1. Theme 2: What is learning?:Classic & contemporary views Imagine the following.friends contactyou and ask you to advise them (after allyou are now becoming a teacher!) on How to give up junk food and lose weight How to learn Spanish vocabulary How to write and then make a speech inpublic (they have seen you do it very well) Understand how people see Four cases: Different people & different types of learning What to do? P Conway, PDE @ UCC 1

2. Variety of theories with deeproots Many theories (folk & official) No one approach has all theanswers P Conway, PDE @ UCC2 3. Some approaches: learningas Plato: recollection V Locke: writing ona blank tablet Skinner (Behaviourism): actions of theenvironment on the learner Kohler (Gestalt): patterns & structure ofthe mind e.g. Aha Simon (Cognitive Science/AI/IP):ascomputerlike phenomenon Piaget (Constructivism): .as an adaptivefunction of an organism Vygotsky, Dewey (Social constructivism):as becoming a member of community ofpracticeP Conway, PDE @ UCC3 4. The learning paradox & theory of recollection I know Meno what you mean youargue a man cannot searchforwhat he does not knowfor he doesnot know what to look for; for if heknows, he has no need to inquire;and if not, he cannot; for he does notknow the subject about which he isto enquire (Plato, 370BC/1956) Recollection: The Myth of Er:Drinking on the banks of theForgetful River (but not too much!) P Conway, PDE @ UCC 4 5. The tabula rasa blankslate: Feed everything in Let us then suppose the mind to be, aswe say, white paper [tabula rasa], void ofall characters without any ideas; howcomes it to be furnished? Whence comesit by that vast store, which the busy andboundless fancy of man has painted on itwith an almost endless variety? Whencehas it all the materials of reason andknowledge? To this I answer, in oneword, from experience: in that all ourknowledge is founded, and from that itultimately derives itself. (Locke, 1689, AnEssay on Human Understanding) P Conway, PDE @ UCC5 6. Putting the building blocksin place (Lockes blank slate)Bringing out out what the learneralready knows (Platos recollection)P Conway, PDE @ UCC6 7. Plato & Locke shared someideas (mistaken assumptions) Learner is passive in both Plato: learner as spectator on reality Locke: an empty cabinet waiting to befilled Experience is something thathappens to a learner Locke (YES) Plato (yes) BUT Lockes atomism Simple ideas ----> complex ideas?P Conway, PDE @ UCC7 8. Behaviourism & schooling Psychology as the behaviouristviews it is a purely objectiveexperimental branch of naturalscience. Introspection forms noessential part of its methodThebehaviourist, in his efforts to get aunitary scheme of animal response,recognizes no dividing line betweenman and brute Watson,Psychological Review, 1913P Conway, PDE @ UCC 8 9. ClassicalconditioningREAD: pp.19-32, Seifert& Sutton (2009)P Conway, PDE @ UCC9 10. Operant conditioning P Conway, PDE @ UCC 10 11. Applications in educationBehaviour modification ABA in regular & specialeducation (e.g. ASDs, EBD) To develop & strengthen newbehaviour; To maintainbehaviour, To stop behaviour,To modify emotional response Think about: 1. Cues/triggers,2. rewardsProgrammed instruction: Mastery learning Break learning into small steps,easy to hard & shapebehaviour up the learningpyramidP Conway, PDE @ UCC11 12. Behaviourism & schools:Practices, limits & ethics Conditioning occurs all the time - bothclassical and operant Pay attention to cues, rewards &unintentional reinforcement Objections: Limits & ethics Conditioning beliefs, attitudes? Student awareness, thinking, HOT? Should rely on intrinsic rewards rather thanpunished by rewards (see Kohn) Does all learning necessitate direct reward orpunishment of the learner? The end of free will (Skinners book WaldenTwo, I.e. ABA-based Utopia) P Conway, PDE @ UCC12