the task; they wanted to learn from their mistakes.

Other work from Dweck's team explored why children might pick a goal-to learn or to perform well-when the experimenter hadn't explicitly guided them toward one. ⁹ In one experiment, fifth-graders worked a set of 10 problems and all were told they had done well. In addition, some were praised for their intelligence ("You must be smart at these problems"), whereas others were praised for their effort ("You must have tried hard on these problems"). Yet others were given no further feedback. The children were then given the chance to select problems that were described as easy (and which they'd probably get right), or problems they'd learn a lot from (even if they would not "look so smart").

The results were striking: children praised for their intelligence chose easy problems-they wanted to succeed and worried about looking unintelligent. Children praised for their effort chose difficult tasks because they wanted to learn. And when given a choice between discovering how other children performed on the problems or learning new strategies for solving the problems, the children praised for their intelligence wanted to know how others performed. Children praised for effort, in contrast, wanted to learn new strategies.

What's behind this effect? Dweck and her research team thought that different types of praise can carry different messages to children about intelligence. Being "smart at these problems" implies that "smart" is an intrinsic characteristic of the child-thus, working hard has little effect. Also implied is that because smart people just do well at things, the way to show that you're smart is through success. "You must have worked hard at these problems," in contrast, implies that success is due to what the child does, not what the child is -thus, children get smarter by working hard.

In other experiments, Dweck and her colleagues showed that the different types of praise did indeed change children's view of intelligence, which was measured by their agreement with statements like, "You have a certain amount of intelligence and really can't do much to change it."

It seems obvious that if a growth mindset prompts you to select challenging work, to learn from your mistakes, and to persist in the face of difficulty, you'll do better in school with a growth mindset than with a fixed mindset. That prediction was examined in a group of 373 New York City middle schoolers and was supported. ¹⁰ The math grades of those with a growth mindset improved during seventh and eighth grades, whereas the grades of those with a fixed mindset stayed flat.

But that's a correlation, of course, and we know that correlation is not causation; we need to change students from a fixed to a growth mindset to properly test the theory. This last piece of the puzzle seemed to fall into place neatly. In one experiment, college students participated in a pen pal program for struggling middle school students. ¹¹ Some were told to write to students about "what research is revealing about human intelligence." In fact, this was the intervention aimed to prompt a growth mindset in the college students. And indeed, end-of-year grades were higher for students in whom a growth mindset had been prompted than in students who were not exposed to the intervention.

Conflicting Data

You probably know what happened next: in the late aughts, growth mindset exploded in popularity among educators. Today, searching "growth mindset" on Amazon yields over 2,000 hits, with products like workbooks for children, bulletin board displays, growth mindset journals, DVD training courses, motivational wall art, children's books, and more. That popularity seems to have been matched in schools, as more than 90 percent of American teachers know about the theory.

But while the growth mindset juggernaut gathered momentum, researchers continued to test the predictions, and the data concerned them. Some researchers who sought to develop growth mindsets in students did observe the predicted outcomes, ¹² but others did not. One team of researchers sought to replicate the Dweck study described above, in which fifth-graders chose between performing well and learning more; although they used a large sample and tried to match the original method, they obtained mixed results. ¹³ Other researchers did too. ¹⁴ Large-scale growth mindset interventions in England ¹⁵ and Argentina ¹⁶ reported no effects, but an intervention in Peru ¹⁷ did seem effective.

One might suggest that the theory is right, but some of the interventions were just not carried out properly. For example, in the Argentinian study, the researchers adapted a multisession intervention designed for American seventh-graders and administered it to Argentinian 12th-graders in a single session. There's little information about the changes made, but the researchers reported that student attitudes were unaffected, so it's no surprise that outcomes such as grades were also unaffected.

Still, you don't need to induce a growth mindset to test whether people who already have a growth mindset (for whatever reason) have higher academic achievement, and that's usually observed. True, one study showed no association between growth mindset and performance on a Czech college entrance exam in 5,653 students. ¹⁸ But another study ¹⁹ reported a positive relationship between a growth mindset and academic achievement in a nationally representative sample of US ninth-graders, as did a study that examined Chilean 10th-graders' scores on national standardized assessments in language and math. ²⁰ And in another study of 221,840 fourth- through seventh-grade students in California, growth mindset predicted achievement gains after controlling for student background, previous achievement, and other social-emotional skills. ²¹

Why does a growth mindset only appear beneficial in some studies? A possibility suggested by some researchers is that the theory is just wrong, and the studies that seem to support it are flukes ²² -but the expected correlational finding (increased achievement) has usually been observed, which indicates this is not the case.

A second possibility is that the theory is right, but changing growth mindset isn't easy. Many researchers have not been careful to follow successful methods used by others and have instead created their own interventions based on their reading of the theory. Here's an incomplete list of the methods researchers have used:

Sending an informational pamphlet home with students²³

Sending a letter to parents²⁴

Developing an online intervention for students²⁵

Asking students to read about growth mindset and write a letter to someone else about it²⁶

Having students read articles about "brain science"²⁷

Having students read about Einstein (because of his reputation as a genius) or Edison (because of his reputation as a hard worker)²⁸

Like these researchers, some teachers seem to not realize how much effort creating a growth mindset requires. Dweck, in a 2015 op-ed, expressed concern that attempts to bring a growth mindset to classrooms emphasized effort but excluded the other components of the theory. ²⁹ In short, students were praised so long as they tried. She pointed out that a growth mindset is a strategy for dealing with setbacks; it calls for gathering feedback about what went wrong, carefully considering that feedback, and developing new strategies for the failed task. Praising the effort of a child who just failed (without emphasizing feedback and strategies) may carry the perverse implicit message that the praise is offered as a consolation prize because the adult believes that child cannot succeed.

A third reason the effect of a growth mindset may seem to come and go is that lots of other factors influence student outcomes. Mindset and achievement may be related, but the effect might appear large, small, or absent depending on those other factors.

This interpretation is supported by the largest study to examine growth mindset and achievement, conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as part of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) testing program. ³⁰ About 500,000 15-year-old students were asked how much they agreed with the statement "Your intelligence is something about you that you can't change very much." Those who agreed (and thus have a fixed mindset) scored, on average, 32 points lower on the reading portion of the PISA than those who disagreed (after statistically accounting for the socioeconomic profiles of students and schools). Holding a growth mindset was positively associated with students setting higher learning goals, students' motivation to master tasks, and students perceiving value in going to school-and as growth mindset increased, fear of failure decreased.

But breaking the data down by country revealed enormous variability in these findings. In some countries, the effects were large, and in others, nonexistent. No wonder, then, that studies of a few hundred or even a few thousand children in one location or another sometimes show a strong relationship between growth mindset and academic achievement and other times do not. The size of this relationship must depend on other factors.

Refining the Intervention

The last five years has seen an attempt to address both problems: to develop a growth mindset intervention that is carefully constructed to maximize its effectiveness and to explore the effects of other factors that interact with growth mindset in the hopes of developing an intervention that is effective in many contexts. ³¹

Researchers first set out to develop an intervention that stood the best chance of working consistently at scale-that is, one that could be administered to thousands of students in a school district or university. Many of the successful interventions had used trained instructors, but that method is prohibitively expensive at scale. An online intervention seemed the best way to reach many students.

The strategy to develop the online intervention was painstaking. Rather than simply creating what they hoped would be an effective intervention and then conducting their experiment, researchers used an iterative process. They started with an intervention that had been successful ³² and then interviewed students to get feedback on what they found engaging or boring, clear or confusing, and so on. ³³ These interviews inspired changes to the existing intervention, whereupon researchers compared the new version with the old to see which had the greater effect on growth mindset. Researchers then interviewed students about their reactions to the new intervention, which was then further refined as necessary.

When researchers had an online version they thought was effective, they administered it to 7,335 students entering a public university. Not only did the intervention increase growth mindset, but by year's end the dropout rate among socially and economically disadvantaged students was lower for those in the intervention group compared to the control group. ³⁴

The effectiveness of the intervention was replicated in a study involving nearly all the high schools in two counties in Norway, a total of 6,451 students. ³⁵ There, too, the intervention increased growth mindset, and it prompted students to enroll in more difficult math classes the following year.

The Role of Context

These data showed the value of continued refinement of an intervention, but they did not address questions about other factors that impact whether (or to what extent) developing a growth mindset is beneficial. That issue was tackled in a 2019 study that tested the effectiveness of the online intervention in a nationally representative sample of 12,490 ninth-graders attending 65 schools. ³⁶ The researchers adjusted the intervention to match the concerns (and reading levels) of ninth-graders; as before, they interviewed students and conducted small-scale studies to be sure that the new materials were effective in creating a growth mindset. They employed independent contractors to recruit the schools, administer the intervention, and collect the data to eliminate any possibility that the researchers would unwittingly influence the results.

As in previous studies, the intervention increased students' growth mindset, and it increased the GPA of lower-achieving students by an average of 0.10 grade points (on a 4.0 scale) in core classes, a substantial increase in the context of educational interventions. The researchers sought to determine why the intervention had a larger or smaller impact at different schools-for instance, why the impact on grades was smaller at schools with high average achievement. They speculated that these schools typically enjoy such ample resources that the growth mindset intervention just couldn't add much to grades. But students in those schools were more likely to take more advanced math classes the following year-an effect that was not as strong at the schools with lower average achievement.

The researchers also examined the effect of peers-specifically, the extent to which peers think it's acceptable or a good idea to ask challenging questions in school. This was measured by having students construct a math worksheet from a selection of problems that they were told varied in difficulty. The growth mindset intervention had a bigger impact on individuals whose peers tended (on average) to pick difficult questions for the math worksheet. Why? Having a growth mindset means asking hard questions, so being surrounded by people who do the same makes it easier to act on a growth mindset. (Consider how hard it would be to maintain a growth mindset if your requests for more challenging work were met by your peers' scorn.)

Another analysis of this dataset examined whether the teacher's mindset had an impact on the relationship of growth mindset and math grades. ³⁷ The results showed that prompting a growth mindset in students did not affect their grades if their teacher had a fixed mindset. But if the teacher had a growth mindset, student math grades increased by an average of 0.11 grade points (on a 4.0 scale). It's not hard to imagine teacher behaviors that could amplify or crush the effect of a student growth mindset. Teachers with a growth mindset might convey to students the attitude that mistakes are opportunities for learning, and they might use assignments that explicitly reward continual improvement. Teachers with a fixed mindset, in contrast, might convey harmful messages like "some of us are math people and others just aren't."

The study of Norwegian high school students examined another potential context effect of growth mindset. ³⁸ Some students had already selected their classes for the following year when they completed the online intervention, whereas others had not. Recall that a growth mindset is predicted to make students more likely to select challenging work. But if a student had already selected classes for the following year, then selecting more challenging work might require going through the bureaucratic hassle of changing their course registration. As predicted, the growth mindset intervention was more likely to prompt students to take more difficult math courses in schools where students had not yet picked classes for the following year. There was still an impact of the intervention if they had already registered for the next year's classes, but the effect was smaller.

What Does This Mean for Educators?

Is it worth trying to promote a growth mindset in students? Yes. The effect may seem small, but it's in the range of lots of education effects. We know there aren't any silver bullets. We have to take many small steps with the expectation that each will make a small contribution to greater student success.

What's more, we should not accept or reject steps solely based on the expected effect size. We also need to consider the cost to students and to educators, and that is where growth mindset is a real bargain. The web-based intervention that has been the most consistently successful requires little time from teachers and just two 25-minute sessions from students. (Dweck and her colleagues have created free materials for teachers and families; visit mindsetkit.org.)

There's another way that growth mindset research can influence education. It is inevitable that students will have setbacks and that educators will talk with students about them. Research on growth mindset offers a useful set of principles to guide such conversations. It's not enough to believe "all students can learn." Teachers must act in ways that are consistent with that belief, especially when it comes to the behaviors they encourage and praise.

Growth mindset suggests three concrete steps for educators when a student suffers an academic setback:

1. Encourage students to seek feedback about what went wrong.

2. Encourage students to analyze these errors and use them as opportunities for learning.

3. Encourage students to think of ways they might do things differently when they try again.

The context effects reviewed here also provide helpful guidance-or, more likely, a reminder for educators to engage in practices they already know to be beneficial. A growth mindset has a larger impact when peers think it is appropriate to engage in challenging work. It also has a bigger impact when the environment makes it easier to act on a growth mindset-for example, when it is easier to take on challenging coursework. And students' growth mindsets may have no impact at all if their teachers have fixed mindsets.

