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Learning and Human Development with Technologies

Learning Module

Abstract

This Learning Module sets out to provide an understanding of theories of learning and development and how these theories relate to educational technology. It has two components. The first is theoretical, in which we attempt to develop an overall frame of reference, locating approaches to the psychology of learning in terms of paradigm differences, from "behaviorism" to "brain developmentalism" to "social cognitivism." The second component is practical, in which we will use these theoretical concepts to ‘parse’ a technology-mediated learning environment for its underlying presuppositions.

Keywords

Educational Psychology, Cognition, Learning, Educational Technologies

Overview

The key ideas in this module are introduced in Chapter 6 of New Learning, by Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope. This learning module contains: seven updates, to be posted to Scholar => Community, covering the topics of:

  1. Behaviorism and Conditioned Response
  2. Notions of Innate Intelligence
  3. Constructivism
  4. Neuroscience
  5. The Social Construction of Knowledge
  6. Distributed Cognition, and
  7. Communities of Practice

It also includes two types of projects, with assessment rubrics:

  1. Outline a Theory of Human Development and Learning
  2. Learning Practice
  • Write a Case Study of an Educational Technology (Learning Practice Option A)
  • Design a Learning Module (Learning Practice Option B)

 

Discussion Topic 1: Behaviorism and Conditioned Response

For the Participant

‘Behaviorism’ is a school of thought within the discipline of psychology that was founded in the first half of the 20th century. Most famous amongst its initiators were John B. Watson, Edward Thorndike and B.F. Skinner. They argued that the only thing we can know with any degree of certainty in the science of psychology is what we can see in the form of observable behaviours.

Read pages 199-202 of New Learning briefly introducing behaviorist psychology. Now, sample some of it for yourself, in original words or videos:

  • Pavlov's notion of 'conditioned reflex'.
  • Watson on the practical importance of studying behavior, rather than consciousness.
  • Skinner's behaviorist psychology.
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Comment: What do you make of Skinner's comments about free will? What is the role of the teacher in the behaviorist scheme?

Make an Update: Take one key concept of behaviorism, define it and provide an example of this concept in practice.

For the Instructor

This 'For the Participant' material is the first of seven discussion topics for this course. There are two ways to handle this material.

  1. If you have a 'restricted' community (see Community settings in Scholar), the participants can only comment on the update.
  2. If you have an 'unrestricted' community, you might also ask participants to make a full update in the community space, perhaps finding an example of a technology-mediated learning experience which illustrates this idea, or further elaboration upon then idea, perhaps by a different or related theorist.

If you your course participants are not familiar with Scholar, make posts as and when needed from the Getting Started in Scholar learning module. To familiarize participants with the Community area, we recommend this post: "Participating in Community".

Discussion Topic 2: Notions of Innate Intelligence

For the Participant

In the behaviorists’ view, not everybody’s capacities for behaviour modification are the same. Some people, they argue, are naturally more intelligent than others. They are able to learn more from their experiences – to pick up on the stimuli, respond more intelligently and learn better from positive and negative reinforcement. Such differences in intelligence they attribute to differences in innate mental capacity between one individual and the next. Some people will never be very smart, no matter how much knowledge we try to give them, because their natural stimulus-response mechanisms don’t work so well.

Read pages 202-206 of New Learning, then go right to the source:

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Comment: Nature or Nurture? What are the dangers and uses of intelligence tests?

Make an Update: Analyze an example of an intelligence test—a whole test, or some questions from a test. What is the test used for? What are its uses and limits?

For the Instructor

Discussion Topic 3: Constructivism

For the Participant

Jean Piaget was a leading exponent of a theory of brain developmentalism that is often called "constructivism." Children’s mental capacities grow through four major stages: from sensorimotor or pre-language, to pre-operational language and thought, to concrete operations or logical thought and multiple perspectives and, finally, by mid-adolescence, to the formal or propositional operations embodied in abstract reasoning. These stages occur at certain ages, before which learners are not ready to learn certain things. Learning occurs through processes of assimilation, in which you make the things you experience in the material or social world fi t into your existing mental framework, and through accommodation in which your mental world takes shape in response to the things you experience.

