Willingham's Learning Theory

2 Key excerpts on "Willingham's Learning Theory"

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  eBook - ePub

  Understanding English Language Teaching in EFL Context

  From Idea to Practicality

  • Kamal Ud Din(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge India

    (Publisher)

  1952 ) and many other contributors represents that the learner is in the center of the process of learning, who has got a complicated nervous system through which real-world phenomena are perceived, recorded, and retrieved and are responsible for learning to occur. Cognitive science or cognitive theory or theories explain learning in terms of a cognitive function. ‘Cognition’ means the process in the brain responsible for learning or the process of gaining knowledge of the environment and from the environment.

  According to Reed (2007 ), ‘cognitive psychology’ refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used (Ulrich Neisser, 1967 as cited in Reed, 2007 , p. 1). The author further stated that the “transformation of the sensory input means the way we make representation of the world is not just a passive registration of our physical surroundings but an active construction that may involve both ‘reduction and elaboration’” (p. 2). He explains reduction as the amount of our attention that is not all applied to all aspects of the stimulus from our surroundings, and, therefore, we can get only a limited memory of the stimulus. On the other hand, elaboration refers to remembering information that is dependent on the stimuli; for example, the information details are accessed about a particular friend by meeting the friend first. In other words, a cognitivist focuses on what happens between the stimulus and the response (respondent-related factors).

  Cognitive psychology also defines learning in terms of information processing theory—the process is composed of different stages such as acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information, a process analogous to that of a computer (Woody, 1999 ). The use of ‘insight,’ in the case of the Gestalt concept of cognition, is a mental process of high importance in cognitive science.

  In line with the four Piagetian learning stages, Sternberg and William (2010 ) also take learning as a developmental process (developmental means continuing and evolving for at least a certain period). Learners need to be physically, mentally, and emotionally mature enough to learn certain behaviors, which indicate the emerging property and the development of other aspects of personality of an individual. They, furthermore, added that learning or maturation or both combined can lead to cognitive development. By ‘maturation,’ they mean “any relatively permanent change which is the result of biological aging, regardless of personal experience” (ibid, p. 37). To them, the change in thought or behavior caused by experience is learning, which necessarily needs a stimulus and thus occurs in response to the stimulus (Sternberg & William, 2010

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  eBook - ePub

  Achieving your Diploma in Education and Training

  • Jim Gould, Jodi Roffey-Barentsen(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Behaviourist theory requires that learning is measurable and therefore evidenced in an observable form. Teaching is planned and assessed in a systematic manner, based around learning objectives. Teaching strategies tend to be teacher-led and classroom management techniques are based on rules, rewards and sanctions.
• Cognitive theory regards learning as a search for meaning and understanding. It favours active forms of learning such as problem-solving and discovery-based approaches. Classroom management techniques revolve around a view of the whole person rather than just the behaviours they exhibit.
• Information processing theory compares the brain to a computer and identifies attention, perception and memory as the main procedures involved in processing information. Teaching is carried out in a manner designed to increase the efficiency of these processes.
• Neuro-cognitive approaches use brain imaging techniques to examine how various mental processes are implemented in the brain. In common with information processing theory, processes such as attention, perception and memory are explored but the physiology of the brain and how it can best be looked after, increasing its efficiency, is also a point of focus.
• Social learning theory speculates that we learn from one another through the processes of observation, imitation and modelling. Learning from those more knowledgeable than ourselves through the technique of scaffolding allows us to achieve what we could not through our own efforts alone.
• Humanism places high importance on the uniqueness of the individual and their drive to reach their full potential. Learning is a response to individual needs and is planned and carried out through a process of facilitation.
• Andragogy