Over the last decade, I've talked to many teachers who feel that they've been harangued on the subject of growth mindset, and they are tired of it. But students' beliefs-and your beliefs-about intelligence do have an impact, and the question of how to deal with student failure comes up in every classroom. There's good reason for you to put the research to work.

Daniel T. Willingham is a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books, including Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy. Readers can pose questions to "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" by sending an email to ae@aft.org. Future columns will try to address readers' questions.

Endnotes

1. C. Dweck, Mindset: The New Science of Success (New York: Ballantine, 2008).

2. C. Dweck, "The Power of Believing That You Can Improve," TED Talk, December 17, 2014.

3. H. Yettick et al., Mindset in the Classroom: A National Study of K-12 Teachers (Bethesda, MD: Education Week Research Center, 2016).

4. J. Watson, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It," Psychological Review 20, no. 2 (1913): 158-77.

5. H. Gardner, The Mind's New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985).

6. C. Dweck and N. Reppucci, "Learned Helplessness and Reinforcement Responsibility in Children," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 25, no. 1 (1973): 109-16.

7. C. Dweck and E. Leggett, "A Social-Cognitive Approach to Motivation and Personality," Psychological Review 95, no. 2 (1988): 256-73.

8. E. Elliott and C. Dweck, "Goals: An Approach to Motivation and Achievement," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54, no. 1 (1988): 5-12.

9. C. Mueller and C. Dweck, "Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75, no. 1 (1998): 33-52.

10. L. Blackwell, K. Trzesniewski, and C. Dweck, "Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement Across an Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an Intervention," Child Development 78, no. 1 (2007): 246-63.

11. J. Aronson, C. Fried, and C. Good, "Reducing the Effects of Stereotype Threat on African American College Students by Shaping Theories of Intelligence," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38, no. 2 (2002): 113-25.

12. K. Bostwick and K. Becker-Blease, "Quick, Easy Mindset Intervention Can Boost Academic Achievement in Large Introductory Psychology Classes," Psychology Learning and Teaching 17, no. 2 (2018): 177-93; and C. Good, J. Aronson, and M. Inzlicht, "Improving Adolescents' Standardized Test Performance: An Intervention to Reduce the Effects of Stereotype Threat," Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 24, no. 6 (2003): 645-62.

13. Y. Li and T. Bates, "You Can't Change Your Basic Ability, but You Work at Things, and That's How We Get Hard Things Done: Testing the Role of Growth Mindset on Response to Setbacks, Educational Attainment, and Cognitive Ability," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148, no. 9 (2019): 1640-55.

14. A. Burgoyne, D. Hambrick, and B. Macnamara, "How Firm Are the Foundations of Mind-Set Theory? The Claims Appear Stronger Than the Evidence," Psychological Science 31, no. 3 (2020): 258-67.

15. C. Rienzo, H. Rolfe, and D. Wilkinson, "Changing Mindsets: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary," National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Education Endowment Foundation, June 2015.

16. A. Ganimian, "Growth-Mindset Interventions at Scale: Experimental Evidence from Argentina," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 42, no. 3 (2020): 417-38.

17. I. Outes-Leon, A. Sanchez, and R. Vakis, "The Power of Believing You Can Get Smarter: The Impact of a Growth-Mindset Intervention on Academic Achievement in Peru," Policy Research Working Paper no. 9141, World Bank, February 2020.

18. Š. Bahník and M. Vranka, "Growth Mindset Is Not Associated with Scholastic Aptitude in a Large Sample of University Applicants," Personality and Individual Differences 117 (October 2017): 139-43.

19. M. Destin et al., "Do Student Mindsets Differ by Socioeconomic Status and Explain Disparities in Academic Achievement in the United States?," AERA Open 5, no. 3 (2019): 233285841985770.

20. S. Claro, D. Paunesku, and C. Dweck, "Growth Mindset Tempers the Effects of Poverty on Academic Achievement," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113, no. 31 (2016): 8664-68.

21. S. Claro and S. Loeb, "Students with Growth Mindset Learn More in School: Evidence from California's CORE School Districts," working paper, Policy Analysis for California Education, October 2019.

22. Li and Bates, "You Can't Change Your Basic Ability"; and B. Macnamara and N. Rupani, "The Relationship Between Intelligence and Mindset," Intelligence 64 (September 2017): 52-59.

23. S. Andersen and H. Nielsen, "Reading Intervention with a Growth Mindset Approach Improves Children's Skills," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113, no. 43 (2016): 12111-13.

24. Bostwick and Becker-Blease, "Quick, Easy Mindset Intervention."

25. C. Brez et al., "Failure to Replicate: Testing a Growth Mindset Intervention for College Student Success," Basic and Applied Social Psychology 42, no. 6 (2020): 460-68; and J. Burnette et al., "A Growth Mind-Set Intervention Improves Interest but Not Academic Performance in the Field of Computer Science," Social Psychological and Personality Science 11, no. 1 (2020): 107-16.

26. J. Aronson, C. Fried, and C. Good, "Reducing the Effects of Stereotype Threat on African American College Students by Shaping Theories of Intelligence," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38, no. 2 (2002): 113-25; Ganimian, "Growth-Mindset Interventions at Scale"; and Outes-Leon, Sanchez, and Vakis, "The Power of Believing."

27. M. Broda et al., "Reducing Inequality in Academic Success for Incoming College Students: A Randomized Trial of Growth Mindset and Belonging Interventions," Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 11, no. 3 (2018): 317-38; and Y. Peng and J. Tullis, "Theories of Intelligence Influence Self-Regulated Study Choices and Learning," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition 46, no. 3 (2019): 487-96.

28. D. Hu et al., "Not All Scientists Are Equal: Role Aspirants Influence Role Modeling Outcomes in STEM," Basic and Applied Social Psychology 42, no. 3 (2020): 192-208.

29. C. Dweck, "Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset,'" Education Week, September 22, 2015.

30.Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, PISA 2018 Results (Volume III): What School Life Means for Students' Lives (Paris: PISA, OECD Publishing, 2019).

31. C. Bryan, E. Tipton, and D. Yeager, "Behavioural Science Is Unlikely to Change the World Without a Heterogeneity Revolution," Nature Human Behaviour 5, no. 8 (2021): 980-89.

32. D. Paunesku et al., "Mind-Set Interventions Are a Scalable Treatment for Academic Underachievement," Psychological Science 26, no. 6 (April 2015): 784-93.

33. D. Yeager et al., "Using Design Thinking to Improve Psychological Interventions: The Case of the Growth Mindset During the Transition to High School," Journal of Educational Psychology 108, no. 3 (2016): 374-91.

34. D. Yeager et al., "Teaching a Lay Theory Before College Narrows Achievement Gaps at Scale," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 24 (June 2016).

35. M. Rege et al., "How Can We Inspire Nations of Learners? An Investigation of Growth Mindset and Challenge-Seeking in Two Countries," American Psychologist 76, no. 5 (2021): 755-67.

36. D. Yeager, "A National Experiment Reveals Where a Growth Mindset Improves Achievement," Nature 573, no. 7774 (2019): 364-69.

37. D. Yeager et al., "Teacher Mindsets Help Explain Where a Growth-Mindset Intervention Does and Doesn't Work," Psychological Science 33, no. 1 (2022): 18-32.

38. Rege et al., "How Can We Inspire?"

[Illustrations by James Yang]

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Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Does Developing a Growth Mindset Help Students Learn?

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How does the mind work-and especially, how does it learn? Teachers' instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on?

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Cognitive psychology sees the individual as a processor of information, in much the same way that a computer takes in information and follows a program to produce an output.

Basic Assumptions

The information processing approach is based on several assumptions, including:

1. Information made available by the environment is processed by a series of processing systems (e.g., attention, perception, short-term memory);

2. These processing systems transform or alter the information in systematic ways;

3. The research aims to specify the processes and structures that underlie cognitive performance;

4. Information processing in humans resembles that in computers.

Computer-Mind Analogy

The development of the computer in the 1950s and 1960s had an important influence on psychology. It was, in part, responsible for the cognitive approach becoming the dominant approach in modern psychology (taking over from Behaviorism).

The computer gave cognitive psychologists a metaphor, or analogy, to which they could compare human mental processing. The use of the computer as a tool for thinking about how the human mind handles information is known as the computer analogy.

Essentially, a computer codes (i.e., changes) information, stores information, uses information and produces an output (retrieves info).

The idea of information processing was adopted by cognitive psychologists as a model of how human thought works.

For example, the eye receives visual information and codes information into electric neural activity, which is fed back to the brain where it is "stored" and "coded."

This information can be used by other parts of the brain relating to mental activities such as memory, perception, and attention. The output (i.e., behavior) might be, for example, to read what you can see on a printed page.

Hence the information processing approach characterizes thinking as the environment providing input of data, which is then transformed by our senses.

The information can be stored, retrieved, and transformed using "mental programs," with the results being behavioral responses.

Cognitive psychology has influenced and integrated with many other approaches and areas of study to produce, for example, social learning theory, cognitive neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Information Processing Model of Memory

When we selectively attend to one activity, we tend to ignore other stimulation. However, our attention can be distracted by something else, like the telephone ringing or someone using our name.

Psychologists are interested in what makes us attend to one thing rather than another ( selective attention), why we sometimes switch our attention to something that was previously unattended (e.g., Cocktail Party Syndrome), and how many things we can attend to at the same time (attentional capacity).

One way of conceptualizing attention is to think of humans as information processors who can only process a limited amount of information at a time without becoming overloaded.

Broadbent and others in the 1950s adopted a model of the brain as a limited capacity information processing system through which external input is transmitted.

The information processing model of memory consists of a series of stages, or boxes, representing stages of processing. Arrows indicate the flow of information from one stage to the next.

Input processes are concerned with the analysis of the stimuli.

Storage processes cover everything that happens to stimuli internally in the brain and can include coding and manipulation of the stimuli.

Output processes are responsible for preparing an appropriate response to a stimulus.

Critical Evaluation

A number of models of attention within the Information Processing framework have been proposed, including:

Broadbent's Filter Model (1958), Treisman's Attenuation Model (1964), and Deutsch and Deutsch's Late Selection Model (1963).

However, there are a number of evaluative points to bear in mind when studying these models and the information processing approach in general. These include:

1. The information processing models assume serial processing of stimulus inputs.

Serial processing effectively means one process has to be completed before the next starts.

Parallel processing assumes some or all processes involved in a cognitive task(s) occur at the same time.

There is evidence from dual-task experiments that parallel processing is possible. It is difficult to determine whether a particular task is processed in a serial or parallel fashion as it probably depends (a) on the processes required to solve a task and (b) the amount of practice on a task.

Parallel processing is probably more frequent when someone is highly skilled; for example, a skilled typist thinks several letters ahead, while a novice focuses on just one letter at a time.

2. The analogy between human cognition and computer functioning adopted by the information processing approach is limited.

Computers can be regarded as information processing systems insofar as they:

1. Combine information presented with the stored information to provide solutions to a variety of problems, and

2. Most computers have a central processor of limited capacity, and it is usually assumed that capacity limitations affect the human attentional system.

BUT -

1. The human brain has the capacity for extensive parallel processing, and computers often rely on serial processing;

2. Humans are influenced in their cognitions by a number of conflicting emotional and motivational factors.

3. The evidence for the theories/models of attention that come under the information processing approach is largely based on experiments under controlled, scientific conditions.

Most laboratory studies are artificial and could be said to lack ecological validity.

In everyday life, cognitive processes are often linked to a goal (e.g., you pay attention in class because you want to pass the examination), whereas in the laboratory, the experiments are carried out in isolation from other cognitive and motivational factors.

Although these laboratory experiments are easy to interpret, the data may not apply to the real world outside the laboratory. More recently, ecologically valid approaches to cognition have been proposed (e.g., the Perceptual Cycle, Neisser, 1976).

Attention has been studied largely in isolation from other cognitive processes, although clearly, it operates as an interdependent system with the related cognitive processes of perception and memory.

The more successful we become at examining part of the cognitive system in isolation, the less our data are likely to tell us about cognition in everyday life.

4. Although it is agreed that stimulus-driven (bottom-up) information in cognition is important, what the individual brings to the task regarding expectations/past experiences is also important.

These influences are known as "top-down" or "conceptually-driven" processes. For example, read the triangle below:

Expectation ( top-down processing) often overrides information actually available in the stimulus ( bottom-up), which we are, supposedly, attending to. How did you read the text in the triangle above?

References

Broadbent, D. (1958). Perception and Communication. London: Pergamon Press.

