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if it made a noise. He followed this by placing it near his nose to see if it smelt. He then put it in in his mouth to see what it tasted like. He didn’t like the taste, so he didn’t put it in his mouth again. A change in behaviour therefore took place in Max, which demonstrated he had learnt something.

       Types and conditions of learning

      Gagne (1985) identified five types of learned capabilities, which he stated required a different type of instruction. These are:

      • intellectual skills

      • cognitive strategies

      • verbal information

      • attitude

      • motor skills.

      Different internal and external conditions of learning are required for each. For example, for motor skills to be learnt, there must be the opportunity for the learner to practise new skills rather than just observe them. For attitudes, the learner must be able to explore them, perhaps by discussing them.

      Gagne believed all teaching and learning sessions should include a sequence of nine events. These should activate the processes needed for effective learning to take place. Each event has a corresponding cognitive process (in brackets) which Gagne stated all teachers should be aware of.

      • Gaining attention (reception)

      • Informing learners of the objective (expectancy)

      • Stimulating recall of prior learning (retrieval)

      • Presenting the stimulus (selective perception)

      • Providing learning guidance (semantic encoding)

      • Eliciting performance (responding)

      • Providing feedback (reinforcement)

      • Assessing performance (retrieval)

      • Enhancing retention and transfer (generalisation)

       Example

       Ellie, a baking and pastry teacher, ensures all nine events take place in her sessions by:

       Gaining attention – showing an example of what the learners will achieve by the end of the session, e.g. an iced wedding cake.

       Identifying the objective – stating that the learners will be able to ice a wedding cake by the end of the session.

       Recalling prior learning – asking the learners if they have ever iced a wedding cake before.

       Presenting stimulus – explaining how they will ice the wedding cake and what they will need to use.

       Guiding learning – demonstrating how to ice a wedding cake and showing a short video.

       Eliciting performance – encouraging the learners to begin icing a wedding cake themselves.

       Providing feedback – informing the learners how they are progressing.

       Assessing performance – ensuring the learners are correctly icing the wedding cake by observing and asking questions.

       Enhancing retention/transfer – summarising the learning, relating it to real-life situations and explaining what will be covered in the next session.

       Behaviourism theory

      Behaviourism is about people being conditioned to behave in a particular way, rather than using their own thoughts or feelings. Learning is, therefore, measured by a change in behaviour, which is modified by external influences or conditioning. There are many behaviourist theorists, the most well known being Pavlov, Watson and Skinner.

      During the 1890s, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was researching the digestive secretions of dogs in response to being fed. He noticed that his dogs would begin to salivate whenever he entered the room, whether he was bringing them food or not. He then rang a bell each time the dogs were fed. After a while, ringing the bell led the dogs to salivate, even though they were not given any food. This became known as classical conditioning, as the dogs had been conditioned to associate food with the sound of the bell.

      John Watson (1928) believed that everything from speech to emotions are patterns of a stimulus and a response. He believed behaviour could be modified through natural stimuli. He is considered the founder of behaviourism which assumed all behaviour is observable, and can be correlated with other observable events. His research showed that people can be conditioned, and learning is a direct result of this conditioning.

      Burrhus Skinner (1974) believed that behaviour is a function of its consequences, i.e. learners will repeat the desired behaviour if positive reinforcement is given. The behaviour should not be repeated if negative feedback is given.

       Example

       Jamie was sawing a piece of wood as part of a carpentry course and hadn’t paid attention to the health and safety regulations. The saw kept slipping and he cut his hand. His teacher administered first aid and then gave him negative feedback. This, along with his experience, ensured he was more careful in future.

      Giving immediate feedback, whether positive or negative, should enable your learners to behave in a certain way. Skinner believed the best way to understand behaviour is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning, as opposed to Pavlov’s classical conditioning.

      Positive reinforcement or rewards can include verbal feedback such as That’s great, you’ve produced that document without any errors or You’re certainly getting on well with that task through to more tangible rewards such as a certificate at the end of the programme, or a promotion or a pay rise.

       Cognitivism theory

      Cognitivism is about people constructing their own understanding and knowledge by experiencing something and reflecting on it. Learning is, therefore, an active process of personal interpretation. There are many cognitive theorists, the most well known being Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner.

      Jean Piaget (1959) believed that people construct knowledge rather than receive it. He believed that children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge is based. This experience and knowledge is then influenced by their emotional, biological and mental stages of development. Before Piaget’s work, there was a common assumption that children are less competent thinkers than adults. Although Piaget’s studies were concerned with children, they showed that young children and adults also think differently.

      According to Piaget, there are four stages of development in children:

      • Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years) learning takes place by touching and feeling, and knowing an object exists even if it can’t be seen

      • Preoperational (2–7 years) learning continues by thinking about things symbolically, with the ability to arrange objects logically

      • Concrete operational (7–11 years) learning takes place by thinking about things rather than trying them out, i.e. the ability to think logically

      • Formal operational (11 years and above) learning continues into adulthood by thinking in an abstract way, and by logically testing things out.

      The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1962) believed that the development of language and thought go together. He argued that knowledge and thought are constructed through social interaction which is guided by adults. The origin of reasoning is, therefore, more to do with the ability to communicate with others, than with an interaction with the material world. Unlike Piaget’s belief that children’s development must precede their learning, Vygotsky argued that culture and social learning tends to precede development. He believed that the environment within which children grew up influenced how they thought, and

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