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Learning is conceptualized as a relatively permanent modification of behavior due to experience, not attributable to innate factors or maturation. Various types exist: mechanical (rote memorization without meaning), meaningful (relates new information to prior knowledge), discovery-based (autonomous construction), and reception (expository instruction). Distinctions are also made between restricted learning (specific information), broad learning (qualitative cognitive progress), representational (vocabulary), conceptual (common attributes), and propositional (ideas in sentences). Learning is a change process resulting from study or experience, where individuals acquire knowledge, skills, abilities, values, and attitudes. This process enables personal, professional, and social development of the learner.

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Educational theories seek to understand knowledge acquisition processes to develop more effective instructional methods, forming the foundation of instructional design. Main theories include Pavlov's classical conditioning (conditioned reflex) and Skinner's operant conditioning (positive reinforcement with rewards and punishment). Thorndike developed the trial-and-error theory, establishing that learning consists of forming stimulus-response connections (S→R), consolidated through successes. His three fundamental laws are: readiness (preparation of neural connections), exercise (practice strengthens connections), and effect (satisfactory states strengthen connections). Motivation is essential for learning, which progresses through trial-and-error attempts until achieving success.

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Gestalt Psychology, founded by Wertheimer in 1912, maintains that perception is a global whole and not the sum of isolated sensations, asserting that the whole is perceived before individual elements. Its main laws establish that there is no true learning with disorganized stimuli and that learning occurs through intuitions or sudden insights. The globalization principle indicates that a person is an indivisible unit whose knowledge is initially confused and global, perceiving objects generically before detailed analysis. This theory has important didactic consequences: content must be organized globally by coordinating subjects to avoid knowledge dispersion. Decroly developed "centers of interest" based on this theory, starting from the premise that children know totalities and are unable to analyze reality in parts.

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Jean Piaget (1896-1980), prestigious Swiss psychologist, studied the formation of child intelligence through two inseparable mechanisms: assimilation (applying prior knowledge to new objects) and accommodation (adapting to changing circumstances of reality). He established four continuous developmental stages that no child can skip: sensorimotor (0-2 years), preoperational (2-7 years), concrete operations (7-12 years), and formal operations (12+ years). Child psyche starts from an amorphous structure that progressively organizes itself seeking balance between assimilation and accommodation through operations (reversible dynamic rules that transform information). Piaget investigated the genesis of notions and operations, evidencing the complementary parallelism between intelligence and affectivity across different evolutionary stages. His theory represents an advance over traditional teaching, promoting student activity, critical reflection, experience-based methods, and knowledge acquisition through investigation.

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Meaningful learning occurs when new information connects with prior concepts in the student's cognitive structure, mutually transforming each other. Unlike rote memorization, this process requires students to possess well-differentiated inclusive concepts that enable assimilation of new knowledge. The teacher's role is to identify these prior concepts and facilitate coherent connections. The same information can be learned meaningfully or mechanically depending on individual cognitive structure. This approach grounds effective educational practices in deep understanding of the learner.

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Bruner proposes that cognitive development results from interaction between the individual, school, culture, and society, emphasizing the fundamental role of language and education in this process. He distinguishes three modes of mental representation: enactive (motor), iconic (visual), and symbolic (abstract), which allow students to process information progressively. Unlike Piaget, he focuses on external factors such as culture and school environment rather than individual problem-solving. He advocates for holistic education that stimulates creativity and adapts to each student's specific characteristics. Mental development is not gradual but advances through leaps, requiring internalization of cultural instruments provided by the educational environment.

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Vygotsky rejects learning as simple stimulus-response association and proposes that knowledge is constructed through cognitive operations induced in social interaction. His "general genetic law of cultural development" establishes that higher psychological functions appear first on the social plane (interpsychological) and then are internalized on the individual plane (intrapsychological). He introduces the concept of mediators as instruments that actively modify reality rather than imitate it, emphasizing the role of culture and environment in cognitive development. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) represents the distance between what students can do independently and what they achieve with expert guidance. Mediated learning transforms environmental stimuli through cultural agents who select and organize information to facilitate knowledge construction.