Personal Learning Theory

PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT:

Behavior (adaptation to the environment) is controlled through mental organizations called schemes that the individual uses to represent the world and designate action. This adaptation is driven by a biological drive to obtain balance between schemes and the environment (equilibration). Personally I find this a very applicable theory when dealing with young children but I do not agree with the idea that individuals will automatically move to the next cognitive stage as the biologically mature.

VYGOTSKI’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT:
Vygotski believed that we encode and represent our world through language (language is a symbolic system by which we communicate, it is a cultural tool – history and culture are transmitted through language), our thoughts are based on language – “inner speech”). Social Interaction plays an important role in the transformation and internalization processes (Social plane – development first takes place on a social plane where children observe parents and imitate, Internal plane – as child becomes more competent, information becomes internalized). Vygotski also was interested in human intellectual development (ZPD, scaffolding; instruction precedes development. Instruction leads the learner into the ZPD).

ERIKSON’S PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT:
Erik Erikson explained eight stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. In each stage the person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges. Each stage builds on the successful completion of earlier stages. The challenges of stages not successfully completed may be expected to reappear as problems in the future.

KOHLBERG’S MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
The theory holds that moral reasoning, the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor.

GOLEMAN’S EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:
The model introduced by Daniel Goleman focuses on EI as a wide array of competencies and skills that drive leadership performance. Goleman's model outlines four main EI constructs:
1. Self-awareness — the ability to read one's emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions.
2. Self-management — involves controlling one's emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.
3. Social awareness — the ability to sense, understand, and react to others' emotions while comprehending social networks.
4. Relationship management — the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict.

Goleman includes a set of emotional competencies within each construct of EI. Emotional competencies are not innate talents, but rather learned capabilities that must be worked on and can be developed to achieve outstanding performance. Goleman posits that individuals are born with a general emotional intelligence that determines their potential for learning emotional competencies.

INFORMATION PROCESSING:
Theoretical perspective that focuses on the specific ways in which learners mentally think about, or process, new information and events. People are selective about what they process and learn, meaning is constructed by the learner; rather than being derived directly from the environment.

KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION AND HIGHER-ORDER THINKING:
"The knowledge construction process relates to the extent to which teachers help students to understand, investigate, and determine how the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of references, perspectives, and biases within a discipline influence the ways in which knowledge is constructed within it.” Higher-order thinking is a concept of Education reform based on learning taxonomies such as Bloom's Taxonomy. The idea is that some types of learning require more cognitive processing that others, but also have more generalized benefits

BEHAVIORISM:
The learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things which organisms do — including acting, thinking and feeling — can and should be regarded as behaviors.

SOCIAL COGNITIVISM:
Social Cognitive Theory, used in psychology, education, and communication, posits that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. Based on the ideas that people learn by watching what others do and that human thought processes are central to understanding personality.

GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES:
• To what extent will knowledge about individual and group differences enable us to draw conclusions about particular students?
• What do we mean by the term intelligence, and how can we promote intelligent behavior in all of our students?
• In what ways are students from various cultural and ethnic groups apt to be alike and different from one another? What implications do their differences have for classroom practice?
• In what ways are males and females alike and different? What can we do to provide equitable educational opportunities for both boys and girls?
• How can we accommodate the unique needs of students from lower socioeconomic groups?
• What characteristics can help us identify students at risk for school failure, and how can we help these students achieve academic success?

MOTIVATION:
Motivation is the activation or energization of goal-oriented behavior. Motivation may be intrinsic or extrinsic. According to various theories, motivation may be rooted in the basic need to minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure, or it may include specific needs such as eating and resting, or a desired object, hobby, goal, state of being, ideal, or it may be attributed to less-apparent reasons such as altruism, morality, or avoiding mortality.
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MY OWN TAKE:
I have attempted to derive what I feel my take on learning theory is. I have come to the conclusion that there is no one conclusion. Within almost all aspects of these theories there are positive and negative attributes. I can conclude with almost complete certainty that I completely disagree with behaviorism. I don’t like comparing our abilities to animals nor do I think people should be treated in such a fashion that forces them into compulsion by signifiers. It makes me feel (and I know this is extreme) like many fascists of our time and all the compulsory actions that have lead up to human genocide.

Based upon my own readings and natural inclinations, I find myself siding with many aspects of Vygotski intermixed with social cognitivism. I find myself gravitating towards methods of emotional intelligence intermixed with the ideas that we can only find our own intrinsic motivation after building a social network of support. Then at this point our actions turn inward into image recognition and ultimately to language based semiotics.

As individuals we natural put our understanding into codes based on a frame of reference built upon personal experience. If we can create and connect pathways to this knowledge (recognizing learning methods and natural inclinations), then perhaps we have a stronger push towards higher order thinking. I still feel like this is scattered thinking and I apologize for this truth.

If we build a community of learners and use the ideas of scaffolding, we can take our students to the next level. Again by giving recognition for abilities and creating moments of expanding experience, confidence should engage intrinsic motivation. It is our job as a teacher to use multiple methods of presentation and activity to engage the student. Tedious lecture will result in tedious and mundane responses.