Deutsch, J. A., & Deutsch, D. (1963). Attention: Some Theoretical Considerations. Psychological Review, 70, 80-90

Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Treisman, A. (1964). Selective attention in man. British Medical Bulletin, 20, 12-16.

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Information Processing Theory In Psychology

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Information Processing Theory explains human thinking as a series of steps similar to how computers process information, including receiving input, interpreting sensory information, organizing data, forming mental representations, retrieving info from memory, making decisions, and giving output.

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Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

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Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predictor of success.

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Growth Mindset Introduction: What it is, How it Works, and Why it Matters

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But spacing your learning requires advance planning. If you have the summer off, then now is the best time to plan for spaced practice in the Fall.
How should you space your learning?

Start planning early - the beginning of the semester, or even earlier. Set aside a bit of time every day, just for studying, even if your exams are months away. This may seem strange at first, if you are used to cramming right before an exam; but it's just a new habit that you will get used to if you persevere.

Review information from each class, but not immediately after class. A good way to do this is to reserve some time one day after each of your classes meet. For example, if you have classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you might review the information on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday respectively for each of those classes.

Spacing your learning doesn't mean you won't be studying at all right before the exam. You can still study up until the exam - but instead of only studying then, spread it out so that you're studying days and weeks before the exam as well. You'll spend less time and learn more, in the short-term and in the long-term.

What should you do during these short learning sessions?
It's important that you don't just sit down and re-read your notes. Instead, you should use effective learning strategies such as retrieval practice or elaboration.

After you study information from the most recent class, make sure to go back and study important older information to keep it fresh.

This may seem difficult and you may forget some information from day to day, but this is actually a good thing! You need to forget a little bit in order to benefit from spaced practice - see this guest post for an explanation.

Create small spaces (e.g., a few days) between your study sessions, and do a little bit at a time, so that it adds up!
"But, but...cramming works!"
If you're reading this and you're skeptical because cramming has worked just fine for you in the past, here's why. Cramming can, indeed, do exactly what it suggests - cram information into your mind right before an exam. However, there are at least three really big problems with this.

1. First, cramming actually takes more time. Think about it: if you learn more in the same amount of time spaced out (e.g., 5 hours in 1-hour increments compared to one 5-hour cram session), then you have to spend more time during the cramming session to get to the same level of learning.

2. Second, as quickly as you learned that information, you will then also forget it. You may do fine on the test, but all that extra time you spent during cramming? It will all have been wasted. If you had spaced your learning, you would forget much less after the test. No matter what you are learning - science, math, a foreign language - future learning will depend on previous learning. It is therefore very inefficient to forget everything you learned for one test, only to have to re-learn it again later along with new, more complicated information! This also applies to future classes, where it might be helpful to retain knowledge from a previous class.

3. Another reason why cramming is a bad idea is that it inevitably replaces sleep, which is very important for learning and also for your mental and physical health more generally. So, resolve to form a healthy habit today and plan to space your learning!

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This is the third post in a series designed to help students learn how to study effectively. You can find the first post here and the second post here. The purpose is to provide students with a resource that can help them take charge of their own learning. Today's ...

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So, what time delay should I build in to my teaching?
In many courses taught to adolescents, learning typically proceeds in blocks or units. Splitting these into several smaller blocks would be a relatively pain-free tweak for a teacher to make. For example, if 5 topics were taught over a few weeks each, these could instead be interspersed throughout the year.
My classroom practice and the issue of knowledge level
However, the issue of how to apply spacing in our classrooms is actually far from obvious when you begin to delve into the details. For starters, how much of a time delay is best? Is there such a thing as too much spacing? This question is difficult to study in the classroom because there are so many other variables at play, and it should be noted that the bulk of the research on this topic is lab-based.

Nevertheless, it is likely that many teachers are revisiting topics too soon. In an experimental study of spacing with delays of up to a year, One study recommended leaving a gap before reviewing of around 20-30% of the time between first studying something and the final test/exam ( 8). If, for example, an exam was 6 months away, this would suggest that conducting a review activity/revision quiz after a month or so would be preferable to doing so within a few days of first studying the material. They also caution that the optimal gap will differ based on many parameters, and while a gap can be longer than optimal, this is preferable compared to a gap that is too short!

I have started to try out spacing in my own classroom. In my first classroom study, I took advantage of a naturally occurring break in classes for exam leave, allowing me to measure learning when there was a gap between two lessons compare to two lessons in the same week. Although results were promising, I found it hard to reliably and fully measure outcomes from an entire 1-hour lesson, as so many other factors come into play, leading to 'noise' and possible confounds in the data. I therefore moved on to studying performance on a much shorter learning task - something that takes just a few minutes and contains a few specific facts to master. These facts can then be re-studied either immediately, later in the same lesson, or after a delay of a week or more. The initial results I'm finding suggest that the largest spacing is optimal - although I need more time before I can gauge the long-term benefits!
To read more about how other teachers use interleaving in the classroom, check out our Weekly Digest on this topic. References:
As I have been working on my classroom research, I have also noticed that spacing appears to have a more beneficial effect towards the end of a topic than at the beginning. It could be the case that the optimal amount of spacing interacts with how well developed the learner's overall knowledge is - if newer to a topic, forgetting will be more rapid, so the delay before a repetition or practice quiz may need to be shorter. I have yet to fully explore this idea, but it is something that I plan to work on over the coming year.

Overall, then, the exact timing may come down to a class's specific needs and the students' prior experience. What is clear is that however you do it, spacing (and interleaving) is generally beneficial. Why not try splitting a topic into two blocks, delaying a review session or homework task, or leaving things unfinished at the end of a lesson? I'd love to hear your experiences.

( 1) Ebbinghaus, H. E. (1964). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology. New York, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1885)

( 2) Bjork, R. A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe and A. Shimamura, (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing (pp. 185-205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

( 3) Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2011). Intricacies of spaced retrieval: A resolution. In: A. S. Benjamin (Ed.) Successful Remembering and Successful Forgetting: Essays in Honor of Robert A. Bjork (pp. 23-47). New York: Psychology Press.

( 4) Dempster, F. N. (1988). The spacing effect: A case study in the failure to apply the results of psychological research. American Psychologist, 43(8), 627-634.

( 5) Kang, S. H. (2016). Spaced repetition promotes efficient and effective learning policy implications for instruction. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(1), 12-19. doi: 10.1177/2372732215624708.

( 6) Rohrer, D., Dedrick, R. F., & Stershic, S. (2015). Interleaved practice improves mathematics learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107, 900-908. doi: 10.1037/edu0000001

( 7) Phillips, N. E., Mills, C., D'Mello, S., & Risko, E. F. (2016). On the influence of re-reading on mind wandering. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1-20.

(8) Cepeda, N. J., Vul, E., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., & Pashler, H. (2008). Spacing effects in learning a temporal ridgeline of optimal retention. Psychological Science, 19(11), 1095-1102.

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Like many teachers, I have become intrigued by the idea that simply by changing the gap between two or more learning activities such as explanations or revision, I can help my students do better - the so-called 'spacing effect'. What wonderful thing is this ...

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The Neuroscience of Learning Design - Moodle Moot US 2016

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One of the major consequences of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a disruption to traditional classroom learning and instruction. And yet, in many ways, the move to remote learning has highlighted what's essential in the classroom (and what's not).

The transition was not easy. A national health emergency in the spring forced the move online, and although educators had more time to plan for online and hybrid classes this fall, they faced many unknowns: changing rates of infection, chaotic decision-making, and more.

But if we examine we are teaching and we are teaching it, rather than and we are teaching, the pandemic has revealed possibilities we had not considered before.

We need to embrace new ways of teaching. We need to stop wishing we were back in a traditional classroom and focus our energy on more powerful learning possibilities and teaching strategies that are now in front of us.

We have learned a lot by going remote, but we could enhance our teaching even more if we leaned into virtual learning. The virtual approach is one we can-and should-take back to the physical classroom when we all return.

What Have We Learned from Going Online?

For me, remote learning has meant trying to re-create the traditional classroom online. Remote learning attempts to reproduce the organization, materials and activities in a different physical space. For example, most schools have continued to organize teachers and students in class groupings and follow modified school schedules, trying to replicate traditional teacher and student interactions in "Zoom classrooms."

Many teachers have been creative in their remote classroom practices and these educators are to be celebrated. Their efforts highlight the essential learning interactions. For example:

The importance of student-teacher relationships. Simple practices like greeting students and being authentic help to build these relationships, as this video celebrates.

The value of student-to-student interactions. Teachers have successfully re-created many of the small-group student learning structures that support collaborative and higher-level learning, as seen in these breakout room examples.

Such remote learning success stories reveal the power of teacher imagination and the importance of innovation when adapting to change.

But what will happen to these remote teaching practices when students and teachers return to the traditional classroom?

Will we use them to include classmates who are at home, sick? Will we use them to connect to students from other communities? Could breakout groups begin to include peers from other schools or other countries?

How Virtual Learning Improves on Remote Learning

Virtual learning is designed to extend educational experiences. It does not try to replicate them. In virtual learning environments, students access resources and interact in ways they would not or could not in the physical classroom.

Many educators use virtual learning and have been for a while. Below are some examples from the WeAreTeachers website:

It is important to highlight that these virtual learning links were designed to show different ways of learning-not to provide a new way of doing the same thing online. Also, these links were created prior to March 2020.

Virtual teaching not only presents opportunities for today's remote learning environments but also promotes new ways of thinking about teaching, learning and the traditional classroom.

I'm advocating for more virtual learning now-and even more when all students and teachers are face-to-face again. And I offer these three reminders:

1. Virtual learning is not "extra" or "same thing, but online." It is a "different learning experience." An important distinction that I'm making with using the term "virtual learning" is that it is not a traditional classroom activity moved online; rather, it is a learning experience integrated within the curriculum that is specifically designed to be experienced online. It lives online regardless of whether a classroom is face-to-face or remote. Students engage in core learning processes and outcomes in a virtual learning instructional sequence, which will require different types of computer technologies.

2. Virtual learning personalizes the student experience. Another key distinction of virtual learning is that it is designed to individualize learning experiences-even though it can be experienced with others. What might that kind of personalization look like? Check out another example from WeAreTeachers.

3. Virtual learning will be new for teachers, too! Teachers need professional development in this instructional approach. For the most part, we prepare teachers to learn new strategies primarily for the brick and mortar classroom. The development of instructional knowledge and strategies needs to be integrated with virtual learning as a pedagogical approach-one in which the classroom walls come down and individual learning pathways for students emerge in virtual spaces.

It may seem like I'm splitting hairs when distinguishing between remote learning and virtual learning. But I believe it is useful to view remote learning as "doing school" by changing the location, whereas virtual learning is "doing school" in a virtual environment regardless of location.

Assuming remote learning ends and we return to the classroom and push the desks back together, what new ways of teaching and learning will we return with? What traditional approaches will we no longer use because we've discovered better ways?

However you choose to answer these questions, this is why I believe we should be focusing on teaching virtually. Virtual learning doesn't depend on location and opens up innovative and new possibilities-ones that can be incorporated into any educational format when students and teachers are fully resourced with 21 st century technology and professional development.

A Final Word on Equity

Whether face-to-face, remote or virtual, the pandemic has exposed the growing inequities in our educational system. We can now more easily see where school funding and community infrastructures have made connecting remotely all but impossible.

While some students have lost educational opportunities due to structural disparities and lack of resources, other students now have at-home tutors or work in learning pods to support and supplement their remote learning. These students' schools are more likely to have the funding so they can continue specials subjects (e.g., art, music, physical education) and participate in extracurriculars.

The "educational debt" that Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings talks about only grows larger. We owe it to all the students not to leave them behind or the impact of the inequities will be with us for generations. It is essential that we not only think about how to return to "normal," but also how we should redesign learning experiences and opportunities to make up for the ones that have been lost to so many students.

Deepen Your Teaching Skills at Elmhurst University

If you have a passion for teaching, develop your skills at Elmhurst University. We offer the M.Ed. in Teacher Leadership and other advanced degree options in education. Use the form below to let us know you are interested!

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Virtual Learning Is the Way Forward for Educators | Elmhurst University Blog

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Virtual learning is better than remote learning. What's the difference? The virtual experience doesn't just try to mimic the traditional school classroom.

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Information Processing Theory Lesson Plan 

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Information Processing Theory Lesson Plan 

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The information processing theory is based on the idea that humans actively process the information they receive from their senses, like a computer does. Learning is what is happening when our brains recieve information, record it, mould it and store it.

In information processing theory, as the student takes in information, that information is first briefly stored as sensory storage; then moved to the short term or working memory; and then either forgotten or transferred to the long term memory, as:

semantic memories (concepts and general information)

procedural memories (processes)

images

For learning to occur, it's critical that information is transferred from the short term memory to the long term memory, because if we have more than seven pieces of information in our short term memory at one time, we get an overload (referred to as cognitive overload).

So how to we avoid cognitive overload with students? If teachers prioritizing the information they give students, they help students to work our the critical elements of the information.

Make sure you have the students' attention, and help students to make connections between new material and what they already know. (Image to the right adapted from Cognitive Approach to Learning.)

Include lesson time for repetition and review of information, present material in a very clear manner, and focus on the meaning of information.

Download document Helping students memorise: Tips from cognitive science

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how students learn: information processing

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How students learn: Information processing

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The information processing theory is based on the idea that humans actively process the information they receive from their senses, like a computer does. Learning is what is happening when our brains recieve information, record it, mould it and store it.

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Welcome to the website! We have created this website for you, a future teacher, to learn more about what we mean by academic language. You may have already learned and will keep learning from your faculty in your program what the expectations of edTPA are for you during student teaching. For now, don't worry about what you do or don't know about the edTPA, just focused on learning the material included on this website.

This site is focused on teaching you more about the four concepts required for you to know for the edTPA section on Academic Language. These concepts are:

Why do I need to know about academic language?

All teachers, whether classroom teachers or content-area teachers, are expected to teach students the language of school. Most of us use very different language when we're communicating informally outside of school. The language that is used in school and required to be successful in school is called "academic language." For many students, school is the only place they are exposed to this more formal and technical language that they need to master to learn any content area material (you can't learn history if you don't know the language of history) or pass any academic tests in school. So no matter what content or grade level you teach, you will need to be able to teach students this magical language of school.

Which students need academic language instruction?

The simple answer is, ALL students need to learn academic language. Some students are exposed to this kind of formal language more at home than others, but fro students to be successful in school, they need to be explicitly thought how the academic language of schooling.

Students specifically at risk for falling behind due to lacking knowledge of academic language are students who come from schools where their parents have a lower level of education, students who are learning English as a second language or students who might speak a different dialect of English at home and in their communities (that is, language dialect different from a white, middle class language, which is the language used and expected in a school context).

How is academic language different from reading, writing and grammar?

As you work yourself through the materials on this website, you will notice that academic language is intrinsically embedded in the language of your content area, not just a skill for communication, such as reading and writing. For example, language of biology is very different from language used in health education. We create meaning through language, thus the language is different in each content area. Material and content that students encounter in school contain specific language features that make learning of that content more challenging. These features are the four concepts we introduced above, namely language functions, academic vocabulary, syntax and discourse.

What is the difference between developmental vs. remedial academic language instruction?

We cannot emphasize this point enough, namely, that you as a teacher are helping all students, all the time, every day, grow and learn skills and content. This is the same with academic language. Instead of thinking that you will help your students with language when they don't get some words, etc. (a remedial focus), you should incorporate a focus on language in each of your lessons (developmental), building on your students' academic language competency continuously, which in turn will help your students master the content and concepts you're trying to teach them even better! Never treat a student as remedial! We believe what others tell us -- if you treat a child who is learning language as remedial, they will see themselves as remedial (something is wrong with me) even though the process of needing to learn is the most natural process in the world. All students are learning! Instead, treat your students as capable and they will believe that they can!

Where is Academic Language in a lesson?

This is an important question, especially for teachers who are unfamiliar with languages, learning another language and what might be challenging in an academic lesson. Academic language is part of many parts of a lesson, namely:

in teaching materials (handouts, lecture, textbook, tests, etc.

in content itself, the concepts you're trying to teach (content standards, learning objectives, ideas in the materials, etc.)

in classroom interaction (directions, responses, conversations, clarifications, questions, answers, etc. )

in tasks and assignments (group work, draw a diagram, solve a math problem, weightlifting, etc.)

in student learning (thinking requires language)

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Welcome to the website! We have created this website for you, a future teacher, to learn more about what we mean by academic language. You may have already learned and will keep learning from your faculty in your program what the expectations of edTPA are for you during student teaching.

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Academic Language Demands edTPA 23(2) (1)

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What is a Discriminative Stimulus?

There are many technical expressions used by therapists when treating behavioral disorders. One of them is a discriminative stimulus.

A discriminative stimulus is a term related to behavioral psychology. It comes before a behavioral reaction.

A discriminative stimulus is different from stimulus generalization, in which the patient gains knowledge.

They learn that a single behavior, such as when a child asks for ice cream at a shopping mall, is capable of being performed in places other than a shopping mall that offers ice cream.

These could be in a grocery store, at a restaurant, or even in one's own home. However, a discriminative stimulus shows behavior that's brought about through the stimulus of being in a place with the ice cream.

This idea was created based on operant conditioning. It's a framework of different behaviors changing that later morph into a single concept in Applied Behavior Analysis, abbreviated as ABA.

ABA therapists can use a concept within it known as the ABCs to gain insight into the antecedent stimulus of patients they see.

The antecedent is alternatively called the discriminative stimulus. When that's found, they'll move on to seek out a new antecedent or give a different response to the behavior of an older discriminative stimulus.

How Does Discriminative Stimulus Work?

Operant conditioning works as a psychological perspective to alter behaviors shown during therapy through the use of rewards. In this approach, behavior can also be altered by using punishments, though not in a harsh sense.

The discriminative stimulus details a thing that triggers certain behaviors to manifest. It must come first followed next by the behavior which is the result of the stimulus initially identified.

After that, the conditioned stimulus follows next with the creation of a response which happens simultaneously as the discriminative stimulus signifies a change as a response.

The discriminative stimulus then produces the chance for certain behaviors to happen due to the result being previously reinforced by the parents or therapist. Such stimuli are one-sided since they're distinctive and create a likewise distinctive response.

The ABC Chart

What about the ABC Chart? It's an application part of a discriminative stimulus within ABA. ABC stands for Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence.

The succession of events starts with the antecedent. It comes before the behavior that a patient in therapy shows. It's also the primary factor in causing the reaction shown by a patient.

When the antecedent is over, a reaction from them quickly manifests. Their behavior can help therapists pinpoint the last course, which serves as a consequence. When, for example, an ABA therapist insists that a kid clean up their toys from the floor and they proceed and finish the job, a reward is provided.

It can't be just anything, either, but something that holds meaning for them.

Objects like chips, pieces of paper, or even fake money can be given to the teacher so they can receive a reward. Alternatively, simple praise for completing the task is acceptable as well.

But what if the child screams how no instead of carrying out the task? The therapist would continue with a different task, with no reward gifted to the child at all. No punishment needs to be administered in this situation.

The link between an exhibited behavior, the antecedent, and the consequence that follows can assist therapists, parents, and teachers in their understanding of the way they influence the development of a child's behavior and reshape it.

The fundamental basis for ABA therapy provided to clients today is operant therapy.

Still, its focus is largely based on giving out rewards for desired behaviors instead of implementing punishments. Such unwanted responses aren't rewarded at all.

Unfavorable punishment for a child showing undesirable behavior isn't recommended for any autistic child. Instead, repetitive therapy sessions can raise their likelihood to respond favorably to distinct behaviors. As such, they're then reinforced.

Benefits of discriminative stimulus

Within educational concepts, a discriminative stimulus is pertinent to child development. It's shown great results in getting autistic children to take in knowledge on behaviors that are specific to certain situations.

Discriminative stimulus relies on positive reinforcement to bolster the changes of good behaviors being exhibited in children, a wonderful method of helping them to learn.

Children can hone they're talking and social skills with discriminative stimuli as well.

Additionally, specific behaviors can be changed by their application.

Parents and behavioral therapists can study how well therapy sessions can turn out for gaining control of the responses of an autistic child.

The positive results of discriminative stimulus are owed to positive reinforcement, which gives parents the resources they need to provide great care to kids on the spectrum.

An example of discriminative stimulus during ABA therapy

The idea of discriminative stimulus is used in ABA therapy for children that are neurodivergent. It's here that the stimulus needed to accurately reinforce a certain behavior is identified as the right stimulus.

It's no different in a school classroom when the right answer is known by a student, though the wrong one is thought of among the rest of their peers. The discriminative stimulus in this setting is part of the stimuli or the wrong answers.

While in ABA the discriminative stimulus reinforces a particular behavior. If a therapist asks that a child shows them an object on the floor, such as a yellow toy, they may provide a reward for the child giving the right response. Praise is the most common. Generous praise helps in the reinforcement of behavior that gives them the best response.

Parents can also use discriminative stimuli while at home to help reinforce good behaviors with their children. For instance, if a child exhibits good table manners when asking for their favorite dessert, such as ice cream, their actions can be rewarded by the parents immediately providing them with the candy.

Children can also be taught to stay in one spot and remain calm when working on a school assignment this way.

If they succeed in doing so, additional time with their toys or video games can follow up when they're done. They'll quickly learn that they get more time to p and do fun activities when they focus on their school assignments.

When a stimulus doesn't result in reinforcement of a certain response, it's called a stimulus delta. When this happens, the child chooses to do their homework, but in a way that keeps them off focus and unattentive. In this instance, the child won't receive any praise or a reward.

The same applies to when a kid asked for desserts but in a poor tone with bad manners. The parents can quickly change their attention away from the dessert while failing to give them what they asked for.

There's a chance that the child may resort to a tantrum when this happens since they didn't get the dessert. But soon enough, they would gain their composure, do their homework or ask politely to receive a better response from the parent and a granting of their request.

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Discriminative Stimulus in ABA Therapy: Examples & More

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There are many technical expressions used by therapists when treating behavioral disorders. One of them is a discriminative stimulus. A discriminative stimulus is a term related to behavioral psychology. It comes before a behavioral reaction. A discriminative stimulus is different from stimulus generalization, in which the patient gains knowledge.

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Posted: 13 Feb 2020

Estimated time to read: 5 mins

What is behaviourist pedagogy and what can cats teach us about the way students learn?

Pedagogy, the science of teaching, affects what we do as teachers and how our students learn. Whether we know it or not, pedagogy creeps into every aspect of what we do.

It's important then, to fully understand the forces at play when we give a detention, set a group task or apply a seating plan.

As such a vast area of psychology, pedagogy is often broken down and grouped by its main ideators and theories. In this blog we'll be delving into behaviourism.

What is behaviourism?

Behaviourist pedagogy, or behaviourism, looks at the observable actions of students and assesses whether they are learning as effectively as possible.

The central belief of a behaviourist is that students learn through reinforcement - constant feedback that tells them whether what they are doing is right or wrong. This comes in the form of test scores, homework marks and more.

However, behaviourism has its critics. Some say that the approach disregards student identity and individuality, whilst other pedagogical theorists claim it studies actions of the body rather than that of the brain, and is therefore inept at assessing real learning.

Despite this, schools still employ behaviourist techniques in the classroom on a regular basis. Whilst it might not be effective in its purest form, elements of behaviourism are still crucial to the modern curriculum and the teaching of our students.

Where behaviourism began

Behaviourism emerged in 1898, in the early stages of developmental psychology. It was the year that Edward Thorndike created his learning theory using a cat and a box.

The box had a pulley system and a lever that the cat had to use if it wanted to escape the box. Thorndike found that by giving the cat a treat when it learned to escape, it learnt to associate it's actions with receiving a treat and would then escape faster next time.

This technique formed the basis for operant conditioning: teaching a behaviour or action through repetition and reinforcement. It's the basis for most behaviourist approaches to teaching.

It wasn't until 1937 that B.F Skinner coined the phrase 'operant conditioning'. As a teacher, Skinner applied Thorndike's learnings to the classroom with a heavily behaviourist approach to teaching.

He was an early adopter and developer of the 'teaching machine' - a desktop-sized wooden box with a viewing panel and a paper ticker for students to write answers. Teachers could insert different worksheets and students worked through these in class at their own pace.

The machine revealed answers instantly so that students could see if they got the answer right. If they did, they received positive feedback in the form of a praise message.

But the teaching machine couldn't replace the personality, flexibility and availability of a classroom teacher. Nor could it mentor students and give them life lessons in their learning, so it was largely rejected by schools, but the theory behind it lives on.

Behaviourism in the modern classroom

Now we know the history, but what does behaviourism look like in the modern classroom? It might actually be more prevalent than we realise. In fact most UK schools' curriculums are taught based on behaviourist theory.

Rewarding students for working well with commendations or praise points (even with vocal praise) is a behaviourist approach. This conditions students to behave or to strive for better work using the same operant conditioning techniques championed by Skinner.

