0. JOT2 – LEARNING THEORIES
LeAnn Polensky
NOTE: Please be sure to download the actual assessment task and rubric from TaskStream and carefully read what each task requires.

1. Task A: Learning Theories & Learners
Constructivism, Cognitivism, Behaviorism

2. When Constructivism is Beneficial for Learners
When transfer of knowledge to problem solving is needed
When group cooperation and problem solving is needed
When students have different learning styles/intelligences
1. Constructivism helps students find instruction meaningful and authentic in the context of their own experiences. This approach helps students learn the needed skills in a context related to their real life. This helps students apply and recall the learning when needed, especially in real life situations.
Constructivism supports group learning. Students grow their abilities to work with others in group projects, hands-on exploration and product development. They collaborate with others and develop different skills and learn different material during this collaboration.
3. The teacher is a guide during instruction, but ultimately students generate their own knowledge. This affords students the opportunity to explore learning through different modalities, creating a more effective learning environment for all types of learners.

3. When Cognitivism is Beneficial for Learners
When students need to relate information to prior knowledge.
When students need to transfer knowledge to new contexts.
When students need to learn an easier skill set before being presented with a more complex set.
Cognitivism stresses the use of advance organizers, analogies, outlining, and summarizing help learners organize information. These cues help students retrieve information when needed and relate it to new information being presented. It helps ensure continuity of learning by helping students recall prior knowledge and also aids in the transfer of knowledge from a mastered skill set to a new context.
Congitivism stresses learning environments that allow and encourage students to make connections with previously learned skills. Students are prompted to recall prerequisite knowledge and apply it in different contexts. Prior knowledge is used to establish a foundation for identifying similarities and differences when presented with a new contextual situation. Knowledge transfer occurs when the student understands how to apply their knowledge to a different context. Cognitivism techniques include simplification and standardization, which help expedite knowledge transfer by eliminating irrelevant information.
Cognitivists believe that instruction must be based on the existing mental structures of the student. It needs to be organized in a way that learners are able to learn and relate new skills to prior skills with ease. The learning begins with skills and knowledge that is simple and gradually build upon those skills using scaffolding and modeling.

4. When Behaviorism is Beneficial for Learners
When students need to master basic skills and fluency.
When observable and measurable outcomes are needed to demonstrate mastery.
When students need different types of reinforcement (positive/negative) to motivate learning.
Behaviorism focuses on teacher-led instruction. Often, behaviorist techniques focus on the mastery of early steps before progressing to more complex levels of performance. Pre-assessments determine where instruction should begin and then instruction is sequenced from basic skills to more advanced. Also, behaviorism uses rote memorization as well as drill and practice methods, which are useful when students are learning brand new basic skills. This method provides a solid foundation that they can later expand upon using other theories of learning.
2. For some skills, an observable outcome is needed for the teacher to ensure the student has adequately mastered the learning. The use of criterion-referenced tests allow instructors to adequately assess student learning on behavioral objectives.
Behaviorism largely focuses on stimulus-response associations. Students will either elicit or not elicit a response based on the reinforcement provided: positive, negative or punishment. This technique especially helps motivate at-risk students to learn because it helps to elicit the correct behaviors. Students become more motivated because they are provided immediate feedback and can alter their learning behaviors based on this feedback.

5. Task B: Learning Theory Used in Lesson Plan

6. Learning Theory – Lesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Nickels and Dimes as well as Time
The learning theory exhibited in this lesson plan is behaviorist.
Students are memorizing facts
The teacher is leading the instruction
The teacher is leading the activities
A stimulus is presented to elicit a response
Knowledge is constantly checked and students are rewarded for the correct answer

7. Task C: Adaptation of Lesson Plan

8. Lesson plan in Cognitivism
Adding Learning Centers
Hickory Dickory Dock
In this center, one student will hold a paper mouse and the other will hold an analog clock. One student will turn the minute hand of the clock as they both sing the nursery rhyme “hickory dickory dock.” When the song ends, the student holding the mouse will read the time and the students will talk about whether or not that was correct and why.

9. Lesson plan in Cognitivism
Adding Learning Centers
What would I do?
In this center, students are provided with paper and an analog clock. They make a time on the clock, draw the clock on their paper and then draw a picture of something that they would be doing at that time of day. Then students would switch papers with their partner and talk about the time and the drawing. They would ask each other questions about what they would be doing at that time of the day and talk about how the drawing would change if it were the opposite time of day (AM or PM).

10. Lesson plan in Cognitivism
Collaborative discussion
What would I do?
Based on what the students drew in their centers, we would talk about time as a group. Students can share their drawings. Then, I would make a time on the clock and have students act out what they might be doing at that time. Then students can talk about what they acted out and how that would change based on whether the time was AM or PM.

11. Task D: Lesson Plan Discussion

12. Most Beneficial?
The version of the lesson that would be most beneficial to the students would really be a combination of both.

