FACILITATING OF LEARNING

Definition of learning- is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills,
knowledge, understanding, values and wisdom. It is the goal of education, and the product of
experience. It is therefore a relatively permanent change in behavior.

Theories of Learning

 Edward Thorndike’s Connectionism/Associationism Theory

Human activity is based on association between stimulus and response.

Law of effect
Law of exercise
Law of readiness

 Thorndike and Woodworth’s Theory of Transfer of Learning

Their theory implied that transfer of learning depends on the learning task and the transfer task being
identical, also known as “identical elements”. There is a close relationship between transfer of
learning and problem solving a problem in a new situation.

Educational theory requires the exact knowledge of the nature and amount of individual differences in
intellect, character and behavior for two reasons:

(1) The need to know the knowledge of the differences of individuals as well as knowledge of that
type.
(2) Studying the causes of differences, education may learn how to make people more efficient,
wise, and skillful.

 Ivan Pavlov’s Classical conditioning

It is based on ADHESIVE principle which means that a response is attached to a stimulus through the
stimulus occurring just prior to the response so that the recurrence of the stimulus will evoke or
cause the response. (ex. Dog’s salivation experiment)

 BF Skinner’s Operant Conditioning

Organism has to do something in order to get reward that is; it must operate on its environment.

 Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory & Observational Learning Theory

He found that Behaviorism was not enough to explain human’s behaviors. He developed a theory called
Social Learning Theory. This theory focuses on cognitive, vicarious, self-regulatory, and self-
reflective processes in human adaptation and change.

 Wolfgang Kohler’s Insight Theory

Gaining insight is a gradual process of exploring analyzing and restructuring perceptions until a solution
is arrived at.

 Kohler, Wertheimer, and Koffka’s Gestalt Theory

The primary focus of this theory is on PERCEPTION and how people assign meanings to visual stimuli,
“The whole is more than the sum of all its parts.”

 Kurt Lewin’s Topological and Vector Theory (Field Theory)

The behavior of an individual at a given moment is the result of existing forces operating simultaneously
in his life space - Internal and External forces.
  Jerome Bruner’s Constructivism & Cognitive Theory & The Spiral Curriculum
Also known as: Learning involves 3 simultaneously processes: acquisition transformation and
evaluation.

Today, with project and problem-based learning, participatory learning, CONSTRUCTIVISM his
theory is very significant. He summarized that learning should be open, genuine, inviting,
respectful, active, collaborative, and student-driven. In effect, he was a humanist who was
learner-centered.

The Spiral Curriculum is predicated on cognitive theory advanced by Jerome Bruner (1960), who wrote,
"We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught in some intellectually honest form to
any child at any stage of development."

 Gibson’s Affordances Theory & Vygotsky’s Social Learning Theory on their Theories
of Situated Learning

Theories of Situated Learning - Situated learning is a general theory of knowledge acquisition. It has
been applied in the context of technology-based learning activities for schools that focus in
problem-solving skills.

Principles of Situated Learning:

1. Knowledge needs to be presented in an authentic context, i.e., setting and applications that
would normally involve that knowledge
2. Learning requires social interaction and collaboration.

 Dr. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence

It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in
children and adults.

 David Ausubel's Subsumption Theory

New material presented in academic settings (lectures) can be integrated into existing mental structures.
The presentation of new knowledge should be preceded by "advance organizers".

 Robert Gagne’s Conditions of Learning

This theory stipulates that there are several different types or levels of learning. The significance of these
classifications is that each different type requires different types of instruction.

Gagne identifies five major categories of learning:

 verbal information
 intellectual skills
 cognitive strategies
 motor skills
 attitudes

 John Amos Comenius – Father of Modern Education

He proposed the idea that learning, emotional, and spiritual growth are interwoven. He proposed
teaching through stimulation of the senses, not merely through memorization.

 Malcolm Knowles’s Andragogy

Knowles’ theory of andragogy is an attempt to develop a theory specifically for adult learning. Knowles
emphasizes that adults are self-directed and expect to take responsibility for decisions. Adult
 learning programs must accommodate this fundamental aspect. The criterion for typing the
individuals into subgroup was the major conception held about the purposes and values of
continuing education.

Knowles identified six assumptions about adult learning:

(1) need to know

(2) self-concept
(3) prior experience
(4) readiness to learn
(5) learning orientation
(6) motivation to learn

 Carl Rogers’s Experiential Learning

Rogers distinguished two types of learning: academic/cognitive (meaningless) and experiential
(significant). Unlike academic knowledge, experiential knowledge is acquired to meet the needs
of the learner, usually to complete an important, real-life task.

 John Watson – Father of Behaviorism

 "Little Albert"
 Behaviorism is primarily concerned with OBSERVABLE BEHAVIOR, as opposed to
internal events like thinking and emotion.
 Proposed that most human learning and behavior was controlled by experience (not
genetically pre-determined).
 John Locke’s Tabula Rasa

 Innate goodness is the belief that all human beings are naturally good and seek out
experiences that help them grow. Nutrition and protection are the only things a child
needs as they grow up to reach their full potential. The blank slate theory comes from the
philosopher John Locke.