You can also see behaviourist theory in the way we teach students to revise for exams. The repetition of tasks and quizzes to improve test scores and ultimately get a better grade is distinctly behaviourist. Students learn that the more they practise, the more praise they will receive for doing well and achieving higher grades.

How can you apply this?

What about if you wanted to create a fully behaviourist classroom? What would it look like?

We wouldn't recommend going all out, but if you were to only apply behaviourism to your teaching it would likely look a little like this:

Teacher leads the class through a topic

Students listen silently

Teacher then sets a task based on the information

Students complete the task and await feedback

The teacher gives feedback, then sets the next task

With each round of feedback, the student is being conditioned to learn the material.

So what's the problem here?
Well, there's no evidence that the students understand the information they are processing. As Dr Carl Hendrick writes of pedagogy, "I've long thought that one of the weakest proxy indicators of effective learning is engagement, and yet it's a term persistently used by school leaders as one of the most important measures of quality".

Dr Hendrick puts forward the idea that, just because a student is engaged and working doesn't mean they are learning. He argues that the process of learning is much more internalised than behaviourists ever thought.

Herein lies the common criticism of behaviourist pedagogy: learning is more than just actions.

Behaviourist learning theories

Behaviourism has informed a number of classroom learning techniques that teachers use on a regular basis. Whilst we might not want to enact an all out regime change just yet (or ever), applying some of these techniques can improve students' progression and attainment.

Quick feedback - The sooner you give feedback after a task, the more effective it will be in shaping that student for success. If the wait is too long between completing a task and receiving feedback, it's less likely students will associate the feedback with the work they did and any effects are lost.

Reward revision - Revision isn't fun. But if you introduce a reward system that praises students for doing a certain amount of revision, with some kind of incentive, you can begin to create positive associations. This should combat cramming (which rewards last minute efforts as they happen closer to the time of feedback).

Start of lesson routine - Almost all teachers have a start of lesson routine, and it's a prime example of conditioning. Over time students learn to come into the classroom and either sit down and await instructions or begin working on a task on the board. It's simple but it works.

Conclusion

Overall, we've learned that we probably shouldn't reintroduce the teaching machine, nor should we start putting students in boxes. But operant conditioning still holds true when trying to instill a learning mindset in our pupils.

By providing valuable and speedy feedback, rewarding good behaviour and getting students used to routines, teachers start to create habits in students that make them improve their learning. This can give teachers greater control over the class and empower them to take lead of lessons.

In an age of mobile phones and games consoles all vying for students' attention, it's important that we create healthy habits around schoolwork and the concentration it requires. Doing too much could put them off school work altogether, whilst doing nothing could mean losing out to devices that are a little more enticing than homework.

The real question for teachers is whether they believe this is the best approach. With so many schools turning to flipped learning and student centred classrooms, have traditional behaviourist techniques had their day?

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What is Behaviourism and How to Use it in the Classroom?

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Find out what behaviourism is and how you can get more out of students by applying behaviourist pedagogy to lessons in this blog.

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Academic Language Function Toolkit.pdf: ELD Professional Development Common Core

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Constructivism is a learning theory which holds that knowledge is best gained through a process of reflection and active construction in the mind (Mascolo & Fischer, 2005). Thus, knowledge is an intersubjective interpretation. The learner must consider the information being taught and - based on past experiences, personal views, and cultural background - construct an interpretation. Constructivism is split into two main camps: radical and social. The first form radical (or cognitive) constructivism proposes that the process of constructing knowledge is dependent on the individual's subjective interpretation of their active experience. The second form social constructivism affirms that human development is socially situated and that knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. This chapter discusses the history, practice, examples in education and limitations.

History

There are three foundational psychologists of constructivism. Jean Piaget falls into the radical constructivism camp. Lev Vygotsky, on the other hand, concentrates on the social aspects of learning through experiences. John Dewey straddles the line between the two perspectives and has many ideas that match with each side. The common ground that united these psychologists under the umbrella of constructivism is that all three believed that the learning theories (e.g behaviorism and humanism) at the time did not adequately represent the actual learning process. In addition, their ideas were rooted in experiences in the classroom instead of experiments in a lab (compared to behaviorism).

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget is known as one of the first theorists in constructivism. His theories indicate that humans create knowledge through the interaction between their experiences and ideas. His view of constructivism is the inspiration for radical constructivism due to his idea that the individual is at the center of the knowledge creation and acquisition process. The vast majority of Piaget's theories develop through working with children where he would challenge the idea that children are inferior thinkers compared to adults. His work provides evidence that children are not cognitively inferior to adults. He proves that children develop differently by establishing a theory involving cognitive stages.

Piaget's cognitive theory explores how children develop. His theory splits development into four discrete stages. Although Piaget never linked his research on cognitive development to education directly, his theory plays a pivotal role in his contributions to learning theories.

Based on the research into children's cognitive development Piaget identified processes of accommodation (reframing one's mental representation of the external world to fit new experiences) and assimilation (the process by which a person or persons acquire the social and psychological characteristics of a group) which are key in the interaction between experiences and ideas. These two processes focus on how learning occurs rather than what influences learning.

Lev Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky's work contains a central scope focused on the social aspects of acquiring knowledge. He suggests that one learns best through interacting with others. Through the process of working with others, learners create an environment of shared meanings with peers. By being immersed in the new environment, the learner is able to adapt subjective interpretations to become socially accepted. Vygotsky especially emphasizes that culture plays a large role in cognitive development. He believed infants were born with basic abilities to develop cognitively. Those basic abilities are then enhanced through interaction with others and eventually grow into more sophisticated mental processes. For example, a child is born with the basic ability to memorize. As the child interacts with its environment and peers, the methods of remembrance adapt. If the child is in a learning setting that emphasizes flashcards, the child will use similar methods of repetition to improve memory.

Similar to Piaget's adaptation of radical constructivism from his theory of cognitive development, Vygotsky draws from his own theory of social development. Vygotsky believed that learners could achieve much greater level of learning through the help of a More Knowledgeable Other (instructor). Figure 1 offers a visual of where the instructor can offer the most support and enhance the learning process. The area where the instructor should be most sensitive to guidance is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). As Figure 1 displays, the ZPD straddles the line between what the student already knows and a new concept unable to be mastered without the help of the instructor.

Figure 1

A Graphic Displaying the Pieces of Vygotsky's Social Development Theory

The Zone of Proximal Development is not confined to solely a learner and an instructor. Vygotsky encourages learners to form groups. The formation of groups allows for the less competent children to learn from those who already have mastered a specific skillset.

John Dewey

John Dewey's perspective melds Piaget's focus on the cognitive aspect of constructivism with Vygotsky's focus on social learning. Susan J. Mayer (2008) contains a synopsis of Dewey's place in constructivism:

Contrary to the assumptions of those who pair Dewey and Piaget based on progressivism's recent history, Dewey shared broader concerns with Vygotsky (whose work he never read). Both Dewey and Vygotsky emphasized the role of cultural forms and meanings in perpetuating higher forms of human thought, whereas Piaget focused on the role played by logical and mathematical reasoning. On the other hand, with Piaget, Dewey emphasized the nurture of independent reasoning central to the liberal Protestant heritage the two men shared. Indeed, Dewey's broad theorizing of democracy's implications for schooling can be seen to integrate the research emphases of the two psychologists (p. 6).

Just as Piaget and Vygotsky did not believe in rote memorization and repetitive lecturing, Dewey's work proclaims that learners who engage in real world activities will be able to demonstrate higher levels of knowledge through creativity and collaboration (Behling & Hart, 2008). One of Dewey's most recognized quotes is: "If you have doubts about how learning happens, engage in sustained inquiry: study, ponder, consider alternative possibilities and arrive at your belief grounded in evidence" (Reece, 2013, p. 320).

Dewey's emphasis on inquiry sustaining learning is sparked best by ensuring a synthesis of environment. Many teachers at the time insisted on keeping school separate from the rest of the children's lives. Dewey did not adhere to the pressure of separation. His research insists that learners need to connect real life experiences with school activities in order to make learning possible.

Learning Theory in Practice

A basic understanding of constructivism requires a clear vision of what it means to allow a learner to connect their own experiences to new knowledge. In order to better illustrate the use of constructivism in the classroom, the next section describes the role of both the learner and the instructor.

Nature of Learner

Throughout the learning process, the learner is expected to consider the information being taught and construct an interpretation. The interpretation is constructed based on past experiences, personal views, and cultural background. Following the interpretation, the learner is expected to reflect on the new knowledge. Radical and social constructivism generally regard the nature of the learner in a similar fashion.

Radical constructivism assumes the learner recognizes their place at the center of the knowledge creation and acquisition process. The learner works through a process of acquisition and assimilation. A major role of the learner is to reflect on past experiences and be conscious of the variables affecting the absorption of the new knowledge. Social constructivism expects similar reflection from the learner, however it also incorporates the social aspects of learning.

Social constructivism not only acknowledges the uniqueness and complexity of the learner, but actually encourages, utilizes and rewards this complexity as an integral part of the learning process. This means that the learner is motivated to reflect on their unique knowledge and allows them to recognize their ability to inspire other learners in their environment. The constant exchange of ideas in the ZPD allows each individual learner to acquire new understandings from their peers. While the learners hold the key to acquiring knowledge in the constructivist framework, the role of instructors is still significant.

Role of Instructor

Due to the nature of constructivism, the instructor must adapt a more hands-on approach instead of the traditional lecture style. The environment of the classroom should be supportive of each individual learner's thinking and encourage a constant challenge.

According to the social constructivist approach, instructors have to adapt to the role of facilitators and not teachers (Bauersfeld, 1995). A facilitator helps the learner to get to his or her own understanding of the content instead of simply explaining a principle. In the latter scenario, the learner does not participate definitively, and in the former scenario, the learner is actively engaged. The goal is thus to turn the emphasis away from the instructor and the content and towards the learner (Gamoran, Secada, & Marrett, 1998). As the emphasis switches to a more active teaching process, the facilitator must act in a different way than a teacher would (Brownstein 2001). As one author explains:

A teacher tells, a facilitator asks; a teacher lectures from the front, a facilitator supports from the back; a teacher gives answers according to a set curriculum, a facilitator provides guidelines and creates the environment for the learner to arrive at his or her own conclusions; a teacher mostly gives a monologue, a facilitator is in continuous dialogue with the learners (Rhodes and Bellamy, 1999).

Examples in Education

There are various examples in the world of education regarding methods of implementation of constructivism. Constructionism, cooperative learning and large-scale lessons are three examples of ways to incorporate constructivism into a classroom.

Constructionism is one application of constructivism. An example of constructionism is an instructor teaching a class of learners about engineering by assigning them to build a bridge. The process the learners would embark on to learn how to build a bridge would in theory teach them all the nuances of engineering concepts. The learning would come mostly through trial and error as the learners adapted their past experiences to the current task.

According to research, cooperative learning is an effective way to implement constructivism in the classroom (Hoy & Woolfolk, 1993). Three examples of cooperative learning are reciprocal questioning, jigsaw classroom and structured controversies. Reciprocal questioning is where students work together to ask and answer questions. This technique is often prevalent through activities such as book discussion groups. Jigsaw classroom refers to assigning students to become experts on one part of a group project and teach it to the others in their group. Structured controversies are where students work together to research a particular controversy.

Another effective implementation of constructivism in the classroom is teaching big topics and allowing each learner to find what pieces relate to them most. For example, an instructor teaching evolution does not choose a specific point in evolution to focus on, but rather gives an overarching explanation. Thus, a student who relates with natural selection is interested in the topic of their own will and chooses to write a paper on it and share with the class.

Criticism and Limitations

Novice learners should have more structure (Jonassen, 1992). According to Bloom's Taxonomy (cf. Fig. 3), the process of learning first starts with remembering and understanding. These two bases require structure to ensure the learner can memorize the subject and recall why the information is important. Without the beginning structure, the learner would struggle to get to the level of application. The lack of structure becomes a possible limitation if the student does not have any base to begin with. However, both Piaget and Vygotsky believe in innate abilities that act as the initial building blocks to learning.

When a group of learners is involved in an activity together, there is a possibility of the learners falling into groupthink (Ruggie, 1998). While not a lot of research has been done on the subject, the author of the chapter suggests that this may be a limitation which could be further investigated. Those who do not agree with the dominant narrative of a group will not participate as much as those who align with the majority. This is a critique of the implementation, however, and not the theory itself.

