1. Learning Theory
Dominic Egan

2. What works?
Find out what works for you?
Find out what works for your student?
Pick up the cues from them
Be aware of your environment
Look out for variables, limits, exclusions
Consider your presentation style
Get feedback as well as self evaluation

3. How do you learn?
Visual
Aural
Kinaesthetic
Read write.
Fleming,N. (2011) VARK a guide to learning
styles. [online] http://www.varklearn.com/english/index.asp (accessed
26/09/13)
Paper version
http://www.varklearn.com/documents/The%20VARK%20Questio

4. What can we learn from
learning theory
Behaviourism
Cognitivism
Humanism

5. Behaviourism
Positive negative reinforcement of behaviour.
Omission of reinforcement.
Conditioning.
Variable response reinforcement is most useful.
Ignoring negative behaviour leads to extinction of
the behaviour.

6. Behaviourism
Behavioural objectifies
Linear teaching programmes (Chaining)
Branching teaching Programmes
Mastery of learning
Task A
Task B
Task C

7. Vicarious learning
Learning by the observation of others
Useful with early learning stages
Promote learners to act as a role for their juniors

8. Cognitivism
Memory (Two types)
Short term
Long term
Encoding
• Put into
memory
Storage
• Maintain
in memory
Retrieval
• Recover
from
memory

9. Cognitivism
Lasts seconds – minutes
To encode we must attend to it, a selective process
How do you remember a number
Visually
Acoustically
Semantically

10. Try to remember this
RLBKSJ

11. And now this…
SPT, OARE

12. … and this
O AIR TEK

13. How did you encode these?
SPT, OARE - Visually
O AIR TEK - Acoustically?
Try remember this
25734169385

14. What goes wrong?
Displacement
Trying to learn too much
Can we help this?
Try chunking, or strings that are already in our long
term memory
On Old Olympus

15. Forgetting
Proactive inhibition old info interferes with the new
retroactive inhibition – new info interferes with old
Emotional, loss of STM, Decay of LTM.
Repression.
Altered recall.
Physical Damage.

16. Improving memory Recall
Use of mental imagery
Self Recital during study
Over learning
Organisational schemes

17. Factors involved in
successful learning
Methods of presentation of material
Knowledge of progress and results
Distribution of practice
Study and learner methods used by the learner

18. Factors involved in
successful learning
Implications for the teacher
Relevance of the Info
Avoid unfamiliar info
Motivation
Boredom fatigue
Over learning
Rehearsal repetition
Organisation and content

19. Humanism
Whole person, feelings, values, attitudes
Self direction, empowerment, autonomy, internal
motivations.
Maslow - needs
Rogers - freedom to learn
Facilitation rather than teacher

20. Humanism cont…
Rogers principles of learning
Enable curiosity
Psychologically
Mutual respect: participation.
Expression of feeling and values
Self critique over feedback

21. Critical thinking development:
Absolute knowing
2/3 of first years notions of fixed, correct,
Transitional knowing
1/3 from certainty to uncertainty
Independent knowing
Aware of no certainties
Contextual knowing
Within the light of experience
Baxter Magolda M.1992 Knowing and reasoning in
college students: San franciso Jossey-Bass)

22. Critical thinking development cont..
It implies re-processing of something learnt in order
to learn more
It deals with complex ideas – not simple ones
It implies a deep approach – not superficial
It involves evaluation
There is reflexivity/ metacognition
(critical consideration of own learning processes)
(Moon, 2008)

23. Critical thinking development cont..
"Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any
belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of
the grounds that support it and the further conclusion
to which it tends". (Dewey, 2010 cited in
McGregor, 2007)
“Critical thinking is not one single way of thinking, but
rather it is multi -dimensional cognitive process. It
demands a skilful application of knowledge and
experience in making discriminating judgements and
evaluations” (Jones and Brown, 1991 p. 530)

