# data[].attributes.headline
Analysis of Learners Rights of a Major Private Hospital in India

# data[].attributes.subject
Analysis of Learners Rights of a Major Private Hospital in India

# data[].attributes.body
A brief analysis of Learner rights with respect to a private hospital's Bill of Rights and IOTA Code of Ethics.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why is Human Right's in Education (HRE) important? 

# data[].attributes.subject
Why is Human Right's in Education (HRE) important? 

# data[].attributes.body
This website gives a simple explanation of why HRE is important and more.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Rights of the Learner: A Framework for Promoting Equity through Formative Assessment in Mathematics Education 

# data[].attributes.subject
The Rights of the Learner: A Framework for Promoting Equity through Formative Assessment in Mathematics Education 

# data[].attributes.body
This article details 4 Rights of the Learner in detail. While OT's don't focus on math I believe it is significant as we help our client's problem solve everyday. How do you think these findings can be applies to OT?

# data[].attributes.body
Research of HRE in developing countries.

# data[].attributes.headline
Play for Improving Parent- Child Relationships -Teaching Plan

# data[].attributes.subject
Play for Improving Parent- Child Relationships -Teaching Plan

# data[].attributes.body
A teaching plan for OT's to encourage play based strategies for parents to implement in naturalistic environments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Play for Improving Parent- Child Relationships -Teaching Plan

# data[].attributes.body
An informative video on how to create a healthcare lesson plan and aspects to consider.

# data[].attributes.headline
Seven Practical Principles for Improving Patient Education- Evidence-Based Ideas from Cognition Science

# data[].attributes.subject
Seven Practical Principles for Improving Patient Education- Evidence-Based Ideas from Cognition Science

# data[].attributes.body
Article provides a simplified table of 7 recommendations, practical tips and rationale

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Seven practical principles for improving patient education- Evidence-based ideas from cognition science

# data[].attributes.body
Nursing lesson plan examples and templates that can be used to guide your own teaching plan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nursery or preschool, which is also called as the early childhood stage of a human being's life, is where he/she starts basic education and starts learning before joining the mandatory education later on. Lesson plans are very helpful for teachers as it helps them complete their portion on time.

95+ FREE PLAN Templates - Download Now Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word (DOC), Microsoft Excel (XLS), Google Docs, Apple (MAC) Pages, Google Sheets (SPREADSHEETS), Apple (MAC) Numbers, Microsoft Publisher

6 Quick Steps to Write a Nursery Plan

Step 1: Title of the Plan

The title of your lesson should give you an idea about what your lesson plan would be about. Carefully planned lesson plans will make learning fun and also help students reach their anticipated goal effortlessly. A lesson plan has all the key features as to what is the title of the lesson and the time to be taken to finish it.

Step 2: Objectives and Goals

The objective should mainly contain what do you want your students to learn and how. They should also be able to understand the relationship between things around them, so that they can connect the dots of learning themselves, with a little help from the teacher. As maintaining lesson plans are mandatory by many schools, it makes the teachers reach their goal of finishing the lesson on time, without hesitation.

Step 3: Know your Students

Being their, teacher, you should know whether or not they grasp the concept, recognize their skills and work with their skills towards achieving their goals. It is very important to know your students, their capabilities and abilities, and also their weaknesses and helps the students strengthen them eventually.

Step 4: Teach and Observe

Plan how you want to teach and observe the students. Teach the class and ask them questions regarding the topic to check whether or not they have understood the concept. This will help you make an analysis of who is understanding what you teach perfectly and who needs to put in a little extra effort.

Step 5: Materials/Resources

Make sure that you have a list of materials and resources you need for the class you planned. They could be papers, stationery, toys, Leggo blocks, etc. Try making it a fun-to-be-in class, so that the students enjoy the class and not get bored.

Step 6: Assessment and Evaluation

A fair assessment is very important for all students. You cannot favour one or a few students specifically. If a student isn't performing good, he/she needs positive reinforcement to perform better. Make sure you give them a positive outlook about their flaws, so they start to learn to accept them without regrets for the future.

5+ Nursing Lesson Plan Templates

1. Nursing Lesson Plan Sample

The nursery stage is where he/she associates learning with mostly fun and activities around school and home. A lesson plan for nursery students must consist of basic details like who are they, what do they already know, what should be taught to them, etc.

2. Nursing Lesson Plan Example

In a lesson plan, you should have details of what is your plan of action to make your students understand a concept for a particular class. Since it is a nursery lesson plan, you should have a detailed plan about how you are going to make the children get the topic through means of fun and games.

3. Printable Nursing Lesson Plan

A printable nursing plan can be a form of free plan pamphlet that might help parents have a better idea about how to keep their infants active and healthy by giving them proper nutrition. It also gives details of any home visitation programs available for the new parents, as shown in the above template.

4. Nursing Lesson Assignment Plan

A nursing lesson assignment provides you with details of how to go about a certain care unit. It gives you an insight into what you should be able to do after you have successfully executed the plan made. It also provides you with possible suggestions that might make you understand the concept better.

5. Mental Health Nursing Lesson Plan

Mental health is the cognitive well-being of an individual, without the detection of any illness. They are emotionally and mentally very strong compared to people who are not. A mental health nursing plan is a plan that helps experts deal with issues and situations connected with mental illness. They have a set of objectives to reach and also a plan to execute so that they can reach their goal at the right time. The plan can also include written exams, quizzes, discussions, etc.

6. Integrative Nursing Lesson Plan

When two or more components are combined to form a huge system or effective unit, it is called integration. Nursing plans provide thoughtful insights to students or seekers under you. An integrative lesson plan has an introduction, a background with a researched significance of it, a practice analysis which gives you an outline of what you are going to teach/study, and an elaborated test plan that helps you in further topics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5+ Nursing Lesson Plan Templates - PDF | Free & Premium Templates

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nursery or preschool, which is also called as the early childhood stage of a human being's life, is where he/she starts basic education and starts learning before joining the mandatory education later on. Lesson plans are very helpful for teachers as it helps them complete their portion on time.

# data[].attributes.body
Brief explanation of OT and Parent Roles.

# data[].attributes.body
These videos are a series of 3 simple short videos on health literacy and it's applications.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
HANDS UP | 1 - Introduction to Physical & Health Literacy

# data[].attributes.body
Article emphasises the importance of health literacy on health outcomes and a few strategies to efficiently exchange information

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Stephanie Stephens On Nov 27, 2017

The patient's visit - let's call him "Bill" - is almost complete, as the physician hands him a sheet of instructions he's just explained. He asks Bill, "Do you understand what you need to do?" Bill looks blankly at the physician, nods his head, and utters softly, "Yes."

Truth is, if this patient is like most, he'll forget between 40 to 80 percent of what the doctor has just said. It's proven that if Bill doesn't know what to do and how to do it correctly, his health will suffer. In the most severe cases, he could even die. He came to the office to get help with his health, and he's leaving without the knowledge to put into practice what he's been told.

And he's not alone. It's a matter of health literacy.

Say What?

Health literacy may be defined as "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions."

Deficiencies in health literacy are a big problem. A summary of over-the-counter medication behaviors of older adults found that one in five lacks the cognitive and psychosocial skills to manage their personal health and conduct everyday tasks, including use of medications. The greatest risks, the report says, occur in people over 60 years old, those with less than a high school education, racial/ethnic minorities and those with multiple morbidities.

There's more. Approximately 36 percent of U.S. adults have low health literacy, says the nonprofit Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc. That adds up to a cost to the economy of up to $236 billion a year when taking into account medical errors, increased illness and disability, loss of wages and compromised public health. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy showed that only 12 percent of U.S. adults have proficient health literacy.

How difficult can it be for patients to understand their health and what to do to take care of it? As Pfizer expresses on its website, health literacy is really about covering the basics:

reading appointment slips

understanding medication labels

learning about health conditions

and when things get more complex...

participating in discussions about informed consent

end-of-life planning

applying for and navigating health insurance plans

Let's look at what's being done to improve health literacy in America.

Not Being Health Literate Adds Up

Not getting it right the first time also has a personal cost. A report in the November 2015 issue of the International Journal of Health Policy and Management finds that people "with below basic or basic compared to above basic health literacy individuals incurred more visits and spent more on visits and prescription medications."

Problems with health literacy have long existed, but "didn't penetrate many people's consciousness until well into the first decade of the 21 st century," says Senior Health Care Researcher Cindy Brach at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

"Health literacy occurs when health information and services created for the public match with people's capacity to find, understand and use them," says the agency. It has developed one of the most comprehensive and user-friendly sets of free resources for professionals, clinicians and providers, available at its website.

Now, as healthcare conversations revolve around value-based reimbursement and the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, "there's an upswing of interest in health literacy," Brach says.

"Quality incentives enable providers to improve care - they remove some of the obstacles to providing high-quality care that they face when only receiving fee-for-service payments," she says.

"Because part of their pay depends on patient outcomes, clinicians also have a more vested interest now in patient and family engagement," Brach says. "They want to make sure that the 99.99 percent of time patients are not in the doctor's office, they have the skills they need to maintain their health and prevent illness. With MIPS and value-based payment, outcome really matters, such as whether a patient with diabetes is able to control blood sugar levels on an ongoing basis."

Don't forget the ever-important Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems surveys, patients' reports of their experiences with care, she says. "It asks patients, 'How often did this provider explain things in a way that was easy to understand?' Portions of payment depend on how patients answer survey questions, including ones about communication."

Ask Me 3: The Basics of Health Literacy

As physicians and other healthcare professionals have often thought out loud, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate." They undoubtedly wish that patients could organize their thoughts, statements and questions to make the information exchange more efficient. And patients wish doctors would reciprocate.

The National Patient Safety Foundation merged with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in May 2017 and is now known as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. It says patients can cut to the root of their issues with three "good questions for your good health," highlighted in an educational program called Ask Me 3:

What is my main problem?

What do I need to do?

Why is it important for me to do this?

During a conversation, providers can remember that their communications skills are every bit as important as their medical knowledge. They're advised to

Slow down

Limit, but repeat, information at every visit

Avoid medical jargon

Use illustrations to explain important concepts

Use easy-to-read written materials

Make visits interactive

Use "teach-back" to gauge comprehension

Hammering Health Literacy Home - Nicely

You'll find similar helpful language in the AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, 2 nd Edition, considered a very comprehensive resource to help reduce the complexities of delivering and communicating care. In this case, look for Communicate Clearly, Tool #4.

"Each tool is three to four pages long and immediately actionable," Brach says. For practitioners in a hurry - and who isn't these days? - she points to the handy "Quick Start Guide" that drills down to health literacy basics and includes a succinct video to kick things off.

"We suggest forming an in-office team to get started," Brach says. "Practices that already have a quality improvement infrastructure in place do best because they're used to trying out changes. This isn't 'plug and play,' but it's about adapting to fit these ideas into your workflow, making modifications and trying something different next time."

The toolkit has three especially helpful and effective "poster children," says Brach, and she describes them here.

1. Teach-Back: First, she highly recommends Tool #5 that prompts patients to describe in their own words or demonstrate what's just been instructed to them - such as how many pills to take or how to use an inhaler. "Practices have told us how enlightening it is when they discover how frequently patients just don't understand," she says, "and that they go home and do the wrong thing."

For providers who feel rushed, try Teach-Back on the last patient before lunch, knowing that it may not go perfectly the first time out. Keep practicing until teach-back is just another aspect of the conversation, not some additional task to tack on to the end of the visit.

2. Brown Bag Medical Reviews: Another eye opener is Tool #8, which determines what medicines patients are taking and how they are taking them. Similar to the comprehensive medication review that is part of medication therapy management, the review asks patients to bring medications and supplements to their visit and discuss them.

"One physician reported that he was about to send a patient to the hospital before he discovered that patient had been taking two beta blockers instead of one," says Brach. "The medications each had a different name on the bottle label."

3. Action Planning: In Tool #15, patients set a goal for a behavior change that is important to them, and clinicians or coaches engage patients in a discussion of an action plan that can help the patient fulfill the goal. Brach says, "It's so useful with patients who have a chronic condition; you can help them break down hard changes into manageable steps. Goals that were daunting become achievable through activities that patients feel confident they can accomplish."

As providers read and contemplate the tenets of implementing better health literacy, they should remember "it can happen to them, too," says Brach. "I know clinicians who have had an illness in a specialty other than their own complain about the difficulty they had with understanding. Others had their "aha moment" when a sick family member got some health information totally backwards because there was a problem with how that information was delivered."

Try looking at health literacy as a "must-do," instead of just optional, and assume everyone is at risk of misunderstanding and having difficulty navigating the health system. "It's just like blood safety. You don't know who's infected, so you act like everybody is and put on gloves. Address health literacy the same way. You never know when somebody's not understanding. Health literacy is a state, not a trait. Anyone at any time can experience limited health literacy."

Ensuring Patient Safety

Encouraging patients' active involvement in their own care is an emerging patient safety strategy. This ranges from encouraging patients to ask questions (Tool #14) to recruiting patients and family members to participate on patient safety teams (AHRQ's Strategy 1 from "Working with Patients and Families as Advisors").

In the spirit of the motto, "Nothing about me without me," hospitals are increasingly opening communication channels. "Now, some hospitals are including patients and families in the discussion when they round," says Brach. "Nursing shift changes that used to be staff-only events are starting to be held at the bedside (Strategy 3), which allows patients and families to correct any misstatements. We're also starting to see white boards in patients' rooms used for real communication with patients and families."

And with more patient and family communication and engagement, the greater the imperative to make health information easier to understand and health systems easier to navigate. For everyone.

Search thousands of healthcare jobs across the country and apply today!

Related Articles:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Stephanie Stephens On Nov 27, 2017 The patient's visit - let's call him "Bill" - is almost complete, as the physician hands him a sheet of instructions he's just explained. He asks Bill, "Do you understand what you need to do?" Bill looks blankly at the physician, nods his head, and utters softly, "Yes."

# data[].attributes.body
Article introduces health literacy, it's importance and assessment tools.

# data[].attributes.body
Comment below what you would like to know more about with regards to education in family-based care.

# data[].attributes.headline
Learner Profile Questionnaire for Parents of children attending Occupational Therapy

# data[].attributes.subject
Learner Profile Questionnaire for Parents of children attending Occupational Therapy

# data[].attributes.body
An interactive questionnaire to assess parent's goals, motivation, learning preferences, etc to help in learning strategies and techniques during therapy to practice at home.

# data[].attributes.body
An interesting Ted talk on learning preferences of introverts and extroverts and their impacts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.

# data[].attributes.headline
Assessing Parental Readiness to Change: A Psychometric Evaluation of the READI-SF in a Community Sample

# data[].attributes.subject
Assessing Parental Readiness to Change: A Psychometric Evaluation of the READI-SF in a Community Sample

# data[].attributes.body
It is important to assess the parent's motivation and readiness to change. If they are unmotivated or not ready learning and implementing of strategies and techniques will not be as effective.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Assessing Parental Readiness to Change: A Psychometric Evaluation of the READI-SF in a Community Sample

# data[].attributes.body
A fun questionnaire to check your learning preference. Remember these are only preferences and can change depending on the circumstances.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
VARK Questionnaire version 8.02
Choose the answer which best explains your preference and click the box next to it. Please click more than one if a single answer does not match your perception. Leave blank any question that does not apply.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
VARK Questionnaire: How do you learn best?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fill in the VARK questionnaire to find out your learning style - do you prefer to use Visual, Aural, Read/write or Kinesthetic learning strategies, or a combination?

# data[].attributes.body
This padlet is designed for occupational therapists to learn and create dialogue on parent education and  involvement in therapy. Please keep scrolling below!

# data[].attributes.body
The posts in orange are sources that I've written or made. DISCLAIMER: It is  based on my understanding of the topic and readings.

# data[].attributes.body
Posts in purple are various resources that are useful to dig deeper or have quick summaries of the topic in the column.

# data[].attributes.body
Green posts are for questions, feedback or to discuss the topics.
Remember we are all here to learn so be positive and constructive!

# data[].attributes.body
An area where you can ask questions, give feedback and interact with other users.

# data[].attributes.body
Handout explaining the process of using TLP for OT's to guide parents during therapy

# data[].attributes.headline
Detailed view of Transformative Learning Process

# data[].attributes.subject
Detailed view of Transformative Learning Process

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Transformative Learning Theory was first articulated by Jack Mezirow of Columbia University after researching factors related to the success, or lack of, of womens' reentry to community college programs in the 1970's, with the resulting conclusion that a key factor was perspective transformation . He went on to describe a 10 phase transformation process which emerged as common to many of the women who successfully re-entered community college.

Mezirow argued that transformations often follow some variation of the following phases of meaning becoming clarified:

A disorienting dilemma

A self examination with feelings of guilt or shame

A critical assessment of epistemic, sociocultural, or psychic assumptions

Recognition that one's discontent and the process of transformation are shared and that others have negotiated a similar change

Exploration of options for new roles, relationships, and actions

Planning a course of action

Acquisition of knowledge and skills for implementing one's plan

Provision trying of new roles

Building of competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships

A reintegration into one's life on the basis of conditions dictated by one's perspective

The first phase was a disorienting dilemma. This dilemma represents the first of three key themes of Mezirow's TLT, experience - Doug had an experience which did not fit with his pre-existing meaning structure, causing a disorienting dilemma. As long as our experiences fit, or can be fit, into our existing meaning structures we tend to not engage in transformative learning. These dilemmas can be epochal (all at once) such as Doug's "Ah-ha, or lights-on experience", or incremental, that is, a gradual recognition over time of a disconnect between our meaning structure and our environment.

