PSYCHOLOGICAL

FOUNDATION OF
CURRICULUM
Learning Theories
 Association and Behaviorism Theories
 Cognitive-Information Processing
Theories
 Humanistic Theories (Ornstein &
Hunkins, 2004)
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Father of Classical
Conditioning Theory,
the S-R Theory

• “training to learn”

• “indoctrination”
“While you are experimenting, do
not remain content with the
surface of things.”
- Ivan Pavlov
Edward Thorndike

• Connectionism
Theory

3 Laws of
Learning

Stimulus and
Response
“Human education is concerned
with certain changes in the
intellects, character and
behaviour of men, its problems
being roughly included under
these four topics: Aims,
materials, means and methods.”
- Edward Thorndike
Robert Gagne
• Proposed the
Hierarchical
Learning Theory
• Behaviour –
prerequisite
conditions
• Tasking in
objective
formulation
“ Different types of learning exists
and different instructional
conditions are most likely to bring
about these different types of
learning.”
- Robert Gagne
Jean Piaget
• Cognitive
development has
stages

• Keys to learning
 Assimilation
 Accommodation
 Equilibration
“ The principal goal of education is
to create men who are capable of
doing new things, not simply of
repeating what other generations
have done- men who are
creative, inventive and discovers.
The second goal is to form minds
which can be critical, can verify,
and not accept everything they
are offered.”
- Jean Piaget
Lev Vygotsky
Cultural
Transmission and
development

Learning-
development

Socio-cultural
Development Theory

Keys to learning
“ Through others, we become
ourselves.”
“ People with great passions,
people who accomplish greet
deeds, people who possess
strong feelings, even people with
great minds and a strong
personality rarely come out of
good little boys and girls.”
- Lev
Howard Gardner
Multiple
Intelligence
 Linguistics
 Logico-
mathematical
 Musical
 Spatial
 Bodily/kinestheti
cs
 Interpersonal
 Intrapersonal
“I want my children to understand
the world, but not just because
the world is fascinating and the
human mind is curious. I want
them to understand it so that
they will be positioned to make it
a better place.”
- Howard Gardner
Daniel Goleman

• Emotion contains
the power to
affect action
• EMOTIONAL
QUOTIENT
“ Teachers need to be comfortable
talking about feelings. This is part
of teaching emotional literacy – a
set of skills we can all develop,
including the ability to read,
understand and respond
appropriately to one’s own
emotions and the emotions of
others.”
- Daniel
Goleman
GESTALT Psychology
 Learning –
wholeness of the
problem
 Human beings
respond to an
organization of
patterned stimuli
 Keys to learning
Abraham Maslow

 Self-
actualization
Theory

 Human emotions =
love and trust

 Key to learning
“One can choose to go back
toward safety or forward toward
growth. Growth must be chosen
again and again; fear must be
overcome again and again.”
- Abraham
Maslow
Carl Rogers
 Non-directive and Therapeutic
Learning
- est. counselling procedures and
methods for facilitating learning
 Key to learning
- Curriculum as a process not product,
personal needs not subject matter,
psychological meaning and cognitive
scores
“ We cannot change, we cannot
move away from what we are,
until we thoroughly accept what
we are. Then change seems to
come about almost unnoticed.”
- Carl
Rogers
Schools and Society
 Societyas a source of change.
 Schools as agents of change.
 Knowledge as an agent of
change.
John Dewey
Schools and civil
society, for
reconstruction
and encourage
experimental
intelligence and
plurality
“ The self is not something ready-
made, but something in
continuous formation through
choice of action.”
- John Dewey
Alvin Toffler
 Famous for his book, Future
Shock
 Knowledge as preparation for the
future
 Students and schools
collaboration at the end.
“The illiterate of the future will not
be the person who cannot read. It
will be the person who does not
know how to learn.”
- Alvin Toffler
Thank
you