Read Pages 202 to 206 of New Learning, then listen to the experts:

  • Piaget on child development
  • Pinker on the language instinct
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Comment: To what extent do you think cognitive development and language are 'natural'?

Make an Update: Define and provide an example of a concept in constructivism. What is insightful about this concept? What are the possible limits of the concept? For example, it is argued at times that constructivism assumes overly rigid developmental stages, or focuses too much on the individual mind, neglecting the social nature of knowledge and learning.

For the Instructor

Discussion Topic 4: Neuroscience

For the Participant

Research into the workings of the human brain began to make headway during the 20th century. There is still a lot that we don’t understand about the brain but, thanks to the research disciplines that are today called "cognitive science" and "neuroscience," we are beginning to understand more.

For a sampling of recent thinking in the field of neuroscience, see:

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Comment: What are the potential strengths and weaknesses of neuroscience as an approach to the understanding of learning?

Make an Update: Find and explain an example of recent brain research that has implications for learning.

For the Instructor

Discussion Topic 5: The Social Mind

For the Participant

A social-cognitivist approach to the question of learning attempts to balance social and cultural factors with the potentialities of the brain. Social cognitivists want to develop a fuller account of the ‘nurture’ side of the nature-plus-nurture mix. Of course, theorists on both sides of the nature-nurture debate agree that an enormous amount is learned in a social context by means of the processes of socialization. The main point of disagreement is the mix – how much learning is social, and how much is biologically based.

Read pages 206 to 212 of New Learning. Here also are some of the key thinkers and ideas mentioned in the book:

  • A key foundational theorist is Lev Vygotsky, who explores the role of language acquisition in learning.
  • The importance of socialization is highlighted in some bizarre cases of children who grew up for a time outside of human society.
  • Another measure of what is specific to human learning is the extent and limits of animal learning.
  • Historian David Christian speaks of the uniqueness of human culture.
  • Terence Deacon and Merlin Donald use cross-disciplinary approaches to explore the nature of human consciousness.
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Comment: What do we mean by the social mind'?

Make an Update: Provide an example of a learning experience which exercises 'the social mind'. How does this expand on learning beyond the individual mind?

For the Instructor

Discussion Topic 6: Distributed Cognition

For the Participant

In the social-cognitivist view, nature provides humans with a range of "affordances." Nature does not provide a blueprint, but a series of potentialities that are filled to a substantial degree by the socio-cultural cognition that is our cultural inheritance. Being external to the individual brain, this is necessarily acquired through learning. This is how nurture allows us to fi ll out the potentialities provided by our human-physiological nature.

Key ideas supporting this view are:

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Comment: In what ways is thinking 'inside your head' also social thinking?

Make an Update: What is collective intelligence? What are the processes and benefits of collaborative learning? Illustrate with an example.

For the Instructor

Discussion Topic 7: Communities of Practice

For the Participant

If cognition is social, then the most powerful learning is collective rather than individual. Education exercises an individual’s capacity to learn in and with the people and the knowledge resources that are around them. "Situated learning" and "community of practice" are keys to this conception of learning. Education is not an individualised, psychological-cognitive thing. Rather it is a set of relationships with others in a knowledge or learning community.

For some key ideas about communities of practice, see:

Because thinking and learning are so social, cultural differences play an important role.

  • Marika and Christie provide an example in Yolngu ways of knowing and learning
  • Howard Gardner analyzes multiple intelligences, in contrast to older, monolithic notions of intelligence
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Comment: How do community and culture shape learning?

Make an Update: Describe a moment of learning in a community of practice. What are the dynamics of learning in this example?

For the Instructor

Work 1: Outline a Theory of Human Development and Learning

For the Participant

Take one of the theories or theoretical concepts introduced in this course. Or explore a related theory or concept of your own choosing that is relevant to the course themes. Outline the theory or define the concept referring to the theoretical and research literature, and illustrate the significance of the theory using examples of this concept at work in pedagogical practice.