 In Locke's philosophy, tabula rasa was the theory that at birth the (human) mind is a
"blank slate" without rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for
processing are formed solely by one's sensory experiences.

 John Dewey – Father of Progressivism, Experiential Learning

He emphasized that, “Education should be a social process.”

“Experiential learning takes place when a person involved in an activity looks back and evaluates it,
determines what was useful or important to remember, and uses this information to perform
another activity.”

 Clark L. Hull’s Drive-Reduction Theory, Arousal Theory, Incentive Theory, Instinct

theory

Drive-reduction Theory – asserts that deviations from homeostasis create physiological needs. These
needs result in psychological drive states that direct behavior to meet the need and, ultimately,
bring the system back to homeostasis. Drive-reduction theory of motivation is for the "push"
factor.

Arousal Theory of Motivation - proposes that motivation is strongly linked to biological factors that
control reward sensitivity and goal-driven behavior.

Incentive Theory of Motivation – the "pull" factor; argues that behavior is primarily extrinsically
motivated: people are more motivated to perform activities if they receive a reward afterward,
rather than simply because they enjoy the activities themselves.

Instinct theory – all organisms are born with innate biological tendencies that help them survive.
  Jean-Jacques Rousseau
 He believed that natural education promotes and encourages qualities such as
happiness, spontaneity, and the inquisitiveness associated with childhood.

 “Reverse the usual practice and you will almost always do right”
 “Human institutions are one mass of folly and contradiction.”

 Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory, Two Factor Theory

Herzberg’s Motivation Theory Model, or Two Factor Theory, argues that there are two factors that an
organization can adjust to influence motivation in the workplace.

These factors are:

Motivators: Which can encourage employees to work harder? The presence of motivators causes
employees to work harder. They are found within the actual job itself.
Hygiene factors: These won’t encourage employees to work harder but they will cause them to
become unmotivated if they are not present. The absence of hygiene factors will cause
employees to work less hard. Hygiene factors are not present in the actual job itself but
surround the job.

 Jacob Kounin’s Classroom Management Theory

Teacher Behavior

 With-it-ness – The teacher is aware of all events, students, and behaviors in the
classroom.
 Desists – An effort to stop misbehavior.
 Overlapping – What teachers do when they have two matters to deal at the same time.
 Satiation – When a teacher teaches the same lesson for so long that students grow tired
of the topic.
 Ripple Effect – When at teacher corrects one student who is misbehaving and the
behavior “ripples” to other students, causing them to behave.
Movement Engagement

 Jerkiness – Lack of lesson smoothness and momentum

 Stimulus Bound – When a teacher has the students engaged in a lesson and something
else attracts the teacher’s attention.
  Thrust – A teacher’s sudden “bursting in” on students’ activities with an order,
statement or question without being sensitive to the group’s readiness to receive
the message.
 Dangle – When a teacher starts an activity and then leaves it “hanging on midair” by
beginning another activity.
 Truncation – Same as dangle but the teacher does not resume the initiated, then the
drops the activity.
 Flip-flop – Transition point; when the teacher terminates one activity and begins
another and then reverts to the first activity.
 Overdwelling – When a teacher dwells on corrective behavior longer than needed or on
a lesson longer than required for most students’ understanding and interest
levels.
 Fragmentation – When a teacher breaks down an activity or behavior into subparts
even though the activity could be performed easily as a single unit or an
uninterrupted sequence.

Group Focus

 Group Focus – When a teacher makes a conscientious attempt to keep the attention of
all members of the class at the same time.
 Group Alerting – The degree to which a teacher attempts to involve all learners in
learning tasks, maintain their attention, and keep them “on their toes”.
 Accountability – The teacher holds students accountable and responsible for their tasks
and performances

 Item Analysis

Item analysis is a process which examines student responses to individual test items (questions) in order
to assess the quality of those items and of the test as a whole. Item analysis is especially valuable
in improving items which will be used again in later tests, but it can also be used to eliminate
ambiguous or misleading items in a single test administration. In addition, item analysis is
valuable for increasing instructors’ skills in test construction, and identifying specific areas of
course content which need greater emphasis or clarity.

Difficulty Index

 Refers to the proportion of students in upper and lower groups who answered an item
correctly.
 Discrimination Index

 The power of the item to discriminate the students between those who scored high and
those who scored low in the overall test.

Types of Discrimination Index:

1. Positive Discrimination – happens when more students in the upper group got the item
correctly than those students in the lower group.
2. Negative Discrimination – Occurs when more students in the lower group got the item
correctly than the students in the upper group.
3. Zero Discrimination – happens when a number of students in the upper group and
lower group who answer the test correctly are equal.