The next two phases are important aspects of the second of the theory's themes - critical reflection. After experiencing a disorienting dilemma
- A self examination with feelings of guilt or shame
- A critical assessment of epistemic, sociocultural, or psychic assumptions
- Doug experienced this discomfort with his epistomology and reviewed it's validity given his experience on the hike.

The next phase represents the third of the theory's themes, rational discourse. Exploring with others the newly discovered "misfit" between your premises and your environment. Specifically:
- Recognition that one's discontent and the process of transformation are shared and that others have negotiated a similar change
- Exploration of options for new roles, relationships, and actions
- Doug's discussions with his group allowed him to explore this "misfit" how competition wasn't always the best approach to performance situations and explored other potential roles or approaches.

Planning a course of action, Acquisition of knowledge and skills for implementing one's plan, Provision trying of new roles, Building of competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships, and A reintegration into one's life on the basis of conditions dictated by one's perspective, these phases of the TLT process were evident in Doug's learning as he clearly developed a plan for implementing a course of action by staying with the slower members of the group. He acquired knowledge and skills for his plan through the on-going discussions with his group on how to respectfully ascertain other group members needs, and he would try out these new roles in different ways beside just walking with slower group members. He began offering help on how to pack tents, load backpacks for better weight distribution, etc. He gradually gained confidence in his ability to respectfully assist others and include them. He had his wrist slapped a few times for being overbearing and not letting people do things on their own, but he gradually, both over the course of the hike and throughout his final university year, began to find a balance between competitiveness and patronizing others.

Instrumental Learning versus Transformative Learning

"A key proposition of transformative learning theory recognizes the validity of Habermas's (1984) fundamental distinction between instructional and communicative learning." (Mezirow 2003)

Instrumental learning is the acquisition of skills and knowledge (mastering tasks, problem solving, manipulating the environment - - - the "how" and the "what"). In contrast, transformative learning is perspective transformation, a paradigm shift, whereby we critically examine our prior interpretations and assumptions to form new meaning - - - the "why." This perspective transformation is achieved through (1) disorienting dilemmas, (2) critical reflection, (3) rational dialogue, and (4) action.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mezirow's Ten Phases of Transformative Learning - Transformative Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Transformative Learning Theory was first articulated by Jack Mezirow of Columbia University after researching factors related to the success, or lack of, of womens' reentry to community college programs in the 1970's, with the resulting conclusion that a key factor was perspective transformation .

# data[].attributes.body
It is best to research more than 1 learning theory and find what applies to you best according to your audience, environment, desired behavior, etc.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
So what are educational learning theories and how can we use them in our teaching practice? There are so many out there, how do we know which are still relevant and which will work for our classes?
There are 3 main schemas of learning theories; Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism. In this article you will find a breakdown of each one and an explanation of the 15 most influential learning theories; from Vygotsky to Piaget and Bloom to Maslow and Bruner.
Swimming through treacle!

That's what it feels like when you are trying to sort through and make sense of the vast amount of learning theories we have at our disposal.

Way back in ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, first pondered the question "How does an individual learn something new if the subject itself is new to them" (ok, so I'm paraphrasing, my ancient Greek isn't very good!).

Since Plato, many theorists have emerged, all with their different take on how students learn. Learning theories are a set of principles that explain how best a student can acquire, retain and recall new information.

In this complete summary, we will look at the work of the following learning theorists.

Despite the fact there are so many educational theorists, there are three labels that they all fall under. Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism is based on the idea that knowledge is independent and on the exterior of the learner. In a behaviorist's mind, the learner is a blank slate that should be provided with the information to be learnt.

Through this interaction, new associations are made and thus learning occurs. Learning is achieved when the provided stimulus changes behavior. A non-educational example of this is the work done by Pavlov.

Through his famous "salivating dog" experiment, Pavlov showed that a stimulus (in this case ringing a bell every time he fed the dog) caused the dog to eventually start salivating when he heard a bell ring.

The dog associated the bell ring with being provided with food so any time a bell was rung the dog started salivating, it had learnt that the noise was a precursor to being fed.

I use a similar approach to classroom management.

I adapt my body language.

I have taught my students that if I stand in a specific place in the classroom with my arms folded, they know that I'm getting frustrated with the level of noise and they start to quieten down or if I sit cross-legged on my desk, I'm about to say something important, supportive and they should listen because it affects them directly.

Behaviorism involves repeated actions, verbal reinforcement and incentives to take part. It is great for establishing rules, especially for behavior management.

Cognitivism

In contrast to behaviorism, cognitivism focuses on the idea that students process information they receive rather than just responding to a stimulus, as with behaviorism.

There is still a behavior change evident, but this is in response to thinking and processing information.

Cognitive theories were developed in the early 1900s in Germany from Gestalt psychology by Wolfgang Kohler. In English, Gestalt roughly translates to the organization of something as a whole, that is viewed as more than the sum of its individual parts.

Cognitivism has given rise to many evidence based education theories, including cognitive load theory, schema theory and dual coding theory as well as being the basis for retrieval practice.

In cognitivism theory, learning occurs when the student reorganizes information, either by finding new explanations or adapting old ones.

This is viewed as a change in knowledge and is stored in the memory rather than just being viewed as a change in behavior. Cognitive learning theories are mainly attributed to Jean Piaget.

Examples of how teachers can include cognitivism in their classroom include linking concepts together, linking concepts to real-world examples, discussions and problem-solving.

Constructivism

Constructivism is based on the premise that we construct learning new ideas based on our own prior knowledge and experiences. Learning, therefore, is unique to the individual learner. Students adapt their models of understanding either by reflecting on prior theories or resolving misconceptions.

Students need to have a prior base of knowledge for constructivist approaches to be effective. Bruner's spiral curriculum (see below) is a great example of constructivism in action.

As students are constructing their own knowledge base, outcomes cannot always be anticipated, therefore, the teacher should check and challenge misconceptions that may have arisen. When consistent outcomes are required, a constructivist approach may not be the ideal theory to use.

Examples of constructivism in the classroom include problem-based learning, research and creative projects and group collaborations.

1. Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget is an interesting character in Psychology. His theory of learning differs from many others in some important ways:

First, he focuses exclusively on children; Second, he talks about development (not learning per se) and Third, it's a stage theory, not a linear progression theory. OK, so what's he on about?

Well, there are some basic ideas to get your head around and some stages to understand too. The basic ideas are:

Schemas: The building blocks of knowledge.

Adaptation processes: These allow the transition from one stage to another. He called these: Equilibrium, Assimilation and Accommodation.

﻿Stages of Cognitive development: Sensorimotor; Preoperational; Concrete Operational; Formal Operational.

So here's how it goes. Children develop Schemas of knowledge about the world. These are clusters of connected ideas about things in the real world that allow the child to respond accordingly.

When the child has developed a working Schema that can explain what they perceive in the world, that Schema is in a state of Equilibrium.

When the child uses the schema to deal with a new thing or situation, that Schema is in Assimilation and Accommodation happens when the existing Schema isn't up to the job of explaining what's going on and needs to be changed.

Once it's changed, it returns to Equilibrium and life goes on. Learning is, therefore, a constant cycle of Assimilation; Accommodation; Equilibrium; Assimilation and so on...

All that goes through the 4 Stages of Cognitive Development, which are defined by age:

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

The Sensorimotor Stage runs from birth to 2 years and the child spends their time learning basic Schemas and Object Permanence (the idea that something still exists when you can't see it).

The Preoperational Stage runs from 2 years to 7 years and the child develops more Schemas and the ability to think Symbolically (the idea that one thing can stand for another; words for example, or objects). At this point, children still struggle with Theory of Mind (Empathy) and can't really get their head around the viewpoints of others.

The Concrete Operational Stage runs from 7 years to 11 years and this is the Stage when children start to work things out in their head rather than physically in the real world. They also develop the ability to Conserve (understand that something stays the same quantity even if it looks different).

The Formal Operational Stage runs from 11 years into adulthood and this is where abstract thought develops, as does logic and cool stuff like hypothesis testing.

According to Piaget, the whole process is active and requires the rediscovery and reconstructing of knowledge across the entire process of Stages.

Understanding the Stage a child is in informs what they should be presented with based on what they can and cannot do at the Stage they're in.

Piaget's work on cognitivism has given rise to some brilliant work from people like John Sweller who developed the fantastic Cognitive Load Theory and John Flavell's work on metacognition

2. Vygotsky's Theory of Learning

Vygotsky takes a different approach to Piaget's idea that development precedes learning.

Instead, he reckons that social learning is an integral part of cognitive development and it is culture, not developmental Stage that underlies cognitive development. Because of that, he argues that learning varies across cultures rather than being a universal process driven by the kind of structures and processes put forward by Piaget.

Zone of Proximal Development

He makes a big deal of the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development in which children and those they are learning from co-construct knowledge. Therefore, the social environment in which children learn has a massive impact on how they think and what they think about.

They also differ in how they view language. For Piaget, thought drives language but for Vygotsky, language and thought become intertwined at about 3 years and become a sort of internal dialogue for understanding the world.

And where do they get that from? Their social environment of course, which contains all the cognitive/linguistic skills and tools to understand the world.

Vygotsky talks about Elementary Mental Functions, by which he means the basic cognitive processes of Attention, Sensation, Perception and Memory.

By using those basic tools in interactions with their sociocultural environment, children sort of improve them using whatever their culture provides to do so. In the case of Memory, for example, Western cultures tend towards note-taking, mind-maps or mnemonics whereas other cultures may use different Memory tools like storytelling.

In this way, a cultural variation of learning can be described quite nicely.

What are crucial in this learning theory are the ideas of Scaffolding, the Zone of Proximal Development ( ZPD) and the More Knowledgeable Other ( MKO). Here's how all that works:

More Knowledgeable Other

The MKO can be (but doesn't have to be) a person who literally knows more than the child. Working collaboratively, the child and the MKO operate in the ZPD, which is the bit of learning that the child can't do on their own.

As the child develops, the ZPD gets bigger because they can do more on their own and the process of enlarging the ZPD is called Scaffolding.

Vygotsky Scaffolding

Knowing where that scaffold should be set is massively important and it's the MKO's job to do that so that the child can work independently AND learn collaboratively.

For Vygotsky, language is at the heart of all this because a) it's the primary means by which the MKO and the child communicate ideas and b) internalizing it is enormously powerful in cementing understanding about the world.

That internalization of speech becomes Private Speech (the child's "inner voice") and is distinct from Social Speech, which occurs between people.

Over time, Social Speech becomes Private Speech and Hey Presto! That's Learning because the child is now collaborating with themselves!

The bottom line here is that the richer the sociocultural environment, the more tools will be available to the child in the ZPD and the more Social Speech they will internalize as Private Speech. It doesn't take a genius to work out, therefore, that the learning environment and interactions are everything.

Scaffolding is also an integral part of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction.

3. Bloom's Domains of Learning

In 1956, American educational psychologist, Benjamin Bloom, first proposed three domains of learning; cognitive, affective and psycho-motor. Bloom worked in collaboration with David Krathwohl and Anne Harrow throughout the 1950s-70s on the three domains.

The Cognitive Domain (Bloom's Taxonomy)

This was the first domain to be proposed in 1956 and it focuses on the idea that objectives that are related to cognition could be divided into subdivisions and ranked in order of cognitive difficulty.

These ranked subdivisions are what we commonly refer to as Bloom's taxonomy. The original subdivisions are as follows (knowledge is the lowest with evaluation being the most cognitively difficult):

However, there was a major revision of the subdivisions in 2000-01 by Bloom's original partner, David Krathwohl and his colleague, Lorin Anderson (Anderson was a former student of Bloom's).

The highlights of this revision were switching names of the subdivisions from nouns to verbs, thus making them easier to use when curriculum and lesson planning.

The other main change was the order of the top two subdivisions was reversed. The updated taxonomy is as follows:

The Affective Domain

The affective domain (sometimes referred to as the feeling domain) is concerned with feelings and emotions and also divides objectives into hierarchical subcategories. It was proposed by Krathwohl and Bloom in 1964.

The affective domain is not usually used when planning for math and sciences as feelings and emotion are not relevant for those subjects. However, for educators of arts and language, the inclusion of the affective domain is imperative wherever possible.

The ranked domain subcategories range from "receiving" at the lower end up to "characterization" at the top. The full ranked list is as follows:

1. Receiving. Being aware of an external stimulus (feel, sense, experience).

2. Responding. Responding to the external stimulus (satisfaction, enjoyment, contribute)

3. Valuing. Referring to the student's belief or appropriation of worth (showing preference or respect).

4. Organization. The conceptualizing and organizing of values (examine, clarify, integrate.)

5. Characterization. The ability to practice and act on their values. (Review, conclude, judge).

The Psychomotor Domain

The psychomotor domain refers to those objectives that are specific to reflex actions interpretive movements and discreet physical functions.

A common misconception is that physical objectives that support cognitive learning fit the psycho-motor label, for example; dissecting a heart and then drawing it.

While these are physical (kinesthetic) actions, they are a vector for cognitive learning, not psycho-motor learning.

Psychomotor learning refers to how we use our bodies and senses to interact with the world around us, such as learning how to move our bodies in dance or gymnastics.

Anita Harrow classified different types of learning in the psycho-motor domain from those that are reflex to those that are more complex and require precise control.

1. Reflex movements. These movements are those that we possess from birth or appear as we go through puberty. They are automatic, that is they do not require us to actively think about them e.g. breathing, opening and closing our pupils or shivering when cold.

2. Fundamental movements. These are those actions that are the basic movements, running, jumping, walking etc and commonly form part of more complex actions such as playing a sport.

3. Perceptual abilities. This set of abilities features those that allow us to sense the world around us and coordinate our movements in order to interact with our environment. They include visual, audio and tactile actions.

4. Physical abilities. These abilities refer to those involved with strength, endurance, dexterity and flexibility etc.

5. Skilled movements. Objectives set in this area are those that include movements learned for sport (twisting the body in high diving or trampolining), dance or playing a musical instrument (placing fingers on guitar strings to produce the correct note). It is these movements that we sometimes use the layman's term "muscle memory".

6. Non-discursive communication. Meaning communication without writing, non-discursive communication refers to physical actions such as facial expressions, posture and gestures.

4. Gagné's Conditions of Learning

Robert Mills Gagné was an American educational psychologist who, in 1965 published his book "The Conditions of Learning". In it, he discusses the analysis of learning objectives and how the different classes of objective require specific teaching methods.

He called these his 5 conditions of learning, all of which fall under the cognitive, affective and psycho-motor domains discussed earlier.

Gagné's 5 Conditions of Learning

Verbal information (Cognitive domain)

Intellectual skills (Cognitive domain)

Cognitive strategies (Cognitive domain)

Motor skills (Psycho-Motor domain)

Attitudes (Affective domain)

Gagné's 9 Levels of Learning

To achieve his five conditions of learning, Gagné believed that learning would take place when students progress through nine levels of learning and that any teaching session should include a sequence of events through all nine levels. The idea was that the nine levels of learning activate the five conditions of learning and thus, learning will be achieved.

1. Gain attention.

2. Inform students of the objective.

3. Stimulate recall of prior learning.

4. Present the content.

5. Provide learning guidance.

6. Elicit performance (practice).

7. Provide feedback.

8. Assess performance.

9. Enhance retention and transfer to the job.

Benefits of Gagné's Theory

Used in conjunction with Bloom's taxonomy, Gagné's nine levels of learning provide a framework that teachers can use to plan lessons and topics. Bloom provides the ability to set objectives that are differentiated and Gagné gives a scaffold to build your lesson on.

5. Jerome Bruner

Bruner's Spiral Curriculum (1960)

Cognitive learning theorist, Jerome Bruner based the spiral curriculum on his idea that "We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development".

In other words, he meant that even very complex topics can be taught to young children if structured and presented in the right way. The spiral curriculum is based on three key ideas.

1. Students revisit the same topic multiple times throughout their school career. This reinforces the learning each time they return to the subject.

2. The complexity of the topic increases each time a student revisits it. This allows progression through the subject matter as the child's cognitive ability develops with age.

3. When a student returns to a topic, new ideas are linked with ones they have previously learned. The student's familiarity with the keywords and ideas enables them to grasp the more difficult elements of the topic in a stronger way.

Bruner's 3 Modes of Representation (1966)

Following the idea of the spiral curriculum, Bruner presented the idea of three modes of representation. These modes of representation refer to the way knowledge is stored in memory. Unlike Piaget's age-related stages, Bruner's modes are loosely sequential.

1. Enactive (age 0-1 years). Representation of knowledge through physical actions.

2. Iconic (age 1-6 years). Visual representation of knowledge stored via visual images.

3. Symbolic (age 7+ years). The use of words and symbols to describe experiences.

6. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The basic premise for Maslow's hierarchy of needs is that students progress through a set of sequential needs from physiological to self-actualization. As they move up through the levels, they feel more comfortable in their learning environment and have the confidence to push further.

It's important to note that any group of students will have learners at different levels, some may not have the lower levels met at home so making sure these students feel safe and secure is of the utmost importance as they will find it very hard to move to the upper levels.

Maslow's theory lends itself more to building student/teacher relationships rather than lesson or curriculum structure. You can have the best resources and most tightly planned lessons in the world but if you don't show enthusiasm, passion and empathy it will be very difficult for your students to feel their needs have been met.

Further reading: simplypsychology.org

7. Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner is an American developmental psychologist and professor of cognition and education at the Harvard graduate school at Harvard University. He studied under Erik Ericson (Below) and Jerome Bruner (above).

He published "Frames of Mind" in 1983, in it, he laid out his theory of "multiple intelligences".

Gardner perceived intelligence as the ability to solve problems or make products that are useful in one or more cultural settings.

He developed a list of criteria he would use to judge possible contenders for the title "intelligence". Candidates had to satisfy a range of the conditions on his list and also be able to solve genuine problems of difficulties. Initially, Gardner named seven intelligences.

Gardner's 7 Intelligences

1. Linguistic intelligence. The ability to learn and use language in written and spoken forms to express oneself.

2. Mathematical intelligence. The ability to solve problems logically, to solve mathematical problems and to perform scientific investigations.

3. Musical intelligence. Having skill in appreciation, composition and performance of musical patterns, including the ability to recognize tone, pitch and rhythm.

4. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. Using mental abilities to coordinate body movements to solve problems.

5. Spatial intelligence. Being able to recognize and use patterns in a wide or confined space.

6. Interpersonal intelligence. The capacity to understand the desires, motivations and intentions of other people.

7. Intrapersonal intelligence. The capacity to understand your own fears, feelings and motivations.

The Importance of Multiple Intelligence in the Classroom

Gardner suggested that the intelligences rarely operate independently and compliment each other as students learn new skills and solve problems. He also commented that the intelligences are amoral, meaning they can be used for constructive or destructive purposes.

Whilst Gardner's theory hasn't been hugely accepted in the field of Psychology, it has had a strong positive response in education, especially in the US.

In the face of criticism that it is hard to teach things in the frame of a certain intelligence, Gardner replied by stating that the seven intelligences give 7 ways to teach a subject, allowing multiple strategies to be used, thus allowing all students to make progress.

Gardner believes that all seven intelligences are required to live life well and education systems should include all seven not just the more academic first two.

Naturalist Intelligence

Since its original publication, Gardner has since added an eighth intelligence; Naturalist intelligence. This deals with an individual's ability to perceive, recognize and order features from the environment.

8. Erikson's 8 Stages of Psychological Development

Erik Erikson was a stage theorist who developed Freud's "Psychosexual Theory" and adapted it into a psychosocial (having both psychological and social aspects) theory encompassing eight stages.

According to Erikson, we experience eight stages of development during our life span. Within each stage, there is a dilemma that we must resolve in order to feel a sense of competence and will allow us to develop as a well-adjusted adult.

Erikson's 8 Stages

1. Trust Vs. Mistrust (Age 0 - 1.5). In this first stage, infants must learn that adults can be trusted. If treated poorly children may grow up feeling mistrust towards people.

2. Autonomy Vs. Shame (Age 1.5 - 3). The "me do it' stage, children start to make decisions and show preferences of elements in their environment such as what clothes to wear or what toy they prefer. If children are not allowed to explore these preferences they may develop low self-esteem and shame.

3. Initiative Vs. Guilt (Age 3 - 5). This stage involves children learning to plan and achieve goals involving others. If parents or teachers allow children to explore this and support their choices they will develop a sense of purpose and strong self-confidence.

4. Industry Vs. Inferiority (Age 5 - 12). In this stage, children start comparing themselves with their peers. Success at this will result in a sense of accomplishment in their school work, social and family activities and sports.

5. Identity Vs. Role Confusion (Age 12 - 18). Students in this stage are asking themselves "Who am I" and "What do I want to do in my life". They will try out multiple roles during this time to find what one "fits" best. A strong sense of identity and an ability to defend their core beliefs in the face of other opinions would be considered success at this stage.

6. Intimacy Vs. Isolation (Age 18 - 40). As students progress into early adulthood their focus shifts to making and maintaining strong, intimate relationships with others.

7. Generativity Vs. Stagnation (Age 40 - 65). In middle adulthood, people are concerned with contributing to society either through their work or parenthood. Continued self-improvement for the benefit of other people figures strongly here.

8. Ego Integrity Vs. Despair (Age 65+). Those in late adulthood reflect on their lives, feeling a sense of satisfaction or failure. Those who feel failure will often obsess with ideas of what they "should have" or "could have" done.

Educational Implications of Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development

Within an educational frame, Erikson's work gives us as teachers a framework to base our teaching on. Knowing what questions our students are asking of themselves and the world around them allows us to plan effectively.

Problems arise when our class has children at different stages in it, in this case, we must carefully differentiate our pedagogy to allow supportive learning for all students.

9. Kolb's Experiential Theory

Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle

David Kolb, an American education theorist proposed his four-stage experiential learning theory in 1984. It is built on the premise that learning is the acquisition of abstract concepts which can then be applied to a range of scenarios.

"Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
- Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Each stage in the cycle both supports and leads into the next stage. Learning is achieved only if all four stages have been completed, however, a learner may travel around the cycle multiple times, further refining their understanding of the topic.

No one stage is an effective learning strategy on its own, for example, if the reflective observation stage is skipped, the learner could continue to make the same mistakes.

10. The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle was developed by American educational theorist Laurence Peter and was explained in the book "The Peter Principle" that Peter wrote with his colleague, Raymond Hull.

Originally the book was supposed to be a satirical view on how people are promoted in organizations but it became popular as it actually made a valid point.

Whilst not strictly a learning theory, it does have some crossover to the classroom. The Peter Principal deals with four levels of competence. They could give a teacher planning a long term teaching strategy a framework to use when thinking about how students progress.

1. Unconscious Incompetence. Not knowing how to do a task without knowing you don't know.

2. Conscious Incompetence. You still don't know how to do the task but now you know you don't know. You are aware of a gap in your knowledge.

3. Conscious Competence. You can now do the task but it requires a lot of concentration.

4. Unconscious Competence. You can perform the task with ease. This is achieved by repeated practice.

I'm sure you can see how this would translate to a student's learning journey.

Further Reading: Peter, L. J., & Hull, R. (1969). The peter principle.

11. Laird's Sensory Theory

In 1985 Dugan Laird stated in his book Approaches to Training and Development that learning occurs when the senses are stimulated.

He quoted research that found that 75% of an adult's knowledge was obtained by seeing. 13% was through hearing, the remaining 12% was learned through touch, smell and taste combined.

Based on this research, providing visual prompts for students will enhance their learning. However, making your lessons a multi-sensual experience will enhance learning even further. It's worth considering this when planning your lessons.

12. Skinner's Behaviorist Theory

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is based on Thorndike's "Law of Effect" (1898), in which it is proposed that behaviors that are followed by positive responses are likely to be repeated and those that are followed by negative responses, not repeated.

Skinner refined the Law of Effect by introducing "reinforcement" into the descriptions. Using Skinner's new description we end up with; those behaviors that are reinforced are repeated (strengthened) and those not reinforced tend to dissipate (are weakened).

Positive Reinforcement

From a classroom management perspective, positive reinforcement is an essential strategy for teaching students how to act and conduct themselves.

Positive reinforcement (e.g. praise) should be given for behaviors that are desirable, for example, verbally answering questions in class. Initially, this should be done for all answers given, regardless of whether they are correct. This will build a culture of answering questions.

As the behavior in question becomes commonplace, the teacher should then both reduce the frequency of the reinforcement and, as in our above example, only give it for correct answers.

Ultimately the teacher will reduce the frequency of the positive reinforcement to only those responses of the highest caliber. This will create a culture of desired excellence in the students.

13. Rogers' Humanist Theory

Developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1980s, facilitative learning is a humanistic approach to learning.

Humanism was developed to contrast cognitivism and behaviorism. Both Rogers and Maslow (see above) based their work in humanism. The key perspectives of humanism are as follows:

People have a natural desire to learn in order to achieve self-actualization (see Maslow's theory above).

It is not the outcome that is the most important part of education, it is the process of learning itself.

The students themselves should be in control of their learning and it should be achieved through observing and exploring.

The teacher should be an encouraging role model, motivating, guiding and supporting students on their own personal journey.

Facilitative Learning

Rogers' views the teacher as a facilitator to learning rather than just a conveyor of knowledge. The success of the teacher is in their ability to build positive relationships with students.

Roger's proposed three attitudinal core characteristics that a teacher should possess for facilitative learning to be successful:

Realness. The teacher should be themselves and use their own personality when teaching. Being "real" with students breeds an ethos of trust between students and a teacher. The teacher should be able to convey their feelings rather than just being a monotonal, monochromatic robot.

