By admin Learning theories aim to describe and explain processes of knowledge production and acquisition. However, it is by understanding what is at stake in these processes that it becomes possible to improve one’s pedagogical practices and relationships. In this sense, we will briefly review the main historical trends from which multiple theories of learning have been developed, sometimes in reaction to each other. The history of learning theories revolves around often simple and basic questions about learning environments, didactics, and the production and acquisition of knowledge. Each theory provides, implicitly or manifestly, answers to these questions, and influences pedagogical practices and relationships.
From behaviorism to the cognitivist theory of learning
Behaviorism is a theoretical movement in psychology that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century with JB Watson and BF Skinner, following the work of Pavlov. According to them, learning corresponds to the acquisition of a new behavior, or the modification of an existing behavior, to the experiment of Ivan Pavlov (1890) on animals, which shows that learning by conditioning is carried out through a stimulus-response behavioral process.
In the experiment, a dog learns that a doorbell sound made by Pavlov corresponds to mealtime, and salivates even though there is no food. Similarly, Watson shows how phobia can be a behavior learned through conditioning.
Applied to pedagogy, behaviorism consists of using positive or negative reinforcements (rewards/punishments) to reinforce the acquisition and memory of new learning.
Concretely, the learner gets a reward (for example, a sticker) if he passes his test, and a punishment if he fails. He therefore works to obtain a reward. The learner’s motivation is then extrinsic, that is to say, that it works by anticipation of the reward or punishment. It should be noted that intrinsic motivation, that is to say that of the child who works for the pleasure of learning, is more desirable and effective in the long term.
Furthermore, teaching is not training. A student needs to give meaning to his learning to appropriate knowledge and transfer it from one domain to another. By reducing the complexity of learning processes to a “conditional reflex”, that is to say a mechanism of response to a stimulus, behaviorism is more of a source of inspiration for dystopian novels than a reflection on the pedagogical relationship!
A new paradigm emerged in the 1940s with the cognitivist approach and the pioneering work of Miller and Bruner on reasoning. This new conception will assimilate learning into a process of complex information processing.
In this design, the acquisition of new knowledge is equivalent to processing information at the working memory level. Repeated information is stored and prioritized in long-term memory. The student becomes an actor in his learning: he uses different cognitive strategies for processing and storing information.
Many teachers implicitly use this theory, giving their students the same exercise several times so that they repeat the cognitive steps that allow it to be solved. But does this process facilitate the memorization and consolidation of the knowledge produced? And is it knowledge? By understanding learning processes as processes of encoding, storing, and processing information, this approach creates an amalgam between the very different notions of information and knowledge.
From socio-constructivism to the connectivism of learning
The socio-constructivist movement, which emerged in the 1970s, is a reaction to cognitivist reductionism: the learner does not function like a computer. Here, knowledge is considered an element that is constructed in a certain environmental context.
In this sense, Jean Piaget’s work can be part of this constructivist movement when he demonstrates how the child constructs his knowledge and develops his cognition, through assimilation and accommodation, in interaction with his environment, and through “successive rebalancing of the structures of his intelligence” (read our article on The cognitive development of the child according to Jean Piaget ).
Other researchers will be interested after him in the so-called constructivist pedagogy and in the conditions of knowledge transmission. Students, through their interactions and individual experiences, actively build knowledge networks. These networks operate by analogy or association and are called “schemes” of knowledge. From this base of knowledge and experiences, students assimilate new information.
Lev Vygotsky will bring particularly interesting developments to Piaget’s constructivism by emphasizing the social and cultural dimensions of learning. Learning experiences are different for everyone, it is a complex process that is not uniform. In addition, the social framework of learning is essential for the acquisition and progressive development of knowledge: the student is at the center of the system, but teachers, family, peers, tutors, etc. play a key role in the acquisition and consolidation of knowledge.
Error and so-called socio-cognitive conflict (divergence and confrontation of points of view) play a positive role in these constructivist models of learning and are today the basis of collaborative and cooperative practices (project, small group tutoring, etc.).
Finally, connectivism today opens an interesting reflection on learning through new educational technologies. Developed by G. Siemens and S. Downes, this new model questions the ways of learning in the digital age, in ultra-connected societies.
Entering this digital culture allows for the creation of new learning situations for children and adults. The number of multimodal resources in open access (videos, writings, games, forums, social networks, etc.), the possibility of following, differentiating, and evaluating learning, in fact, gives rise to unusual, and sometimes very relevant, teaching practices.