Conversations on Learning

Psychologists have been arguing over which learning theory is the “best” ever since their existence.  Arguments for or against cognitivism, behaviorism, connectivism, and connectivism dominate many intellectual debates on how learning occurs. Today these conversations can be found on blogs. I recently read one of these discussions between Bill Kerr, Karl Kapp, and Stephen Downes here where Kerr opposes cognitivism in favor for a behaviorist approach. Meanwhile Downes suggests behaviorism treats learners as machines and removes the human from the learner. This conversation led me to ponder where the individual teachers fit in with the debate.

Most teachers are probably learned the multiple learning theories in an educational psychology class while working on their undergraduate degrees. Some may even have identified themselves as a “behaviorist” or “cognitivist” during the course. However, as they progress through college and become educators themselves, these labels seem to fall away. If you casually ask a classroom teacher about how students best learn, I doubt “constructivism” or “connectivism” (or any other specific theory) would be a popular response. You are probably more likely to hear “hands-on activities” or “meaningful learning experiences”. I’m not saying teachers don’t know how students learn. Depending on your preferred brand, you could argue that these instructional approaches align with any of the learning theories. Which is basically the point I’m trying to make.

By the end of our bloggers’ debate, opinions and beliefs appear to merge closer together. Bill Kerr concludes his post with, “It seems to me that each _ism is offering something useful without any of them being complete or stand alone in their own right.” Karl Kapp followed suit in his blog by stating, “The issue many forget is that “learning” is not one thing…it is a multi-layered word that tends to get treated as if it were just one thing…and it’s not. It is multi-facetted and that is why developing new models for “learning” is so difficult…there are too many levels for one school of thought or one model to do it all.”

I believe most teachers understand at some level that there is no single “correct” way to teach because there is no universal learning model. Making the assumption that there is would “dehumanize” our educators.