Learning theories and teaching

Student teachers are introduced to different learning theories while they are at university.  They are also exposed to a variety of teaching methods while completing their teaching experience at different schools.  As mentioned before in an earlier post, I think teachers do not only use one learning theory while they are teaching.  At times you want learners to practise a certain skill and to remember things in certain ways (cognitivism).  At times you want them to think for themselves and complete an activity that involves incremental learning (constructivism).  If your school is fortunate to have the resources for it, there will be times when you will want learners to collaborate with their peers via some form of social networking platform (connectivism).  A good teacher will always keep these theories in mind while planning and preparing lessons everyday.  A good teacher will encourage learners to develop some form of critical analysis of information they gather from their peers, from books or from the Internet.  Ultimately children need to be able to think for themselves and not be spoon-fed in order for them to compete in the big wide world some day.

Presentations of Learning Theories

The idea of having different people present different theories is a good one.  That way you can concentrate on one theory and do a thorough job of researching it.  If everyone in the group has done the same, you should be able to get all the necessary information about the other theories from their presentations.  There were a few people who did not prepare properly and in so doing confused themselves and the rest of the class as well.  At the end of the day I think everyone was on the same page and hopefully we are all clear about the key aspects of each theory.

Are children like Pavlov's dog?

The quick answer is probably yes.  I don't think we can say that humans do things automatically in the strictest sense.  Skinner (1968) conditioned pigeons and mice to do certain routines in order to get food.  Yes, we do need to condition behaviour in the classroom and each subject has different rules that need to be followed, for example, rules in an art class are different to rules in a geography or maths class.  This conditioning is done so that teaching can occur in an atmosphere that is not chaotic.  So, we do condition behaviour, but it is not just a stimulus-responce method.  Children do actually think about what they need to do in order to conform to the teacher's way of doing things.  They know that one teacher is strict about standing up when another teacher walks in and that another teacher is more relaxed about it.  School, as well as the outside world, has a certain set of rules and children must learn how the system works so that they can fit into society.