Prizing, Accepting and Trusting. A teacher should care about their students and accept their feelings, regardless of whether they assist or detract from learning. Through these characteristics, deeper trust and respect is built.

Empathy. Understanding the student's perception of learning and their feelings.

The effectiveness of facilitative learning also requires certain traits to be present in the student. They should be motivated, aware of the facilitative conditions they have been provided with and aware that the task they have been given is useful, realistic and relevant.

If all these characteristics are present then, in the words of Rogers himself:

"learning becomes life, and a very vital life at that. The student is on his way, sometimes excitedly, sometimes reluctantly, to becoming a learning, changing being".- Rogers, Carl R. The Interpersonal Relationship in the Facilitation of Learning. In Humanizing Education: The Person in the Process. Ed. T. Leeper. National Education Association, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, p1-18. 1967.

14. Canter's Theory of Assertive Discipline

Assertive discipline is a structured system to enable teachers to manage their classrooms. It focuses on the teacher developing a positive behavior management strategy rather than being dictatorial.

Canter's proposition is that the teacher has the right to decide what is best for their students and that no student should prevent any other from learning.

The teacher should very clear boundaries as to how they expect their students to behave and work, the students should know what these boundaries are and any deviation should be met with an assertive action from the teacher.
This all sounds quite draconian, right?
However, if the teacher gives a firm, clear instruction and those instructions are met, they should be followed by positive reinforcement (see Skinner above). Any deviation from the instruction should be met with negative consequences that the students have prior knowledge of.

The behavior management guru, Bill Rogers, bases his strategies on the assertive teacher model, which I know from personal use, works incredibly well.

15. Dreikur's Classroom Management Theory

Rudolf Dreikur proposed the theory that mutual respect should be the basis for discipline and that this mutual respect motivates learners to display positive behaviors.

He believed students have an innate desire to feel like an accepted member of a group and to feel like they have value and confidence to contribute to that group. Dreikur called this desire to belong, the "genuine goal of social behavior".

If students are unable to achieve this goal, they start a series of "goals of misbehavior". The resulting misbehavior is a misguided attempt at gaining the sense of belonging they are missing.

Dreikur's 4 Goals of Misbehavior

If a student fails to gain social status by gaining attention, they move on to trying to gain power and control, failure at each successive level ultimately ends with feelings of inadequacy.

How to Combat the 4 Goals of Misbehavior.

Gain Attention. Ignore the attention-seeking and use positive reinforcement when positive behavior is shown. Distract the student by offering alternate actions or choices e.g. "Please could you hand out the books".

Gain Power and Control. Focus on all the good behavior in the class, while ignoring the attempt to gain power, on no account should you engage in a battle for power. Bill Rogers, the behavior expert, calls this the black dot, white square approach.

Gain Revenge. Remember that the student is trying to gain a sense of belonging and this revenge-seeking is a masked attempt to gain it. Away from other students, let the student know that you care about them and their education, that despite their actions you want the best for them.

Display Feelings of Inadequacy. At this stage, the student has given up on themselves. This stage will manifest in the form of "not doing" (not doing homework, not participating etc.). Students at this stage should be shown how to recognize small successes and achievements. Showing an interest in them and their work will always help slowly bring a student out of this stage.

Learning Theories Summary

I know what you're thinking. "How the hell am I supposed to do all of these" or "which ones should I use" or "I'm more confused than ever!".

That's how I felt when I was doing my teacher training. The truth is, great teaching involves a cocktail of most of these at some point (and a few actual cocktails at the weekend to recover!).

If you are just starting out on your journey as a teacher and you are worried that you'll do it wrong, just remember these basic principles:

1. Building positive relationships with students is the bedrock of EVERYTHING.

2. Setting clear boundaries that students are aware of.

3. Consequences of breaking those boundaries are also known in advance.

4. Focus on and reward the positive things that happen in your classroom (positive reinforcement).

5. Treat your students as people with thoughts and feelings of their own that, while may seem irrelevant to you, they are not to them.

6. It is easier and more effective to change your perspective to theirs than make them change to yours.

7. Remember, their world is not the one you grew up in.

I hope you found this article useful, I know it reminded me of a good few things that I may have been slacking with. Feel free to share it with your teacher friends, I'm sure they will appreciate it.

Learning Theories FAQ
What Are Learning Theories? What Is Behaviorism? What Is Cognitivism? What Is Constructivism?
Similar Posts:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
15 Learning Theories in Education (A Complete Summary)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A complete summary of the 15 most influential learning theories. Includes Vygotsky, Piaget, Bloom, Gagne, Maslow, Bruner, Kolb and many more.

# data[].attributes.headline
Brain Based Learning for Parent-Mediated Therapy- Using the RAD framework 

# data[].attributes.subject
Brain Based Learning for Parent-Mediated Therapy- Using the RAD framework 

# data[].attributes.body
A brief PPT of the RAD framework with strategies.

# data[].attributes.headline
Questions/ Feedback on Learning Theories.

# data[].attributes.subject
Questions/ Feedback on Learning Theories.

# data[].attributes.body
An area where you can ask questions, give feedback and interact with other users.

# data[].attributes.body
An area where you can ask questions, give feedback and interact with other users.

# data[].attributes.headline
Questions/ Feedback on Learning Preferences. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Questions/ Feedback on Learning Preferences. 

# data[].attributes.body
An area where you can ask questions, give feedback and interact with other users.

# data[].attributes.headline
Brain-Based Learning: Theory, Strategies, And Concepts _Aditya Shukla

# data[].attributes.subject
Brain-Based Learning: Theory, Strategies, And Concepts _Aditya Shukla

# data[].attributes.body
A simple detailed explanation of brain- based theory, strategies and motivation as a key to learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the strongest applications of research in psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science is brain-based learning. It allows us to leverage research on how the brain learns in creating a new set of guiding principles for learning, teaching, training, and education.

What is Brain-Based Learning?

Brain-based learning is a paradigm of learning which addresses student learning and learning outcomes from the point of view of the human brain. It involves specific strategies for learning which are designed based on how human attention, memory, motivation, and conceptual knowledge acquisition works. Brain-based learning and teaching can optimize learning holistically.

Historically, teaching and learning is largely based on what the students, teachers, and policy-makers think. Their opinions, experiences, logical-arguments, and quasi-experiments in the classroom inform the teaching and learning process. Brain-based learning takes a different approach. The way students are motivated, the way attention works, the way memories are formed, the way information is presented, etc. become the central aspects of teaching and learning.

One example is the construal level theory which can address the question - When and how should a student focus on the minute details contained in learning materials? Intuitively, one could say that details are important for mastery and students should learn details to demonstrate proficiency. However, this blanket statement isn't an evidence-based approach. The construal level theory shows that understanding an overview without the details can engage a larger network of concepts a student learns or is sensitized to. Understanding the essence of a certain topic can also promote creativity because capturing the essence of a concept makes the concept vague and abstract. An abstract entity links to more abstract entities and makes the learning broad as opposed to details making the learning narrow and specific.

This was just one example of how a brain-based learning approach can better inform teaching and learning.

A brain-based approach doesn't necessarily include intelligence testing, aptitude testing, and other standardized tests. While these can sometimes yield useful information, they are not required to utilize a brain-based approach. In some corner cases, it might be necessary - when there is significant cognitive impairment, physical disability, emotional distress due to confusion about careers, etc.

This approach can be considered quite accommodating because it doesn't discard anything that is useful or evidence-based because of superficial reasons like not falling into a particular perspective or pedagogy.

Brain-Based Learning Goals & Outcomes:

Considering that this approach is based on what and how much we know about the human brain and it's interaction with the environment, we can broadly define a few learning goals:

Maximize the learning potential of a person

Minimize learning losses and wasted effort

Hijack known mechanisms to improve skills, knowledge-base, memory, and mental flexibility

Create verifiable improvements in learning and make people smarter (for lack of a better word).

Improve the productivity of students and teachers

What it isn't:

A way to improve intelligence test scores. This does not mean that brain-based learning cannot make people smarter, it only expects that as an outcome. Some of the aspects involved in intelligence such as working memory, attention, long-term memory, verbal fluency, are likely to improve due to the use of specialized techniques (see below). A core assumption is that intelligence is unique and changeable.

Brain-Based Learning: An overview

Let us now look at a few fundamentals across 3 categories.

Brain-Based learning theory

Brain-Based learning strategies

Brain-Based learning as a function of student's emotions

These factors can be construed as the markers and predictors of long-term learning.

I've covered these concepts across various other articles in different contexts. You'll see the links to original articles for a particular topic at relevant places. Here is a short overview of the fundamental processes involved in learning. It is an introduction to this article.

Caine and Caine (1994), in their original work, outline 12 core principles of brain-based teaching and learning:

1. The brain processes multiple things in parallel

2. The whole body is involved in learning (deliberately or unconsciously)

3. People have an innate need to seek meaning and make sense

4. Finding patterns, giving identity, and giving structure helps people make sense (patterning)

5. Emotions are important in patterning

6. The brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts (details) and wholes (global concept). That is the brain processes multiple construals.