For example, taking the themes of this course, you may wish to outline the work and approach of a leading learning theorist or educational psychologist (for instance, Watson, Thorndike, Pavlov, Skinner, Piaget, Chomsky, Pinker, Davidson, Vygotsky, Deacon, Gee, Lave and Wenger, Gardner, or an educational psychologist of your choosing). Or you may wish to look at a group of theorists or school of thought (for instance, behaviorism, the “Direct Instruction” approach, brain developmentalism, neuroscience, constructivism, social cognitivism, or communities of practice). What understanding does the theory or theorist you chosen have of the ways in which learning occurs? What paradigmatic approach to education do they represent? What are the implications of this approach for the design and implementation of learning environments, including the use of media and technologies?

A theory work should be 2000 words or more in length. Ideally it should include media such as images, diagrams, tables, embedded videos (either uploaded into Scholar, or embedded from other sites), web links and other digital media. Be sure to source all material that is quoted or otherwise used. Each work must have references “element” or section, including references to at least five scholarly articles or books, plus any other necessary or relevant references, including to websites and other media.

Following is the educational theory rubric, against which others will review your work, and against which you will do your self-review at the completion of your final draft. You can view this rubric while you draft your work at Creator => Feedback => Reviews => Rubric. The rubric explores four main knowledge processes, the background and rationale for which is described in the papers at this page.

 

For the Instructor

Work 2A: Case Study of an Educational Technology

For the Participant

Write a case study of an innovative learning practice—a method, a resource or a technology, for instance. This could be a reflection practice you have already used, or a new or unfamiliar practice which you would like to explore. Analyze an educational practice, or an ensemble of practices, as applied in a clearly specified a learning context. Use theory concepts introduced in this course. Use as theory concepts defined by members of the group in their published Work 1, with references and links to the published works of the other course participants.

Following is the educational practice rubric, against which others will review your work, and against which you will do your self-review at the completion of your final draft. You can view this rubric while you draft your work at Creator => Feedback => Reviews => Rubric. The rubric explores four main knowledge processes, the background and rationale for which is described in the papers at this page.

 

 

For the Instructor

Work 2B: Design a Learning Module

For the Participant

Create a learning module in Scholar which demonstrates how you would translate some of the ideas and principles of this course into practice. A learning module is a hybrid work which crosses the legacy educational practices of lesson plan, syllabus and textbook. Unlike a lesson plan which is mainly written for a teacher’s design purposes, a learning module has both teacher and learner sides. On the left side of the screen you speak to learners in “classroom discourse,” however in the case of the learning module, in a dialogical mode, rather like social media. On the right side of the screen, you speak to other teachers in the professional discourse of the curriculum and pedagogy. Unlike a syllabus, a learning module contains content as well as an outline of coverage. And unlike a textbook which typically summarizes and transmit content that learners are to consume and remember, a learning module curates a variety of web content (links, embedded media etc.) and establishes a dialogue with and between learners which positions them as active seekers and producers of knowledge.

Your learning module should:

  1. have a clear rationale in terms of learning objectives and, if applicable, curriculum standards.
  2. include at least 8 updates, each of which on the left side includes at least some curated media and a comment request that will prompt rich dialogue among students, and on the right side speaks to teachers about the underlying pedagogical rationale, possible supplementary resources, teaching suggestions, and standards mapping.
  3. include least one peer reviewed project , with peer assessment rubric.
  4. include at least one information or knowledge survey.
  5. demonstrate pedagogical coherence and completeness. Optionally, creators could use the Learning by Design pedagogy, described here.
  6. be well formed in terms of the learning module two column format and heading structure, with all media and other curated content fully sourced.

For model K-12 learning modules, visit the Literacies and Learning by Design collections in the Scholar Bookstore. For model college and higher education learning modules, visit the Higher Education collection. For a selection of learning modules created by participants in the Learning Design and Leadership program, visit that collection. For instructions on how to create a Learning Module in Scholar, visit section 5 of the Scholar Help area.

Following is the peer review rubric for the learning module, against which others will review your work, and against which you will do your self-review at the completion of your final draft. You can view this rubric while you draft your work at Creator => Feedback => Reviews => Rubric. The rubric explores four main knowledge processes, the background and rationale for which is described in the papers at this page. If you want to use the L-by-D icons to mark activity types explicitly, you can copy and paste web icons located at this link.

 

For the Instructor