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Slides accompanying a live webinar (with some screenshots of interaction) from an introductory course on teaching in higher education.
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What are learning theories good for?James Atherton
(FSLTHE14: Oxford Brookes University)10 February 2014
Plan of session Introduction—getting to know a bit about your
teaching Short presentation on some underlying issues,
with discussion opportunity Brief introduction to broad types/families of
theory Opportunity for discussion Relating types of theory to your practice, and
issues they pose. Summary and close
This was a live webinar to support week 3 of a
MOOC. Some of the material which only makes sense in that
context has been removed
Anchor pointIn your particular Discipline Setting Students…which of the theories are likely to be
of most use to you?
In what discipline do you mainly teach?
A. STEMB. Social sciencesC. Arts and HumanitiesD. LanguagesE. Fine/performing artsF. Professional studiesG. Other
The reason for this question was to flag the significance of different academic/
professional disciplines for deciding which
approach to teaching is most
applicable.
In what discipline do you mainly teach?
A. STEMB. Social sciencesC. Arts and HumanitiesD. LanguagesE. Fine/performing artsF. Professional studiesG. Other
The reason for this question was to flag the significance of different academic/
professional disciplines for deciding which
approach to teaching is most
applicable.So STEM disciplines
are “hard”, convergent, and
privilege precision.
Fine/performing arts on the other hand value freedom and
creativity.
In what discipline do you mainly teach?
A. STEMB. Social sciencesC. Arts and HumanitiesD. LanguagesE. Fine/performing artsF. Professional studiesG. Other
The reason for this question was to flag the significance of different academic/
professional disciplines for deciding which
approach to teaching is most
applicable.So STEM disciplines
are “hard”, convergent, and
privilege precision.
Fine/performing arts on the other hand value freedom and
creativity.
Most of the participants self-
identified as B, C or F
How would you describe your familiarity with the different varieties of learning theory?
A. Close, quite knowledgeableB. Recognise them when mentionedC. Vague—remind meD. Non-existent
Numbers were fairly equally divided
between A and C with a few Bs
Aspiration
To help you locate learning theories in relation to each other, so you can evaluate their relevance to your interests and practices.
Argument The problem of how to construe
“learning” Status of “learning theories” Evaluating their range of
convenience Applying that to your interests and
practice.
No promises, but any particular points you would like to see covered? Or at least
pointed at?
These were some of the suggestions
which appeared on the whiteboard
This is “learning”
This is “learning”
The software converted this into a neat circle—which
spoiled the point!
It’s the haziness and amorphousness of the
concept which make it so difficult to conceptualise
How big is the pie?
Are we confining the idea to what
happens in formal “learning and
teaching” situations?
Or is it this big?Or does it embrace all kinds of informal learning—some of which we may not
realise is happening?
Let’s say it is this big…
This is just a stipulative definition.
Do we slice it this way?
Formal learning
Informal learning
But what important features does a theory need to
capture?
Or this way?
Cognitive
Psycho-motor
Affective
Bloom’s domains,of course
So theories of learning are not like scientific theories, which
explain and predict phenomena—they are more perspectives or models, which draw attention to (“privilege” in the jargon) certain selected
aspects of the topic.
What implications do such limitations have for your use of theory to inform
practice?
Behavioural
Cognitive
Humanistic
Social
LearningTheories07/02/2014 - v4
"Scientific"Bare bones e.g. Animal modelsSkills
OrganismDifferencesCapacityMaturation
MotivationValuesTransformation
ContextCommunities of Practice
Behavioural
Cognitive
Humanistic
Social
LearningTheories07/02/2014 - v4
"Scientific"Bare bones e.g. Animal modelsSkills
OrganismDifferencesCapacityMaturation
MotivationValuesTransformation
ContextCommunities of Practice
These are the major families of theories as you
will find them in most textbooks. We’ll just go
through the kinds of theories they are, rather than their substantive
content
Behavioural
Cognitive
Humanistic
Social
LearningTheories07/02/2014 - v4
"Scientific"Bare bones e.g. Animal modelsSkills
OrganismDifferencesCapacityMaturation
MotivationValuesTransformation
ContextCommunities of Practice
Behavioural
Cognitive
Humanistic
Social
LearningTheories07/02/2014 - v5
"Scientific"Bare bones e.g. Animal modelsSkills
OrganismDifferencesCapacityMaturation
MotivationValuesTransformation
ContextCommunities of Practice
Individual
Social
This axis is one fairly obvious
set of differences…
Individual
Social
Teacher-focused Content Proactive Prescriptive Convergent Planned Etc…
Student-focused Process
Reactive Facilitative Divergent
Opportunistic Etc.
But there are many different ways in which other axes can be described
Content
Individual
Social
Process
I’m arbitrarily going to collapse
all those alternatives, into
one:
Individual
Social
Content Process
So where would you locate
the theories we have so briefly
discussed?
Behavioural
Cognitive
Humanistic
Social
LearningTheories07/02/2014 - v4
"Scientific"Bare bones e.g. Animal modelsSkills
OrganismDifferencesCapacityMaturation
MotivationValuesTransformation
ContextCommunities of Practice
BB
CC
HHSS
Make the letters
bigbigif you can
Individual
Social
Content Process
This is where the participants located the theories (identified by
initial) on the model. As you can see, the
conversation was quite animated… It largely came down to underlying values
10 April 2023
Teacher focus
Student focus
ConceptualChange
InformationTransmission
10 April 2023
Teacher focus
Student focus
ConceptualChange
InformationTransmission
We briefly related the model to one
developed by Prosser and Trigwell
(1999)
10 April 2023
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Teacher focus
Student focus
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ConceptualChange
InformationTransmission
Promotessurfacelearning
Opportunitiesfor deeplearning Whose
research suggested
this…
So? Horses for courses Each theory will direct attention to a
different aspect of the process Find whichever is most useful for
your particular area Don’t expect them all to point in the
same direction
www.learningandteaching.info