7. Learning needs focused attention and peripheral perception

8. The brain simultaneously involves conscious (remembering) and unconscious processes (priming)

9. Humans have at least 2 important memory systems - spatial memory and rote learning memory

10. Spatial memory is the strongest, people remember better when knowledge is embedded in spatial memory

11. Challenge promotes learning and threat/lack of safety inhibits it

12. All brains are uniquely configured and uniquely adaptable

These factors cover most of the important aspects of brain-based learning but they miss out on emotional regulation, social learning, feedback, and cognitive space. I've reorganized these into controllable and applicable principles below.

Brain-Based Learning Theory

The first thing we need to do is understand the important factors and theories which either facilitate learning or govern learning processes. These are the processes which we can control and manipulate in a learning environment.

Construal Level spectrum (CL): This describes the depth at which a concept or process is construed, also known as psychological distance. At the highest construal level, a mobile phone is a communication device. At the lowest construal, it is a Samsung S8. High construal is more abstract and widespread in how it relates to other concepts. Low construal is precise and concrete. The whole spectrum is valuable in effective learning. The CL can be managed and modified.

In this example, a communication device links to more related concepts and activates more members of the category - It can represent mobile phones, satellite phones, pagers, computers, etc. It can link to related concepts like communication strategies, pros and cons of the main communication devices, communication channels (written word, radio frequencies, vocalizations, etc.) Now, a high construal level makes this network of interlinked concepts and information more available to memory. A low-level construal, such as Samsung S8, makes it harder to link to the written word as a communication channel - less available information.

Because the brain processes information in parallel and multiple levels, the construal level theory aligns itself with the notion that the brain a)Learns with focused attention and peripheral perception (background information) and b) Simultaneously processes/creates parts of a whole and the whole (details and the big picture simultaneously).

Variance, feedback: Research shows working with small variations in content promotes global learning within a domain. For example, working on multiple similar mathematical problems is better than repeating the same type of problem. Feedback in the form of details and feedback in the form of outcome (success vs. failure) can both promote learning, but differentially.

Variation in the features of the content which needs to be learned (for example, analogous but dissimilar math problems) can help create an aggregated and flexible mental template to approach a problem. This goes for motor and fine motor learning too - dance movements, musical sequences, sports movements, etc. Minute variations in the approximate physical form can improve the learning of the movements along with generating a greater ability to improvise.

Feedback systems are closely tied-in with variations because variations allow addressing changes. Feedback based on changes creates a seamless pathway to refine learning. Here are some common types of feedback mechanisms which improve learning:

1. Real-time monitoring of changes - movement, mental awareness, sensory inputs

2. Outcome-based feedback - whether the outcome was right or wrong, whether the outcome can be changed by addressing variables

3. Introspective feedback - evaluating the process in one's mind and applying modifications or reinforcements

Sensory integration: A large amount of information is embodied with sensory components. Information from multiple senses integrates before it is perceived. This creates an opportunity to pay attention to sensory elements. They become tethers for grounding information which translates into learning. Research suggests that the pairing of information from different senses for one concept can improve the strength of that concept.

Visual and auditory data is accessible in MOOCs and other online learning resources, and tactile data can be promoted via homework. The goal here is to encourage students to seek out opportunities that involve sensory inputs. Embodied cognition (without deeming it as an answer to "what is consciousness?") can further help organize information. When physical movement is linked to information in the mind, learning can be reinforced and conceptualized in a rich way. Movement and using the body is valuable in learning because spatial memory (the memory for locations) is a highly specialized and broad memory system which binds information together.

For example, students can line-up and physically reorder themselves to embody a chemical reaction where a person can physically represent an atom or ion. Another example is how a student can create dance postures to represent a geometric coordinate system. Think: Can the YMCA dance moves represent any set of equations?

The Transfer effect: The transfer of learning describes how learning in one area can affect learning in another area. In some cases, transfer effects occur. In some cases, they are expected but rarely varied, and in some other cases, they are weak or non-existent. Current research is yet to draw a circle around the influence of transfer effects but there is evidence to show that transfer effects occur. The near transfer effect - learning something improves and transfers to something very similar - can be more readily leveraged than the far transfer effect - learning something transfers to superficially alien and disparate contexts.

Priming: In cognitive psychology, priming describes the influence of information on the cognitive processes that act on new information. You may have played this short game. First, I'll give you a word to say 10 times. After you say it, I'll ask you a question. You have to respond quickly. Say "Silk" 10 times. Silk Silk Silk Silk Silk Silk Silk Silk Silk Silk. What does a cow drink?

If you answered milk, you experienced the effects of priming. The sensory nature of the word silk primed your brain to utilize that sensory nature and manipulate your answer without your awareness (basically, because milk rhymes with silk). If you didn't fall for this, you just overcame the effects of priming. There are various types of priming where exposure to some type of information affects mental processing speed, memory, behavior, etc. Priming effects are hard to spot but they exist and strategic use of priming information can manipulate learning outcomes and solutions to problems.

Fun, Engagement, Curiosity, and Positive moods: Research shows that having fun while learning avails unique cognitive resources, associates reward and pleasure with information, strengthen and broaden memory networks, and toggle between 2 basic neural modes - one for diffused mind-wandering and the other for focused attention. This toggling is useful for learning details as well as the big, abstract picture. Having fun also directly affects a student's motivation and intrinsic motivation predicts quality learning and learning outcomes. Curiosity and wonder are huge facilitators of quality learning. Curiosity broadens mental resources and "acceptability of new learning" as well as induces a positive mood. Overall, an active, positive mood along with an "approach" motivation can help students learn while having a good time. Words are a powerful tool to make things fun and interesting.

Collaborative Learning: Learning isn't isolated from social contexts and interactions. A millennial learner typically wants active social interactions in the context of learning. Research shows that group activities and talking to others about learning can improve learning. But, they can also reinforce misinformation. Collaboration and learning in the presence of others engage a variety of mechanisms - expectations, judgments, ego-saving-demonstrations, etc. which can promote learning. However, social interactions can also create a number of negative scenarios - fear of failure, self-esteem based negative self-evaluation, humiliation, etc. These negatives can be mitigated in some ways. For example, discussions on Reddit can be considered social and anonymity can reduce some anxiety. Collaboration also engages a powerful form of memory called transactive memory - knowledge of who knows what and where to find it.

Inherent thinking biases & errors: The brain has inherent tendencies to think in specific ways. These are called cognitive biases. Some biases create the tendency to assign meaning to information when it doesn't exist or has no utility. Some biases create the tendency to selectively look for specific information. Some logical arguments are filled with errors and we can be blinded to them because they feel intuitive. There are a few pervasive biases: a) The confirmation bias - we selectively attend to and remember information which fits our preconceptions, b) The survivorship bias - we focus on information that survives because the information which didn't survive is removed from awareness c) The conjunction fallacy - the likelihood of one independent thing happening is higher than the likelihood of two independent things but because we fail to judge if things are independent or not, we assume the opposite. Overcoming such biases improves objectivity, decision-making, evaluation, and analysis. Here is a detailed post on cognitive biases and here is one on how to overcome them.

Cognitive and Conceptual Space: At the simplest level, this area can be called the Mind's eye or The Mind. Most people can introspect and deliberate mental activities. A subset of what one can do with the mind is utilizing cognitive and conceptual spaces. Have you ever picked up clay or wet sand to create different shapes using it? You can do this to any type of information in this conceptual space. Conceptual spaces are closely related to working memory because they allow you to manipulate information in real-time. Think of a number. Now reverse the digits. Or take a shape and rotate it. You just utilized the cognitive and conceptual space you created for that number or shape. Manipulation in this space can get complex depending on how much you manipulate. Strategic thinking is one use of conceptual spaces. Shifting attention to different aspects of an idea is another use of cognitive spaces.

The environment: Classrooms, bedrooms, and your laptop can function as learning environments. One of the essential aspects of brain-based learning is to have a safe and encouraging learning environment. Any environment which makes someone uncomfortable and unsafe is likely to prime the body to enter a fight or flight mode. That means the environment can generate or mitigate stress which is known to compromise learning. The environment also includes social aspects like ease of communication, proximity to others, etc. Social interactions are necessary for learning because of its influence on well-being, feedback, collaboration, etc.

All of the factors mentioned above are actively present in various types of learning. Together, these aspects of cognition represent an active framework of learning.

Brain-Based Learning Strategies

When students learn, there is a considerable amount of loss in effective learning. These designed brain-based strategies should allow a student to reduce this loss as well as improve the baseline learning capacity.

I've covered these techniques across 2 other articles on how to study efficiently. You can read those for a detailed overview in a slightly different context.