Because the nature of constructivism is more abstract and applicable, it is difficult to know if the observed learning outcomes account for everything. Outcomes are generally measured through some form of a rote test and thus do not often incorporate the application and extrapolation of the learning. This could be a limitation of constructivism, if the mode of measurement is not conducive to reflection.

Another possible limitation of constructivism is the time required during implementation. Operating under the constructivist framework, instructors are expected to spend more time engaging the learner. In order to engage the learner, the instructor needs to spend more preparation time out of the classroom thinking about new activities. The instructor also carries the role of allowing time for reflection. Effectively using time can prove to be a problem of constructivism, but it can be fixed through thoughtful implementation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, constructivism is a learning theory which affirms that knowledge is best gained through a process of action, reflection and construction. Piaget focuses on the interaction of experiences and ideas in the creation of new knowledge. Vygotsky explores the importance of learning alongside peers and how culture affects the accommodation and assimilation of knowledge. Dewey emphasizes inquiry and the integration of real world and classroom activities. The constructivist framework relies on the learners to be in control of their own acquisition of knowledge and encourages the instructor to serve as a facilitator. Constructivism has limitations, but it can allow for the learner to reach higher planes of knowledge than would be possible otherwise (Jonassen, 1993).

References

Bauersfeld, H. (1995). "Language games" in the mathematics classroom: Their function and their effects. The emergence of mathematical meaning: Interaction in classroom cultures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Behling, K., & Hart, D. (2008). Universal design: A model for professional development. In Universal design in higher education: From principles to practice (pp. 109-125). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Brownstein, B. (2001). Collaboration: The foundation of learning in the future. Education, 122(2), 240.

Gamoran, A., Secada, W. G., & Marrett, C. B. (2000). The organizational context of teaching and learning. In Handbook of the Sociology of Education (pp. 37-63). Heidelberg, NY: Springer US.

Hackathorna, J., Solomon, E. D., Blankmeyer, K.L., Tennial, R.E., & Garczynski, A. M. (2011). Learning by doing: An empirical study of active teaching techniques. The Journal of Effective Teaching, 11(2), 20-54.

Hoy, W. K., & Woolfolk, A. E. (1993). Teachers' sense of efficacy and the organizational health of schools. The Elementary School Journal, 93(3), 355-372.

Jonassen, D. H. (1992). Evaluating constructivistic learning. Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation (pp. 137-148). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.

Mascolo, M. F., & Fischer, K. W. (2005). Constructivist theories. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development (pp. 49-63). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Mayer, S. J. (2008). Dewey's dynamic integration of Vygotsky and Piaget. Education and Culture, 24(2), 6-24.

Reese, W.J. (2013). In search of American progressives and teachers. History of Education: Journal of History of Education Society, 42(3), 320-334.

Rhodes, L. K., & Bellamy, G. T. (1999). Choices and consequences in the renewal of teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 50(1), 17-18.

Ruggie, J. G. (1998). What makes the world hang together? Neo-utilitarianism and the social constructivist challenge. International Organization, 52(4), 855-885.

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Constructivism is a learning theory which holds that knowledge is best gained through a process of reflection and active construction in the mind (Mascolo & Fischer, 2005). Thus, knowledge is an intersubjective interpretation. The learner must consider the information being taught and - based on past experiences, personal views, and cultural background - construct an interpretation.

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Sage Books - Human Memory: Structures and Images

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“Howes’ new textbook, Human Memory, offers a thorough and expansive introduction to the science of

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Emotions, Learning, and The Brain...Book Review

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Emotions, Learning, and The Brain...Book Review

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Vocabulary Development article (at the end of the agenda)

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Vocabulary Development article (at the end of the agenda)

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Cognitively Guided instruction, or CGI, is based upon 30 years of research. It's a framework that helps teachers to understand how children's mathematical ideas develop, and provides an opportunity to build on the child's own thinking and understanding. CGI is not a curriculum. CGI is not a lesson. CGI is a framework, a way of thinking about how children learn math that is research-based. The central theme of CGI is that children come to school with mathematical knowledge. Children develop their math understanding by solving a variety of problems in a way that makes sense to them. The children build their own understanding and inform other children, and the teacher, as they share their thinking. As a result, children build connections and relationships among the mathematical ideas so that the math makes sense to them, and the math is meaningful in their lives.
Here are some videos of CGI in action with teachers from LAUSD: Kinder Video 3rd Grade Video 4th/5th Grade Video Videos from the Online course Navigating the CGI Math Classroom: The What and Why of CGI Multiplication and Division and CGI CGI and Place Value Supporting Teachers in CGI, Part 1 Supporting Teachers in CGI, Part 2
Resources and Links:

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Cognitively Guided Instruction "CGI" Support

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Cognitively Guided instruction, or CGI, is based upon 30 years of research. It's a framework that helps teachers to understand how children's mathematical ideas develop, and provides an opportunity to build on the child's own thinking and understanding. CGI is not a curriculum. CGI is not a lesson.

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Cognitively Guided Instruction is a pedagogical approach that reaches beyond the curriculum barriers of dominant culture education. The teaching strategies encouraged by this approach are also based on guidelines directed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This research-based approach addresses the following issues in mathematics classrooms:

Ability ranges

Frequent absences

Basic concepts deficiency

Irrelevancy

Language

Absence of challenge

Lack of engagement

Learning disabilities

Mathematics is simply a group of methods by which we resolve situations, and has existed in Native cultures long before the arrival of Western civilization. The problem-solving capabilities of Native people are evident in language, living structures, food preparation, ceremony, and celebration, and are nurtured in the very essence of survival.

Problem-solving is also the foundation of the new Reform Movement in mathematics. Standardized assessments are slowly moving away from pure computation, and states are adopting standards that require students to use investigative reasoning.

What's the problem?

Teachers are left to carry the load of addressing standards, performing proficiently on state tests, and ensuring Adequate Yearly Progress. This has left teachers with feelings of resentment toward these new "requirements," as though they are simply responsible for "teaching to the tests."

What's the solution?

Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) is a professional development for teachers, tutors, and paraprofessionals founded on the six principles of Reform that accommodate Native learning preferences while addressing state and national standards. Research has shown that Reform Pedagogy and Native Pedagogy share many of the same instructional values. CGI establishes what they are, and how they look in the classroom.

What is Cognitively Guided Instruction?

CGI is a research-based pedagogical approach that accommodates Native learning preferences in an attempt to bridge the achievement gap in this critical core subject area.

It encourages teaching strategies that strengthen and foster the intrinsic cognitive processes proven to be unique to Native students as a result of culture. This approach is founded on current research, and is a perfect complement to the variety of culture-based ethno-curriculum that exists today.

The focus of CGI is to analyze instructional methodology and assist teachers in practicing teaching tactics conducive to Native learning, and endorsed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

A teacher must be familiar with the mathematical abilities of students in their classroom to effectively and appropriately challenge each student. Consequently, this approach promotes continuous assessment, formal and informal, throughout each phase of instruction. Many written curriculums claim to be student-centered and yet are designed such that individual solution strategies are discouraged and each must learn at the pace and sequence of a textbook or guide.

Assessment is nearly impossible without "accountable talk." Students often know more than they are given credit for and teachers need to teach the skill of articulation necessary to explain concepts in a comprehensible manner. In a culturally responsive classroom, teachers are guides rather than lecturers, who facilitate critical discussion. Students learn just as much from each other as they do from the teacher.

A typical CGI "session" involves at least 35 hours of detailed professional development. Teachers, paraprofessionals, and tutors are presented with specific examples, lesson modeling, standards relativity, research, and the philosophy of the approach. Shorter workshops are an option, and are presented as introductory models to the approach.

Follow-up training is highly recommended to ensure proper implementation of the approach.

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Cognitively Guided Instruction is a pedagogical approach that reaches beyond the curriculum barriers of dominant culture education. The teaching strategies encouraged by this approach are also based on guidelines directed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

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How People Learn Article (at the end of the agenda)

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How People Learn Article (at the end of the agenda)

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Social learning theory considers how both environmental and cognitive factors interact to influence human learning and behavior.

In social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with the behaviorist learning theories of classical conditioning and operant conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:

1. Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.

2. Behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.

What is Observational Learning?

Observational learning is a key aspect of social learning theory, where individuals learn and adopt behaviors by observing others.

This process often involves modeling after those who are similar, high-status, knowledgeable, rewarded, or nurturing figures in our lives.

Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the famous Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961).

What is a model?

Individuals that are observed are called models. In society, children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on children's TV, friends within their peer group, and teachers at school.

These models provide examples of behavior to observe and imitate, e.g., masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social, etc.

Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behavior. At a later time, they may imitate (i.e., copy) the behavior they have observed.

They may do this regardless of whether the behavior is 'gender appropriate' or not, but there are several processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that society deems appropriate for its gender.

Influences on Observational Learning

Based on Bandura's research, several factors enhance the likelihood of a behavior being imitated. We are more prone to imitate behaviors when the following conditions apply:

Similarity: We are more likely to model our behaviors after individuals who are similar to us. This is because we are more likely to identify with these individuals, making their behaviors seem more relevant and attainable. This can include similarity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, or even shared interests and values.

Identification with the Model: Identification occurs with another person (the model) and involves taking on (or adopting) observed behaviors, values, beliefs, and attitudes of the person you identify with.

The motivation to identify with a particular model is that they have a quality that the individual would like to possess.

The more an individual identifies with the model (for instance, because they are similar or aspire to be like the model), the more likely they are to imitate their behavior.

This relates to an attachment to specific models that possess qualities seen as rewarding. Children will have several models with whom they identify. These may be people in their immediate world, such as parents or older siblings, or they could be fantasy characters or people in the media.

Identification is different from imitation as it may involve several behaviors being adopted, whereas imitation usually involves copying a single behavior.

Rewarded Behaviors: Individuals who see that a model is rewarded for their behaviors are likelier to imitate them, while behavior resulting in negative outcomes is less likely to be copied.

This is known as vicarious reinforcement. For instance, if a student sees that another student gets praised by the teacher for asking questions, they are likelier to ask questions themselves.

Status: We are likelier to imitate individuals who hold high-status positions, such as leaders, celebrities, or successful people in our field of interest.

High-status individuals are often admired and seen as role models, so their behaviors are likelier to be seen as desirable and worth imitating.

Expertise/Knowledge: People are also more likely to imitate individuals who are experts or knowledgeable in a certain area.

This is because these individuals' behaviors are seen as effective and efficient ways of achieving goals in that area.

Reinforcement and punishment: The people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with either reinforcement or punishment. If a child imitates a model's behavior and the consequences are rewarding, the child will likely continue performing the behavior.

If a parent sees a little girl consoling her teddy bear and says, "what a kind girl you are," this is rewarding for the child and makes it more likely that she will repeat the behavior. Her behavior has been positively reinforcedReinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative. If a child wants approval from parents or peers, verbal approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy about being approved of is an internal reinforcement. A child will behave in a way that it believes will earn approval because it desires approval.

Positive (or negative) reinforcement will have little impact if the external reinforcement does not match an individual's needs. Reinforcement can be positive or negative, but the important factor is that it will usually change a person's behavior.

Stages of Observational Learning

SLT is often described as the 'bridge' between traditional learning theory (i.e., behaviorism) and the cognitive approach. This is because it focuses on how mental (cognitive) factors are involved in learning.

Unlike Skinner, Bandura (1977) believes humans are active information processors and think about the relationship between their behavior and its consequences.

Mediational Processes

Observational learning could not occur unless cognitive processes were at work. These mental factors mediate (i.e., intervene) in the learning process to determine whether a new response is acquired.

Therefore, individuals do not automatically observe the behavior of a model and imitate it. There is some thought prior to imitation, and this consideration is called the mediational process.

This occurs between observing the behavior (stimulus) and imitating it or not (response).

There are four mediational processes proposed by Bandura:

1. Attention

The individual needs to pay attention to the behavior and its consequences and form a mental representation of the behavior.

For a behavior to be imitated, it has to grab our attention. We observe many behaviors on a daily basis, and many of these are not noteworthy. Attention is, therefore, extremely important in whether a behavior influences others to imitate it.

2. Retention

How well the behavior is remembered. The behavior may be noticed, but it is not always remembered, which obviously prevents imitation.

It is important, therefore, that a memory of the behavior is formed to be performed later by the observer.

Much of social learning is not immediate, so this process is especially vital in those cases. Even if the behavior is reproduced shortly after seeing it, there needs to be a memory to refer to.

3. Motor Reproduction

This is the ability to perform the behavior that the model has just demonstrated. We see much behavior daily that we would like to be able to imitate, but this is not always possible.

Our physical ability limits us, so even if we wish to reproduce the behavior, we sometimes cannot.

This influences our decisions whether to try and imitate it or not. Imagine the scenario of a 90-year-old lady who struggles to walk while watching Dancing on Ice.

She may appreciate that the skill is desirable, but she will not attempt to imitate it because she physically cannot do it.

4. Motivation

The will to perform the behavior. The rewards and punishments that follow a behavior will be considered by the observer.

If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs (if there are any), then the observer will more likely imitate the behavior.

If the vicarious reinforcement is not important enough to the observer, they will not imitate the behavior.

Social Learning Theory Evaluation

The social learning approach takes thought processes into account and acknowledges the role that they play in deciding if a behavior is to be imitated or not.

As such, SLT provides a more comprehensive explanation of human learning by recognizing the role of mediational processes.

For example, Social Learning Theory can explain many more complex social behaviors (such as gender roles and moral behavior) than models of learning based on simple reinforcement.

Lack of Clarity about Cognitive Processes

Some critics argue that social learning theory does not fully explain the cognitive processes involved in learning or how they interact with environmental and individual factors.

However, although it can explain some quite complex behavior, it cannot adequately account for how we develop a range of behavior, including thoughts and feelings.

We have a lot of cognitive control over our behavior, and just because we have had experiences of violence does not mean we have to reproduce such behavior.

For this reason, Bandura modified his theory and, in 1986, renamed his Social Learning Theory, Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), as a better description of how we learn from our social experiences.

Overemphasis on Observation

Critics suggest that the theory might overstate the role of observational learning while undervaluing other forms of learning, such as operant conditioning or individual exploration and discovery.

Some criticisms of social learning theory arise from their commitment to the environment as the chief influence on behavior.

Describing behavior solely in terms of either nature or nurture is limiting, and attempts to do this underestimate the complexity of human behavior.

It is more likely that behavior is due to an interaction between nature (biology) and nurture (environment).

Finally, observational learning does not happen in isolation. Each individual brings their unique personal characteristics, prior experiences, and current circumstances to the learning process.

These factors can all influence what is learned, how it is interpreted, and whether and when it is acted upon.

Difficulty in Predicting Behavior

Social learning theory provides a valuable framework for understanding how learning occurs. However, predicting behavior in real-world contexts can be challenging, given the many potential models and reinforcements in a person's environment.

The complexity of predicting behavior based on the social learning theory stems from the number of potential influencing factors in a person's environment.

In real-world contexts, an individual is exposed to countless potential role models across various settings, including family, friends, teachers, and media figures. Moreover, these models' behaviors are often rewarded or punished inconsistently, further complicating the learning process.

Neglect of Biological Factors

Social learning theory has been critiqued for not adequately addressing biological factors, such as genetic predispositions, which can also impact behavior.

Social learning theory is not a full explanation for all behavior. This is particularly the case when there is no apparent role model in the person's life to imitate for a given behavior.

The discovery of mirror neurons has lent biological support to the social learning theory. Although research is in its infancy, the recent discovery of "mirror neurons" in primates may constitute a neurological basis for imitation.

These are neurons that fire if the animal does something itself and if it observes the action being done by another.

Freud vs. Bandura

Freud's psychoanalytic theory and Bandura's social learning theory both acknowledge the importance of identification, but their perspectives differ significantly.

While both theories acknowledge the importance of identification, they conceptualize it differently and have distinct views on human behavior, learning, and the potential for change.

1. Focus: Freud's theory focuses heavily on the unconscious mind, instinctual drives, and early childhood experiences.

On the other hand, Bandura's social learning theory emphasizes learning through observation and modeling, taking into account cognitive and environmental factors.

2. Identification: Freud's concept of identification in the Oedipus complex involves a child identifying with the same-sex parent and internalizing their characteristics.

This process is driven by psychosexual development and often results in the development of gender roles. In contrast, social learning theory sees identification as a more flexible process.

Regardless of age, individuals can identify with and learn from anyone around them, not necessarily limited to parents or same-sex individuals.

3. Determinism vs. Agency: Freud's theory leans toward psychic determinism, suggesting that unconscious desires largely shape our behaviors and feelings.

Social learning theory, while acknowledging the influence of environment, also stresses personal agency - our capacity to influence our own behavior and the environment in a purposeful, goal-directed way.

4. Change: In Freudian theory, personality is largely formed by age 5, making change difficult. Social learning theory suggests that because learning is a lifelong process, individuals can change their behaviors and attitudes throughout life.

FAQs

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Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory In Psychology

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Social Learning Theory, proposed by Albert Bandura, posits that people learn through observing, imitating, and modeling others' behavior. This theory posits that we can acquire new behaviors and knowledge by watching others, a process known as vicarious learning.

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What is social learning?

Social learning theory is a behavioral theory that posits that new behaviors can be learned by observing and imitating others. It is underpinned by the idea that meaning-making (i.e., learning) is a cognitive behavior and process that occurs in social settings. And it is the possibility of future social interactions that drive a 'need to know,' curiosity, and general motivation to learn.

In short, the idea behind social learning theory is that people learn by observing others.

Who Is Responsible For The Development Of Social Learning Theory?

As a 'field' and topic, social learning theory has had key contributions from dozens of behavioral researchers and theorists, most notably Albert Bandura, B. F. Skinner, Ronald Akers, Clark Leonard Hull, and Julian Rotter.

Classroom and teaching designs often depend on the principles of social learning to enhance students' memory and retention of new information. Some of the more prevalent teaching strategies incorporating social-learning principles are call-and-response teaching, choral reading, modeling, and the guided participation method where the teacher tells the audience to speak a phrase, and students both mimic the action and replicate it, which may aid learning.

The Gradual Release Of Responsibility model also shares function and spirit with general social learning theory.

Social learning also refers to a type of learning that occurs when students learn from each other. It's the kind of learning that often occurs in the classroom but can happen anywhere social interactions occur-or, through reflection, after a real or imagined interaction.

When students interact in digital communities or message in small groups-these are forms of social learning but technology isn't required for it to occur. Technology does, however, change the practice of social learning in important ways including the increased speed of feedback loops, the scale of social interactions, the frequency and varied forms of punishment and rewards, and more. In short, technology rapidly accelerates and intensifies social learning while increasing the sheer quantity of social learning episodes over a given time period.

What Is Social Learning Theory?

Further, it is not only behaviors that are observed but also the perceived causes and effects of these behaviors including punishments and rewards (this is vicarious reinforcement). This form of social learning occurs not through observation but prediction and reflection. Feedback loops play a significant role in social learning. As a social process, rewards vary but generally speaking, if a behavior is thought to result in a regular reward, it will likely continue. If it is punished, it is less likely to be continued over time if the person experiencing the punishment believes they have alternatives to that behavior that is likely to result in improved outcomes.

Conditioning through feedback loops and the observation, anticipation, and reflection of social interactions are all central to the process of social learning. Learning occurs in two stages: the acquisition of new information and the incorporation of that information into existing knowledge (Gurian, 2006). Social learning can be observed in a variety of contexts. It is an essential element of social behavior to learn what types of behavior will be punished or rewarded by others.

According to Albert Bandura's Principals Of Social Learning Theory, "social learning theory aligned mostly with previous behavioral theories-the novel component was its emphasis on imitation in learning. It stated the following:

When someone witnesses a 'model' performing a specific behavior, as well as the consequences of that behavior, they can commit the sequence of actions to memory and recall that data to guide their future behaviors.

People do not learn new behaviors simply by attempting them, and then succeeding or failing. Instead, they depend largely upon the imitation of action sequences by other people.

People choose to replicate or dismiss certain behaviors based on how they observe others being rewarded or punished for those behaviors, or the outcomes of those behaviors.

In other words, monkey see, monkey do (or do not...). Over time, Bandura's theory of social learning moved away from the behavioral end of the spectrum and closer toward the cognitive end. He published a significant revision to his theory in 1977, which included the concept of self-efficacy at the core of its theoretical framework. In this revision, individual choices, effort, and feelings about those choices are affected by their beliefs about their own abilities to perform certain behaviors in order to achieve certain outcomes."

The concept of conditioning is often used in behavioral psychology to explain the change that occurs in an organism's response to a stimulus. Conditioning can be defined as the process by which an organism acquires a new response or behavior to an environmental stimulus. In order to explain the change in behavior that occurs with conditioning, it is useful to use an experiment performed by Ivan Pavlov. In his experiment, Pavlov conditioned a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. In this experiment, Pavlov rang a bell whenever he fed his dogs. As soon as the dog heard the bell, it would salivate in anticipation of receiving food.

Social learning theory has significant overlap with Pavlov's experiment. External stimulus cause conditioning is both a cause and effect of how the brain works and makes meaning. In the case of social learning, it is the observation and imitation of other behaviors that are a kind of subsequent catalyst and conditioning.

In addition to Bandura's theoretical work on social learning theory, B. F. Skinner brought a more empirical approach to the concept through "the use of stimulus-response theories to describe language use and development, and that all verbal behavior was underpinned by operant conditioning. He did however mention that some forms of speech derived from words and sounds that had previously been heard (echoic response), and that reinforcement from parents allowed these 'echoic responses' to be pared down to that of understandable speech. While he denied that there was any "instinct or faculty of imitation," Skinner's behaviorist theories formed a basis for redevelopment into Social Learning Theory."

In 1954, Julian B. Rotter published his book, Social Learning and Social Clinical Psychology. This was the first summary of a comprehensive social learning theory.

Rotter developed a more holistic way of thinking that viewed individuals as a part of their environment.

He was attempting to unify behaviorism (which was useful for predictions but was limited in its ability to explain complex social interactions) and Gestalt psychology (which better handled complexity in these models but was less accurate in terms of predicting behaviors). In his work, he stressed that the social context and individual personality created significant effects.

In his theory, social dynamics and individual personality gave rise to the chances that one's behavior would follow, and the social reinforcement of this behavior gave rise to learning.

The two most influential environments in shaping behavior are the individual and social environments. The reinforcement of any activity leads to learning. While his theory of learning used language similar to behavioralism, Rotter's emphasis on internal functioning and individual traits was unique and acted as a kind of precursor to a shift toward cognitive theories and approaches of learning.

Rotter's theory is also known as expectancy-value theory due to its central explanatory constructs. Expectancy is defined as the individual's subjectively held probability that a given action will lead to a given outcome. It can range from zero to one, with one representing 100% confidence in the outcome. For example, a person may entertain a given level of belief that they can make a foul shot in basketball or that an additional hour of study will improve their grade on an examination.

Reinforcement value is defined as the individual's subjective preference for a given outcome, assuming that all possible outcomes were equally available. In other words, the two variables are independent of each other. These two variables interact to generate behavior potential, or the likelihood that a given action will be performed. The nature of the interaction is not specified, though Rotter suggests that it is likely to be multiplicative. Interestingly, Rotter even developed a basic predictive equation, B.P. = f(E & RV) where Behavior Potential (BP), Expectancy (E) and Reinforcement Value (RV).

What Is Observational Learning?

People learn behaviors from other people by imitating them and that imitation is not always conscious. Sometimes we do things without even knowing why we did them.

When we see someone else doing something, we try to figure out what they might know that we don't. In some cases, we copy what we observe because we want to fit into a group. We want to be accepted by our peers. We also copy what we see because we think it may help us in the future. This is called observational learning. Observational learning helps us understand how the world works.

What is Automatic Imitation?

Learning is a cognitive process that occurs in a social context. It can be observed when we observe a behavior and see the consequences of the behavior. Learning can also take place without any visible changes in behavior. Observation, extraction of information from the observations, and decision-making play important roles in learning. Learners are active participants in learning. Their environment influences how they think about things. They also learn from what they do and see. Both environment and behavior affect cognition.

In the digital age, school curriculums are struggling to keep up with the changing ways in which students learn. With the internet and an endless supply of information at their fingertips, students are no longer confined to textbooks and worksheets. They can now find information on any topic they're studying with a few quick clicks of a mouse. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for schools.

What Is Vicarious Learning?

Vicarious learning is a form of social learning. Specifically, it is learning through others, though this can take many forms. Sometimes we learn about ourselves when we watch others.

For instance, if you see someone getting angry, you might feel anger yourself. This is called vicarious learning. Vicarious learning lets us know that we are capable of certain emotions. This knowledge can help us deal with those feelings.

Social Learning In Education

Management is a dodgy technology for the 21st-century.

Daniel Pink's words, not mine, but it's true.

Bandura's Social Learning theory explained that children learn in social environments by observing and then imitating the behavior of others.