24. Mezirow's Three Domains of Learning
Instrumental: gaining of technical knowledge
Communicative: gaining of practical knowledge
Emancipatory: gaining of emancipatory knowledge
which leads to „transformation‟ in the learner
Changing roles
Natural
Contextual to past perspectives
Incremental or sudden acute

25. Transformative learning involves:
Becoming more reflective and critical
Being more open to the perspectives of others
Being less defensive and more accepting of new
ideas
Mezirow, J. 1990. Fostering critical reflection in adulthood : a
guide to transformative and emancipatory learning. San
Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

26. Why?
Adult learning is inevitably related to making sense of
experience through reflection
Kolb
Schon
Knowles M.
Johns C.
Mezirow
Gibbs

27. Gibbs Reflective Model
Description
What happened?
Analysis
What sense can you
make of the situation

28. Model for Structured Reflection adapted from Johns (2000)
Looking in:
Find a space to focus on self
Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions
Write down these thoughts and emotions

29. Model for Structured Reflection adapted from Johns (2000) cont…
Looking out:
Write a description of the situation
What issues seem significant
Aesthetics:
What was I trying to achieve?
Why did I respond as I did?
What were the consequences for myself & others?
How were others feeling?
How did I know this?

30. Model for Structured Reflection adapted from Johns (2000) cont…
Looking out:
Personal
Why did I feel the way I did within this situation?
Ethics
Did I act for the best?
What factors were influencing me?
What knowledge did or could have informed me?

31. Model for Structured Reflection adapted from Johns (2000) cont…
Looking out:
Reflexivity:
How does this situation relate to previous
experiences?
How could I have handled this better?
What would have been the consequences of
alternative actions?
How do I feel now about the experience?
How can I support myself and others better
in the future?

32. Kolb
Stage1 - Experience (Kolb's "Concrete Experiences")
Life is full of experiences we can learn from. Whether at
home or at work or out and about, there are countless
opportunities for us to 'kick-start' the learning cycle.
Stage 2 - Reflect (Kolb's "Reflective Observation")
Reflection involves thinking about what we have done and
experienced. Some people are naturally good at this. Others
train themselves to be more deliberate about reviewing their
experiences and recording them.

33. Kolb cont…
Stage 3 - Conceptualise (Kolb's "Abstract
Conceptualisation")
When we pass from thinking about our experiences to
interpreting them we enter into the realm of what Kolb termed
'conceptualization'. To conceptualize is to generate a
hypothesis about the meaning of our experiences.

34. Kolb cont…
Stage 4 - Plan (Kolb's "Active Experimentation”)
In the active experimentation stage of the learning cycle we
effectively 'test' the hypotheses we have adopted. Our new
experiences will either support or challenge these
hypotheses.
To learn from our experiences it is not sufficient just to have
them. This will only take us into stage 1 of the cycle.
Rather, any experience has the potential to yield learning, but
only if we pass through all Kolb's stages by reflecting on our
experiences, interpreting them and testing our interpretations.
Summing up, learning from our experiences involves the key
element of reflection. Obviously, most people don't theorize
about their learning in this way, but in their learning follow
Kolb's cycle without knowing it.

35. Borton’s framework (1970)
What
Happened
So what
Now what

36. Schon (1987)
2 types of knowledge:
Technical rationality – empirical and scientific
knowledge
Tacit knowledge – intuitive knowledge in order to
navigate through the “swampy lowlands” of real life
practice
Reflection – give the practitioner access to tacit
knowledge

37. Types of knowledge:
Baumard P. 1999 Tacit knowledge in organisations
London: Sage
Individual
knowledge
Explicit
Tacit
Collective
knowledge
Technical
expertise
Rules laws,
regulations
Intuitiveness
Wisdom of
social practice

38. Carper (1978)
Empirical knowledge
Aesthetic knowledge
Personal knowledge
Ethical knowledge

39. Benner (1984)
Consider how far your portfolio demonstrates your
progression form novice to expert practitioner?
Stage 1: Novice
Stage 2: Advanced Beginner
Stage 3: Competent
Stage 4: Proficient
Stage 5: The Expert