13. Most Beneficial? Behavorist
This version of the lesson plan would be beneficial to the students because they are being introduced to new concepts and ideas. There is important vocabulary involved that needs to be memorized for success.
Due to lack of prior knowledge, the teacher needs to lead the instruction to introduce the concepts.
The teacher needs to be able to have an observable outcome to assess students to determine their prior knowledge.

14. Most Beneficial? Cognitivist
This version of the lesson plan would be beneficial to the students because they are forming their own ideas and creating relationships between time and their surroundings.
They are interacting collaboratively and helping teach one another while still being guided by the teacher.
Their progress can still be assessed, but it is not as rigid and more difficult to observe

15. Task E: Effective Instruction Through the Use of Design Theories

16. Design Theories and Learning
Different theories of design provide an effective learning environment for all students based upon which modality helps the individual learn best.
Each student has individual needs and learning theories provide instructors with a way to differentiate instruction and tailor it to each student.
The learning theories are also useful based upon the final outcome desired. Some topics such as spelling are best mastered through memorization whereas other topics such as cellular mitosis lend themselves to more constructivist methods.

17. Task F: Design Theories
Strengths and Limitations:
Wiggins
Gagne
Teaching for Understanding (The Harvard model)

18. Strengths of Wiggins Theory
Desired results are determined before the lesson
“Backwards-Design”
Lessons are created to ensure students know and understand what will be on the assessment
Teachers are able to ensure that students have all of the required knowledge before the assessment.
Students will most likely understand the material well, as they will not be lost in the details
Teachers know what end product they are looking for, so they are able to work backwards to determine what the students will need to know in order to be successful. Also, because the instruction will only cover what will be tested, the students won’t get overwhelmed by too many details.

19. Limitations of Wiggins
Teachers are limited to teaching only what is on the test.
Test-centered, not learning centered
Students are not able to explore other material
Cannot dig into things that interest them
Centered around 6 facets of understanding
Not necessarily meeting all students’ needs
Due to the fact that teachers are “teaching to the test”, important exploration and higher levels of understanding are limited. Students and teachers have to stick to the material that will be assessed instead of being able to explore other areas of interest. The six facets that the theory is centered around are: explaining, interpreting, applying, empathizing, self knowledge and perspective. Once again, this limits knowledge and understanding by possibly not meeting all student’s needs.

20. Strengths of Gagne’s Events
Very structured
Learning hierarchy
Lower level skills are learned before more difficult skills
Students are provided feedback in order to assess their own learning
Gagne’s believed that there were optimal conditions of learning. In order to create these optimal conditions, teachers could use the guideline of Gagne’s nine events of instruction: gaining attention, informing the learner of the objective, stimulating recall of prerequisite learning, presenting new material, providing learning guidance, eliciting performance, providing feedback about correctness, assessing performance, enhancing retention and recall. Gagne also believed that there were different types of learning that would change how the nine events would be carried out: intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, verbal information, motor skills and attitudes.

21. Limitations of Gagne’s Events
Long model with many steps
Missing a step for planning
Very repetitive
Students may become bored

22. Strengths of Teaching for Understanding
Uses Generative Topics
Interesting to students and offer opportunities for multiple connections
Understanding Goals
Long term and constantly updated
Performances of Understanding
Students expand upon what they already know
Build and demonstrate their understanding
Generative topics are interesting to students and students will be more motivated to learn if they are interested in the subject matter. Also, because students build on their understanding, they are able to make more connections with other material and transfer of learning is easier.

23. Weaknesses of Teaching for Understanding
Teacher must predict student baseline skills
No steps for testing prior knowledge
Changes
Many changes must be made to develop the most effective learning environment
Early Skills
Complex and builds on prior knowledge
Not as effective with brand new skills (lower grades)
Because there is no step for testing prior knowledge, teachers must observe students to determine their prerequisite skill level. This can hurt students if teachers begin teaching material that is too difficult. In addition, early skills such as reading and numbers cannot be effectively taught with this method due to the fact that students do not have any prior knowledge to connect to.

24. Task G: Most Suitable Design Process

25. Most Suitable Gagne’s design process
Students will need incredible amounts of scaffolding
Varied skill levels of the students
Elicits practice
Provides guidance to the learners
Provides feedback needed to assess their own learning
My students will be ranging from ages 7 to 78 and have vastly varying skill levels. In addition, they will be taught through , telephone and video conferencing. The instruction will need to be very structured and appeal to many different learners.

26. References
ALPS: Teaching for Understanding. Retrieved October 16, 2014 from Harvard Learnweb:
Ertmer, P.and T. Newby (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance improvement quarterly 6(4),
Gagne, R. (1988). The events of instruction. Principles of instructional design (pp ). San Diego: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

27. References
Roblyer, J.E. (2001). Learning theories and integration models. Integrating educational technology into teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill