Foundation

In 1965, Robert Gagne wrote The Conditions of Learning (Gagne, 1965). In this book he identifies five domains of learning – verbal information, intellectual skills, psychomotor skills, attitudes, and cognitive strategies – all which need different conditions to promote learning. He also describes nine events of instruction, which he considers to be necessary for the achievement of any kind of learning outcome.

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom took the principles of behavioral objectives and with his colleagues, published Taxonomy of Education Objectives, also know Bloom's Taxonomy. Here they established that “within the cognitive domain there were various types of learning outcomes, that objectives could be classified according to the type of learner behavior described therein, and that there was a hierarchical relationship among the various types of outcomes” (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018) Meaning that the manner in which the learner absorbs the material is dictated by the way they behave towards receiving the instruction and based on the results, there is usually an optimal behavior that could be expected.

In 1962, Robert Mager published the book Preparing Objectives for Programmed Instruction. He mentions three key ideas that must be taken into account when developing learning objectives. The ideas are “a description of desired learner behaviors, the condition under which the behaviors are to be performed, and the standards (criteria) by which the behaviors are to be judged” (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018). In other words, Mager had a preconceived behavior that the learner would depict, a preset state in which he would expect said behavior, and when the behavior was recorded, he had a benchmark which he used to evaluate it

The aspect I take from behaviorism is Skinner's take on the theory where learning can be understood, explained, and predicted entirely on the foundation of the events that can be observed (Skinner, 1987). From this notion, I believe that no matter the learning theory that is used such as cognitivism or constructivism, ultimately you can present students with criteria and in the end one should be able to observe if there is a change in knowledge or performance. Using some of the principals in the other theories such as mnemonics in cognitivism or collaboration space in constructivism, as the facilitator of the learning you should be able to determine if learning did actually take place.

Some of the most memorable moments of my personal student career are driven from practices in cognitivism. I still remember many mnemonics that my high school French instructor used to teach us language conjugations. She used children song melodies but inserted conjugations in as lyrics to help us remember the language rules. This used the concept of sensory memory that Atkinson and Shriffin defined in 1968 where the learner takes some sort of structured patterns and is able to start letting their schema or thought process take over to derive meaning of the information and thus generate knowledge (Atkinson & Shriffin 1968). I believe learning should encompass some sort of learning tool like a mnemonic wherein practice sounds very simple but from it can promote complex thinking and learning.

Another principal of cognitivism that belongs in my philosophy of education is the use of “prior knowledge” where Reiser states the instructor needs to be able to evaluate their student’s prior knowledge on a subject to better associate the new information they want them to process (Reiser, 2018). In many cases the prior knowledge does not necessarily need to be directly related to the subject that is being taught. The use of analogies can be very helpful to gain a strong grasp on a concept. One of my most notable memories in my learning career was my physiology instructor using simple baking analogies to explain complex concepts of cell biology. My belief is that the instructor needs to be able to relate new knowledge to information their student can make an easier connection with.

The ideas I would utilize from the learning theory of constructivism is Reiser’s notions of collaborative learning environment to achieve high levels of complex learning (Reiser, 2018). He states that in this learning environment the instructor’s role goes from the “sage on stage” to the “guide on the side” (Reiser, 2018). In this position the instructor would be in the midst of the learning that is taking place. By allowing the students to work amongst peers with the same goal in mind, they can bring in different knowledge and experiences where they can work together to accomplish a goal. In my field of work, I can utilize constructivism by creating a similar practice that Saint Leo University developed where they created technology enabled environments with various classroom technologies (RRTE, 2017). Here they allowed instructors to learn a specific classroom technology and once they had a grasp of the technology they were able to teach each other how to use the technology. I feel this is an excellent learning method as it creates a peer to peer connection and a hands-on experience.