Eye on Learning

I often deal with learning theories in the classroom, physical and virtual.  In fact it was when I was first exposed to learning theories that first attracted me to specialise in "education."  Specializing in education typically involves taking courses on Educational Psychology, Testing and Measurement, Teaching Methods or Pedagogies, and so on.  After taking an Ed Psych and an Instructional Technology course, I fell in love with the Education world.  I took more courses in the College of Education at the university (NIU) where I studied and I loved it so much that I switched my interest from my undergraduate major in Biological Sciences to taking up a specialization in Instructional Technology at the post-graduate levels. Did you know that many events or things that we see in education are common sense but not for all people and not all the time?  Take learning for example.  How one person learns is different from how other people learn.  How o...

Can't find a better way to quickly get an overview of learning theories. A series of YouTube videos put together for you to learn or review. http://technologyinclass.com/blog/learning-theories/

My all time favorite. Great discussion tool to introduce learning theories.

Like many other things, learning theories have evolved with time. Behaviorist theories have been part and parcel of learning for ever since we can remember. Then came cognitivist learning theories that highlighted the need to prepare the learner mentally so that he can cope with the learning and then given the techniques for effective storage and retrieval. Next came constructivist learning where learners need the "aha!" experience to discover new learning. With the pervasiveness of the Internet comes "connectivist" learning. Argued by some to be a theory and others as not being one, it is how learning occurs among the millennials or the GenYs. View the slides by Downes if you need to understand how this works. Connectivist Learning and Teaching View more presentations from Stephen Downes .