Management is a construct of industrialization. To be fair, it has a role anywhere: networks, sports teams, software, app stores, parks, and retail environments are all managed (with varying degrees of efficiency and success). But what about in learning? What should be managed there?

What is to be learning-so, standards? The pattern and form of those standards-so, curriculum? How that curriculum is delivered to students-so, teaching? What happens when pre-determined learning outcomes aren't met-so, remediation?

These are all constructs that we often seek to refine rather than replace, but our relative lack of success here compared to our expenditure of time, money, and ideas should make us wonder-are we doing it right? Social Learning is already happening.

But as economies, institutions, connectivity, technology, and information access morph the world around us and make it unrecognizable to the Sesame Street generation, it would make sense to at least be able to contextualize social learning:

What is it?

What should I understand about it?

What is it 'doing' to learning?

How should I adjust my actions and behavior as an educator accordingly?

And more broadly, what parts of the learning process need to be managed and which need to be left alone? Because if it all needs to be managed, we're doing whiz-bang job.

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What is social learning? Social learning theory is a behavioral theory that posits that new behaviors can be learned by observing and imitating others. It is underpinned by the idea that meaning-making (i.e., learning) is a cognitive behavior and process that occurs in social settings.

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Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures

Teacher leaders from across the district and in each building have been trained in Kagan structures for use in the classroom and in-turn have continued building capacity with the teachers in the district, K-12, on effective uses of Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategies for all students.

What are Kagan Structures?

Structures are simple, step-by-step instructional strategies. Most Kagan Structures are designed to increase student engagement and cooperation. For example, a simple Kagan Structure is a RallyRobin. Rather than calling on one student at a time, the teacher has all students interacting at once by saying, "Turn to your partner and do a RallyRobin." During a RallyRobin, students repeatedly take turns, giving one answer each turn to create an oral list. Each student in the class gives several answers. For longer responses, the teacher might use a different structure, a Timed Pair Share. In a Timed Pair Share, each student in turn shares for a predetermined time, perhaps only a minute each.
Source: http://www.kaganonline.com/free_articles/dr_spencer_kagan/ASK38.php

W hat are the basic principles of Kagan Cooperative Learning? Why do we need basic principles?

The basic principles of good cooperative learning are that:

1) The learning task promotes teamwork and students experience themselves as being on the same side;

2) Each student is held accountable for their individual contribution;

3) Students participate about equally; and

4) Many students are engaged at once.

These simple principles ensure students will cooperate, that each will make an independent contribution, and that all students participate about equally and participate a great deal. They are important because if we leave them out, students can hide - they can take a free ride allowing others to do the work. In the traditional classroom, participation is voluntary. Many students, for whatever reasons, simply do not participate. When the principles are in place, all students become intensely engaged.

The Essential 2!

Teachers that use just RallyRobin and Timed Pair Share can make a huge difference in achievement and engagement and can take their students a very long way simply instead of "calling-on-one." Along with higher academic achievement you will also see a reduction of the gap between high and low achieving students, improved social skills and cooperativeness, improved self-esteem, increased liking for school and learning, improved classroom climate, decreased discipline problems, increased leadership and employability skills, improved conflict resolution skills and increased empathy and concern for others!

The Essential 5!

In pairs, students alternate generating brief oral responses.
Examples:
* List adjectives to describe the character.
* List inert elements.
* Share steps of the experiment.
* Describe an event from the story.

In pairs, students share with a partner for a predetermined time while the partner listens. Then partners switch roles.
Examples:
* What is the key thing that you learned?
* What is one literary technique you plan to use in your writing and how will you use it?

In teams, students take turns responding orally.
Examples:
* What makes a good listener?
* List objects that float?
* What clubs or societies are you a member of?
* What is one of your favorite movies?

Partners take turns, one solving a problem while the other coaches. Then partners switch roles.
* Useful for any process or procedure with a definite right/wrong.
* Solve multi-step word problems in math.
* Change each decimal into a simplified fraction.

Students stand up, put their hand up and quickly find a partner with whom to share or discuss.
This structure is perfect for classbuilding, processing and reviewing information, energizing the class, forming random pairs or teams, lesson starts or wraps.

Of course it goes without saying, this Essential 5 is in no way a substitute for completing a multi-day Institute on Kagan Cooperative Learning. Participating in a multi-day course will show you how to build powerful learning teams in your classroom. You'll learn Kagan methods for teambuilding, classbuilding, classroom management, dozens more Kagan Structures for mastery, higher-level thinking, and social skills. Kagan Institutes are extremely practical, hands-on classes packed with great ideas all grounded in sound research and theory!

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Curriculum and Instruction / Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures

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Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures Teacher leaders from across the district and in each building have been trained in Kagan structures for use in the classroom and in-turn have continued building capacity with the teachers in the district, K-12, on effective uses of Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategies for all students.

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Experienced teachers know that there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to teaching their students. Each student is unique, with different learning styles, strengths, and weaknesses. They also know how important a positive classroom community is to boost self-esteem, enhance learning, and promote risk taking. Kagan strategies can help educators build a caring and kind environment to help all types of learners thrive.

Overview of Kagan Strategies

Source: kaganonline.com

Kagan is a scientific research-based program focused on student engagement. Back in 1968, Dr. Spencer Kagan began researching child behavior and realized he could create cooperative and competitive learning for children by placing them in different types of situations. He became a leader in the cooperative learning movement. Today, he continues to dedicate his life to creating positive learning environments for students of all grade levels and abilities.

Benefits of Using Kagan Strategies in the Classroom

Source: kaganonline.com

Kagan actively engages all students, unlike traditional teaching structures. With traditional teaching, students sit at their desks listening to the teacher and are called on one at a time. Students compete to shine and have a chance to speak. At the same time, shy and lower-achieving students avoid participating instead of trying to engage in class.

With the Kagan method, all students face each other and have a chance to share. All students are engaged simultaneously within just a minute or two. Students develop self-esteem, social skills, leadership skills, and communication skills. They become teammates while learning the curriculum, bouncing ideas off one another.

When students work in teams, they work together instead of competing against each other. This camaraderie is similar to the positive benefits sports teams build. Cooperative learning leads to academic and social gains since every student has an equal turn. Behavior improves while disruptions disappear.

Kagan Classbuilding and Teambuilding Structures

Dr. Kagan and his team have developed approximately 200 different Kagan structures. His book Kagan Cooperative Learning is his all-time top-seller and the book that started it all. From there, he and his team have branched out with numerous books specific to grade levels or particular strategies, smart cards containing numerous strategies in an easy-access foldable, and more.

While it would be impossible to cover all of the strategies in one article, here are a few examples of the most popular Kagan classbuilding and teambuilding structures to incorporate in the classroom. Apply these strategies to any subject area.

Examples of Kagan Classbuilding Structures

Classbuilding Structures involve activities where the whole class engages with one another. Some of my favorite Classbuilding Structures are:

Find Someone Who

Students circulate around the room, finding classmates who can answer questions on their teacher-created Find Someone Who form. Students must find a different classmate for each question, which leads to communication with everyone in the class.

Line-Ups

Students line up in a specified order, requiring communication and cooperation. The topics can be personal, such as lining up in birth date order. Other ideas include providing each student with a card with an event from a story or history and having students line up sequentially.

Mix-Pair-Share

Students mix around the room to music or just the beat of their own drum. When the music stops or the teacher calls "pair," students pair up with the classmate closest to them. The teacher then gives the class a topic to discuss with their partner. This can be repeated multiple times with the same or different questions, making sure students pair up with a different classmate each round.

Corners

Students choose one of four designated corners of the room and interact about a topic with other students in their corner. Each corner has a different answer to a question, opinion to a topic, etc.

Examples of Kagan Teambuilding Structures

With Teambuilding Structures, students are first grouped into small teams, usually composed of four students. If your students already sit at tables or desks put together to form small groups, your teams are already in place. Some of my favorite Teambuilding Structures are as follows:

RoundRobin

Anyone familiar with Kagan Structures knows this one, and it is a trendsetter. After placing students in teams, each student shares something with his or her teammates. RoundRobin may involve a single turn each or multiple turns. Everyone takes turns listening to each teammate, and everyone shares.

Fan-n-Pick

Group students into teams of four, in which each student has a different role, which rotates each round. Students answer questions from a deck of index cards, with questions relating to a subject area. The student roles are: Student 1 fans the cards; student 2 picks and reads a card; student 3 answers the question; and student 4 paraphrases and praises the answer.

Team Charades

This is just like the game we all know and love from our own childhood. First, students pick a card. Next, they act out whatever is on the card, without revealing it to the team or saying a word. This is a great way to strengthen kinesthetic intelligence.

Placemat Consensus

Create a Placemat (worksheet) with spaces for each student to write, with a Consensus space in the middle. If using a circle shape, first make a small circle in the middle of the circle. Next, draw spokes separating the outer circle into four spaces. After each teammate writes in his or her space, teammates take turns elaborating on their own ideas. If the team as a whole decides an answer is important, they write it in the Consensus space.

Feedback From Fellow Teachers

Here's what other teachers who use Kagan strategies regularly in their classrooms told me:

"I can see students' self-esteem and achievement improve when using Kagan strategies. Kagan strategies are great to motivate and keep students involved." -Maria Smith, elementary school teacher

"Kagan is an extremely effective way of allowing students to express knowledge in different ways, giving all students a chance to succeed using different learning styles. It's also a good informal assessment tool for teachers to understand where students may need reinforcement in different subjects." -Samantha Tannenbaum, elementary school teacher

"Kagan strategies make learning more fun for all. They can easily be applied to so many different topics. I love how the entire class becomes engaged simultaneously." -Sara Harris, high school teacher

More Resources for Kagan Strategies
Read more about specific research studies, theory, and rationale here.
Watch this video for a five-minute overview of the Kagan rationale and methodology.

What are some Kagan strategies you've tried in your classroom? Share your thoughts in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE on Facebook.

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All posts by Stephanie Sanders, M.Ed., Elementary Education, M.Ed., Educational Leadership

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Find out how Kagan Strategies help educators build a caring and kind environment to help all types of learners thrive.

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Reading Notes: Understanding How We Learn 

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Reading Notes: Understanding How We Learn 

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Co-operative Education (referred to as co-op) is a way for students to earn money full-time while working in their field of study as a student. As the global founder of cooperative education, UC remains a world-class leader in experience-based learning.

We are ranked Top 5 among all public & private universities in the United States.
U.S. News & World Report Co-op & Internship Program Rankings
UC students earn a collective $75 million annually working in about 6,000 co-op placements for 1,800 national and international employers, including Apple, Boeing, Disney, Duke Energy, Fisher Price, General Electric, HBO, NASA, Nike, Tesla, Toyota and many more.

There are many benefits to having co-ops integrated in your major:

Networking with future employers

Gaining relevant on-the-job experience

Earning money ($10,000 average per semester)

Building your resume or portfolio before graduation

Co-op is integrated in programs in:

"Academic excellence is a priority for us. We take pride in seeing our rankings rise and our number 3 ranking for co-ops and internships. We can be equally proud that UC is making academic gains and working even harder to foster student success while protecting affordability for our students and their families, " said UC President Neville Pinto.

Read the Frequently Asked Questions and hear from other international students on co-op.

Explore Co-op at UC.

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Co-operative Education (referred to as co-op) is a way for students to earn money full-time while working in their field of study as a student. As the global founder of cooperative education, UC remains a world-class leader in experience-based learning. We are ranked Top 5 among all public & private universities in the United States.

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Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts: 8 Essential Elements Of A Synergistic eLearning Strategy

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Are you looking at the big L&D picture? Check 8 essential elements of a Synergistic eLearning Strategy and adopt a holistic approach!

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Cooperative learning may be contrasted with competitive learning, in which students work against each other to achieve a good grade and only some of them succeed and individualistic learning, in which students work independently to achieve learning goals unrelated to those of other students.

Within competitive situations, individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and detrimental to others. The student effort is on performing faster and better than classmates. Students realize that "they can obtain their goals if and only if the other students in the class fail to obtain their goals." (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, p.5) .

Individualistic learning means "working by oneself to ensure that one's own learning meets a present criterion independently from the efforts of the other students" (Johnson & Johnson, 1999, p.7). There are two types of social interdependence: cooperative and competitive. Lack of positive interdependence leads to individualistic efforts.

Johnson, D., Johnson, R. (1999). Learning together and alone: cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning.Boston: Allyn and Bacon

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Differences Among Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning

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Cooperative learning may be contrasted with competitive learning, in which students work against each other to achieve a good grade and only some of them succeed and individualistic learning, in which students work independently to achieve learning goals unrelated to those of other students.