In order to facilitate learning activity in the classroom a teacher must have a clear knowledge of who learners are. In general, a learner is an individual who engage him/herself in the process of acquiring new knowledges and developing varieties of new skills. A learner can be found wherever a learning process takes place between two persons or among a group of people. In the context of schooling a learner is a child who can be a student of primary, middle or secondary school and their utmost and primary duty is to learn.
In whatever age or stage the learner is at, there are some learning theories which classifies the types of learning patterns and thereby the learners. It is believed that learning has no age restrictions and it begins ever since the child starts to talk and recognize. However, the theories involve the social, psychological and creative contexts.
What we consider as progressive education was first conceptualized by John Dewey in the late nineteenth century. According to him, the learning process proceeds mostly in a socio-cultural manner and provides a meaning and proper direction in developing instincts in the individual (Dewey, 1987). Albert Bandura also believes that learning occurs from socio-cultural observations (learning through observation which is also identified as observational learning) whereas scholars like Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger that learning and acquiring the knowledge from it happens at the same time when these are being practiced in communities (Lave and Wanger, 1979), and through inquiry (Garrison and Kanuka, 2004). Randy Garrison and Heather Kanuka, also had similar vision in actualization of knowledge. Paulo Freire considered learning not only occurring from the socio-cultural context but also individual's contribution towards it.
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A group of psychologists in the early twentieth century proposed a behavioral approach to describe the learning process (Stewart, 2013). Famous philosophers such as Ivan Pavlov and psychologist B.F. Skinner identified how habitual response or instincts are being learned by the animals using rewards or acts with certain behavior (Pavlov, 1971). Behavioral theory is connected to an outcome based approach when these are being applied in the classroom. This kind of learning in most of the cases are implemented in Preschools. In such environment, the classes are oriented in such a way to establish certain task and the curriculum is also designed to achieve the goal through behavioral instincts of the children.
According to Jean Piaget learning starts from knowledge which is gathered by different kind of experiences from the surroundings. These set of experiences can only be managed by the skills present in leaners' stage in development. These theories mostly focus a series of constructivism which is defined as cognitive constructivism. This theory consider that knowledge is actuated internally on a person rather than imposed and after that it is organized into schemata, or the set of structures of individual's understanding through which an individual develops his/her sense of the universe. As soon as the schemata internally forms, understanding occurs.
David Kolb had discussed on figuring out the place of various kind of learning in his proposed empirical study of learning cycle (Kolb, 2014). He believes that learning initiates via experimental or "feeling" stage. This is a stage in which information is obtained from experience and then it is analyzed or decoded to extract further information. The information is then spread in the public or other discussed on interpersonal domain in case of its occurrence in social environment. During the "watching" stage, leaners step back from the experience and start to pull out meaning from it. For accessing embedded information, the effective domain plays a vital role. It also brings out the subconscious understanding of the information, or the "thinking" stage. At this stage, relevant information from though out from instincts or other sources can be entered the cognitive domain to justify the validity of the information. Afterwards, the information can be actuated into practical domain, which can be considered as the "doing" stage.
Learners acquire different skills and strategies to obtain result from the valuable information. This information processing system can be characterized by several cognitive approaches. It also pinches the way individual reacts to different type of ideas, information or experiences obtained from others. A cognitive style recognizes the way a person is focusing on certain parts (an analyst) or the entirety of the event (a holist) or if he is engaging others using words (a verbalist) or visual effects (a visualist) (Stewart, 2013). Each type of learning types also lends themselves towards various kinds of processing mediums. A verbalist, for example, tend to use his oral and written skills of communication to resolve a problem as an accommodator (Kolb, 2014). This also stimulates him to be an activist by the social environment (Honey and Mumford), through collecting and actuating socio-cultural knowledge as it is obtained via oral channel and social interactions as described by the Kold Biglan model. There are also classifications in the learning style, for example, learning personalities (Dilts, 1995) which reflects the way the learners will to learn, and different sorts of intelligences (Gardner, 1995) which explain the way the learners will improvise and flourish. Such intelligence can be logical, kinesthetic, musical, spatial, verbal, intrapersonal, naturalist and interpersonal. A learner does not always fall into a cognitive learning style, but reflect a combination of learning preferences to different degrees.
References:
Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1977). Social learning theory.
Catania, A. C., & Laties, V. G. (1999). PAVLOV AND SKINNER: TWO LIVES IN SCIENCE (AN INTRODUCTION TO BF SKINNER'S "SOME RESPONSES TO THE STIMULUS 'PAVLOV'"). Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 72(3), 455-461.
Dewey, J. (2007). Experience and education. Simon and Schuster.
Dilts, R., & Epstein, T. (1995). Dynamic learning (Vol. 426). Cupertino, CA: Meta Publications.
Gardner, H. (1995). Reflections on multiple intelligences: Myths and messages. Phi Delta Kappan, 77(3), 200.
Garrison, D. R., & Kanuka, H. (2004). Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. The internet and higher education, 7(2), 95-105.
Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.
Piaget, J. (2000). Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Childhood cognitive development: The essential readings, 33-47.
Sharp, D., Cole, M., Lave, C., Ginsburg, H. P., Brown, A. L., & French, L. A. (1979). Education and cognitive development: The evidence from experimental research. Monographs of the society for research in child development, 1-112.
Stewart, K. L., & Felicetti, L. A. (1992). Learning styles of marketing majors. Educational Research Quarterly, 15(2), 15-23.
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