How People Learn
Adult Learning Principles | The Young Learner | Learning Styles
Learning Theories | Is There One Best Theory For Instructional Design?
 The first prerequisite for choosing appropriate learning strategies, techniques and tools is to know as much as you can about your students: learning style, needs, interests, and challenges; the second prerequisite is understand the learning process itself. Here is a quick overview of some of the things we know about adult learners, younger learners, learning styles and learning theories.
Adult Learning Principles
30 Things We Know For Sure About Adult Learning is a good introduction as it provides many tips for motivating adult learners, designing curriculum for them, and managing the learning experience.
Characteristics of Adult Learners focuses, in chart form, on the ways in which content and techniques can be adapted to meet the needs of adult learners.
"The Principles of Adult Learners" provides another quick introduction to the key principles that apply to adult learners.
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/
teachtip/adults-1.htm
A comprehensive study of the learning process is provided in an excellent interactive online book entitled How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School edited by leaders in the field of learning theory, including John Bransford, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking. If reading an entire book is too daunting right now, take time to look at the Introduction for a good overview of our evolving knowledge about the learning process.
http://www.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/index.html
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The Young Learner
Many of our learners these days are very young; they don't match the traditional profile of the adult learner. Check out this article on the younger learner written for the Eastern Region Focus on Learning program.
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Learning Styles
Learning styles impact both how students learn and how we teach. As there is a good page on learning and teaching styles in the Competency One section of this web site, we will provide a link to that page now.
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Learning Theories
 The second prerequisite for choosing appropriate learning models, strategies, and tools is to familiarize yourself with what we know about the learning process. The learning theory that best informs our design activities today is constructivism, and its forerunner...the cognitive science movement, but both humanist and behaviourist theories can provide you with useful insights as you choose the teaching models, strategies and tools that you want to use in your teaching practice.
The Summary of Relevant Learning Theory, adapted by Dianne Bloor from Joseph Lowan, identifies nine key principles from current learning theories that we can apply in our teaching practice.
For More In depth Information About Learning Theories, consult the following:
On Constructivism
A Concise Introduction to Constructivism filled with practical tips for applying constructivist principles in both traditional and online teaching environments.
http://edpsychserver.ed.vt.edu/workshops/tohe1999/tohe2.html
A very readable introduction from a major thinker in the field, Brent G. Wilson, "Reflections on Constructivism and Instructional Design" offers a pragmatic and gently humorous approach to constructivism.
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~bwilson/construct.html
On Cognitive Theory
Using Cognitive Theories to improve Teaching, summarized from Marilla C. Svinicki's article, "Practical Implications of Cognitive Theories," provides us with six key principles to consider when choosing our teaching models, strategies, and tools.
This section on Cognitivism from Steven McGriff's portfolio serves two purposes: it tells you about the essentials of cognitivism (leading thinkers, key concepts, applications to teaching), as well as showing you what a professional online portfolio can look like.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/j/sjm256/portfolio/kbase/
Theories&Models/Cognitivism/cognitivism.html
On Humanism
Carl Rogers is the father of this movement in education. To find out about his contribution, this article in the Infed provides a concise introduction.
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rogers.htm
Humanism as an Instructional Paradigm, by Professor Ralph Brockett, provides a very readable introduction to the contributions of all recent humanist thinkers to education. It includes Shapiro's list of basic principles of humanistic education.
http://home.twcny.rr.com/hiemstra/romira1&.html
On Behaviourism
A brief introduction to behaviourism, complete with graphics and interesting hyperlinks. Behaviourism
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/behaviour.htm behaviourism
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Is There One Best Theory For Instructional Design?
 No!! The article, "Is There One Best Theory For Instructional Design," reiterates for us that each theory has its strengths, and that expert educators look first at the type of learning that they want to encourage, and then apply the appropriate learning theory principles for that learning, whether they are behaviourist principles, cognitive science principles, or constructivist principles. When you get to this site, scroll down to see the link, to "Is There One Best Learning Theory fo Instructional Design?''.
http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/
brenda.htm#Is%20There%20One%20Best%20Learning%20Theo
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