Spaced repetition, Distributed practice, and Spacing Effects: Research shows that distributing learning over time and repeating information over increasing periods strengthens memories and buffers against forgetting. For example, a group of facts can be learned in 3 minutes. They can be repeated after 10 minutes, then in 30 minutes, then in 2 hours... then in 6 days. This helps to optimize memory for recall.

Improves: Memory for facts and details

Interleaving: Interleaving is learning similar and related concepts together in parallel. If there are 3 related math problems A, B, and C, practicing variations as ABC ABC ABC BAC CAB is more helpful than spending hours on doing AAAAA BBBBBB and CCCCC.

Improves: Memory and the relationship between similar concepts

Generative learning: Generative learning includes the act of creating art, teaching something to others, experiencing learning in real-world contexts, making blog posts, discussing on forums, etc. This reinforces learning and uncovers hidden gaps in knowledge.

Improves: Memory, understanding, depth and breadth of learning

Retrieval practice & the testing effect: Proof of learning often comes from the ability to demonstrate learning. This includes remembering information, practice, and the deliberate act of self-validation. This does not necessarily counteract forgetting because forgetting and remembering are not opposing forces. Retrieval practice & testing reinforce existing learning and create the opportunity to accommodate new learning by exploring errors and snowballing around. Retrieval practice can reinforce memory in the context of remembering. The brain optimizes learning for memory differently than learning for recall and remembering. When it comes to applying what is learned, the ability to recall information is important.

Improves: Remembering, confidence, and test-taking capacity

Mental Models, Models, and Metaphors: Mental models are representations of ideas that engender templates of thinking - feedback loops, natural selection, kinetic energy, etc. are all real-world processes that can be mentally represented and used as templates to hold information. These templates also permit creative usage and a method of analysis. For example, natural selection processes can be applied to some AI learning algorithms which learn to optimize over generations of "adjustments." It is possible to apply natural selection to AI because the mental model for natural selection can be repurposed. Metaphors can also function as models. Humans like narratives and analogies and they can be leveraged for improved learning. A metaphor can create an analogy between a known process and an unknown process. Once the metaphor is used, human's abstract and understand the essence of the unknown process.

Improves: Memory, understanding, and relationships between ideas

Chunking: The act of grouping information in small & easily digestible bites, preferably with an overarching theme, is known as chunking information. Information can be chunked based on superficial attributes such as color, category, similarity, relationships, etc. Multiple chunks are easier to remember than multiple individual elements because the brain utilizes networks of information.

Improves: Memory and conceptual understanding

Mental Manipulations: This is a skill that depends on working memory and other aspects of memory where you can direct your attention deliberately. Mental manipulations involve working in the cognitive space to change the nature of the information or use it to relate it to other aspects. Simple mental manipulations are like imagining a situation without certain elements - imagining how you can play football on a field with many potholes. Some may call this pure imagination. In that case, mental manipulations are deliberate and purposeful imagination. Complex mental manipulations are similar to how Dr. Manhattan sees the universe. 8)

Improves: Depth and breadth of learning, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity

Meta-cognition, language, and inquiry: Metacognition is thinking about thinking. Mental manipulations, Mental models, metaphors, etc. are all elements of meta-cognition. Inquiry is related, but not so closely. Inquiry involves asking questions, discovering answers, taking on new perspectives, updating information, snowballing around a topic, and tackling hidden assumptions and restraints. This process can help to optimize an idea and explore it with more depth.

While thinking about information, students and learns would benefit the most if they have an opportunity to make sense of information by using a context, finding some level of relatability, real-life application, innate structure, labels and limitations/boundaries, and relevance. Using language and labels is important to make information concrete. Words utilize powerful processing centers of the brain that bind abstract aspects and concrete data.

Improves: Depth and breadth of learning, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity

Neurons allow humans to learn with unlimited potential. Listening to the brain is a good starting point in optimizing learning. Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay

Learning as a function of student's emotions and motivation

It is easy to overlook this segment of learning. We don't need to always focus on improving cognitive abilities like attention, memory, mental simulations, mental rotations, pattern matching, analyzing concepts, hypothetical & counterfactual thinking, intelligence, verbal ability, and sensory awareness.

Sometimes, the problem is more about emotion, motivation, behavior, and mental health. Cognition and emotions aren't disparate entities but addressing one or the other can make addressing a problem irrelevant. Think: What use is memory training if a person has no inclination or intention to use it. Addressing both in a particular context is more holistic.

Here are a few emotional/motivational learning strategies. Students can often benefit from these because they address the emotions which percolate through one's learning space.

1. Manage cognitive load & change construals. Cognitive load is the weight of information and the strain on processing information. Changing the effort needed to process information can either hamper or promote learning. Construal levels can also be manipulated to target learning at various levels of detail. This changes the perceived and actual effort needed in learning which can change a student's motivation to get on board with learning. Cognitive load is known for one important application - extremely easy or extremely difficult content hampers learning. There is a sweet spot where the content is challenging enough to motivate, stimulate, and engage students to optimize their learning and memory. If the learning material is too obvious and unstimulating, making it difficult to process can improve the depth and breadth of understanding.

2. Tolerate aversive emotions to counteract procrastination and disliked content. Read this to understand why we procrastinate and how to overcome it.

3. Add personal meaning to learning contexts. Personal relevance promotes motivation and creates an intention to apply one's learning in the real-world. Learning with a sense of meaning makes it easier for students. Making things relevant and relatable taps into the innate human motivation called sense-making, which enables us to conceptualize all sorts of information.

4. Conceptual interference: Addressing thoughts like "everything we are learning is wrong" so what's the point. This is a segway into academic inquiry where students learn to update information and think about how and why information changes over time.

5. Coping with last-minute studies: Addressing thoughts like, "Ok, I screwed up and I don't have time. What do I do now?"

6. Counter myths that sustain thoughts like, "I am dumb and stupid. I don't understand anything. What's the point?"

7. Use relaxation techniques and entertainment such as music & games to neutralize distress and lighten up the intense study-mood to make it more fun and enjoyable. Having fun while learning has cognitive benefits.

You can read this article for a detailed how-to overview of evidence-based emotional regulation techniques. These will help in countering a number of problems that students face which indirectly affect their performance and learning - mental health, anxiety, stress, aversion, rebellion, etc. They are also useful for teachers to combat the pressure of teaching and they can help students address a wide range of issues.

There are many other aspects of learning which I've left out because this can go on and on. I'd like to highlight 3 other things.

1. The brain is plastic - it can change it's form and neural structures up until old-age to accommodate and allow new learning. I'm speaking about neurogenesis, synaptogenesis, and synaptic plasticity. Here is an introduction.

2. Sleep is important for the brain to function at it's best. You compromise that, you compromise everything. Here is how sleep affects memory and learning. And here are some techniques to fall asleep faster, in case that's difficult for you.

3. Breaks from work & time-bound routines while enjoying the mental "space" is important to let your brain process information and consolidate learning, even boost creativity (for example, active procrastination). Even watching cute photos on the internet is a valid break because it can promote approach motivation and focused attention.

That's it for today, take this article as an introduction to brain-based learning.
For students & professionals:
Do you feel you are productive? Yes? Carry on with your day.:) No? You might be looking at productivity from an unfavorable angle because the common idea is to inculcate productive habits. But in reality, productivity involves mental health, functional fixedness, using efficient strategies, knowing where to draw the line, emotional regulation, decision making, etc. I've prepared an exhaustive guide on how to be productive by addressing exactly what you need from the bottom-up.
Further reading: https://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejes/article/view/2356 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452315117303636 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03055698.2011.570004 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED335141 http://etec.ctlt.ubc.ca/510wiki/Brain-based_Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brain-Based Learning: Theory, Strategies, And Concepts | Cognition Today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brain-based learning is about using the fundamentals of how the brain learns in education, training, and skill development. These learning strategies and techniques are designed to be brain & cognition-centric by addressing intelligence, memory, learning, emotions, and social elements. This approach can be adopted by students and teachers to improve the quality of classroom learning and real-world learning.

# data[].attributes.headline
How the Social Brain Supports Learning and Teaching

# data[].attributes.subject
How the Social Brain Supports Learning and Teaching

# data[].attributes.body
Yi-Yuan Tang describes brain functions and how social or peer learning aids in learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the Social Brain Supports Learning and Teaching

# data[].attributes.body
A quick visual presentation  of several brain- based strategies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Study Skills & Evidence-Based Learning Strategies

# data[].attributes.headline
Questions/ Feedback on BBL/ BB strategies. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Questions/ Feedback on BBL/ BB strategies. 

# data[].attributes.body
An area where you can ask questions, give feedback and interact with other users.

# data[].attributes.body
An area where you can ask questions, give feedback and interact with other users.