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| Question | Answer |
| Kolb's Experiential Learning | Suggests that learning is based on the reinterpretation and reshaping of experience. Learning progresses through a cycle of four stages: concrete experience, reflection, analysis, and testing of concepts in a new situation. Effective learning only occurs when a learner is able to execute all four stages in the model. However, learners are likely to vary in how long they need or prefer to spend at each stage. This leads to a learning styles model which suggests we all have a favoured stage of the learning cycle. |
| Learning Styles | This is a diverse set of psychological models, which suggest we all have preferred modes (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) or approaches to learning (e.g. left brain/right brain, activist/reflector). This has been vigorously critiqued in the literature, but still remains popular in the field as a way of thinking about and planning for diverse learning needs. Coffield recommends that, instead of believing in learning styles, we should help learners to develop metacognition, and awareness of appropriate learning strategies for different purposes. |
| Behaviourism | suggests that learning is about conditioning. Complex learning tasks are therefore broken down into small stages and learning progresses in small repetitive steps, with the teacher offering positive reinforcement of each correct stage (e.g. good marks, praise etc.) Whilst it can be criticised for being somewhat mechanical, such approaches are widely accepted in practice. |
| Humanism | approaches learning as a process rather than a product. The learner’s emotional and creative experiences are understood to be as important as their cognitive engagement. The teacher is seen as facilitator, rather than provider, of learning, and the emphasis is on learner-centred pedagogy. This approach takes account of learners’ physical and emotional, as well as intellectual, needs. |
| Social Practice theory | sees learning as ‘situated’: it never takes place in isolation, but always within a social, cultural, historical and political context. In this view, learning is not simply ‘transferable’ from one context (e.g. college) to another (e.g. work). In order to enable learning to be relevant outside of formal education, teachers must work to design activities and materials which help learners to make links and ‘boundary crossings’. |
| A Freirean approach | argues that the role of education is to promote change and transform the lives of those who partake in it. A major challenge is to address the ‘banking’ concept of education, where the powerful (such as governments/ social elites) construct the curriculum and impose it on those they consider to need it. The alternative is to promote learning as a process of enquiry or problem-solving, collaboratively designed by learners and teachers. |
| Constructivism | argues that learners make sense of new knowledge by integrating it into what they already know. This promotes meaningful, rather than rote or surface, learning. A key idea is an ‘advanced organiser’, a way of introducing a new topic or concept which allows learners to make links to current knowledge, before engaging with new learning. Organisation of material is explicit throughout the learning and learners are actively involved throughout. |
| Social Constructivism | suggests that learning is an interactive process and that sharing with others can help us build new knowledge. One implication of this is that we learn best by being given work that is just beyond the level of our current knowledge. We can be helped to move forward by a supportive framework called ‘scaffolding’ e.g. a ‘more knowledgeable other’ or materials designed to support us. |
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