Over the past decade, educational psychologists and researchers have hypothized many theories of learning, some of them are Behaviourist, Humanist, Cognitivist, Social cognitivist and Constructivist. Humanist theory of learning says that it is a philosophical approach that can be viewed as a person’s own actions to fulfill its own potential. Key central assumptions is that people act with values and intentionality (Huit, 2001), which I against the fact that behavior is an outcome of application of concequences. However cognitive psychologists believe that constructing means or discovering knowledge is central to learning. Humanist believes that in order to learn one should learn a human as a whole, especially human grown and develops over lifespan. In humanist theory learning is centered on student and is also personalized. The role of a teacher, professor or educator is facilitator. The cognitivist revolution has replaced the behaviourist approach in late 1960’s. main focus if theory is on inner capibilities like thinking out of the box. People are rationals that requires active participation in order to learn and whose actions are the concequences of thinking. Learning can be defined as a change in learner’s mental constructions ( Ertmer & Newby, 1993).
Social learning theory explains that people learn from one another through the mode of observation, modeling and imitation. People learn more from the attitude and behaviours of others ( Bandura, 1977). The theory explains human behavior in terms of continuos reciprocal interaction between environmental and behavioral influences.a constructivist theory explains that learning is a not about acquiring constructive knowledge but to conceptualize the constructive process. This construction is based on the knowledge of personal expeirences.
Social constructivism and Humanism theories of learning are connected with my life. Interacting with people always helps one to understand one another, there are other ways of interacting too, via social media etc. face to face conversations are always better than any other conversations. Learning from the experiences of others has always been motivated me, the recognition that I get from the people triggers me to learn more and more. Humanist theory of learning says that it is a philosophical approach that can be viewed as a person’s own actions to fulfill its own potential. Self actualization is the primary goal of a human, that is thhe person’s desire to become whatever he or she wants to become in life.
People learn and develop in different sategs of their life. Some of the concepts realetd to development and learning are explained in coming lines. There are certain development theories that explains comprehensive explanations about why people behave and act in certain situations and how do their behavior changes with the passage of time. There are cognitive theories that explains how people can process the information and think & learn. Erikson’s theory of psychological development that shows eights stages about how people change and act in different phases of life. There are behavioral and cognitive theories as well that explains people learn from the experiences of other people or they learn from the baheviour that individual delivers ina certain situations. Above are all those theories that depicts how people learn and develop over the period of time and how their behavior changes accordingly.
Erikson’s eight stages model can be used to identify different preffered enviornments in different stages of life. For earlier stage let’s say from birth to 1 year, babies requires environment that is full of trust, they mostly get this trust from their parents. In Todler stage, toddlers requires an environment where they can learn about how to control their physical bodies by controlling tegir toileting, feeding etc. in the stage of life where kids are in age of 3 to 5 years they need an environment where they could learn about the world and their place in it by explorations and discoveries. At age of 6 to 12 years, children needs an enviornement where they could build up their competencies at home or school. they develop a sense of confidence by being competetntin the society. In the life stage of 13 to 18, teens needs an environment where they could nunderstand and experiement with different roles. At the early adulthood stage, they need an environment where they could shaer their emotions with another gender or be in intimate relationships. In the middle adulthood stage, now adults will try to share their experiences with others. They begin to assist others in this stage.
References
Huitt, W. (2001). Humanism and open education. Educational Psychology Interactive.
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective.Performance improvement quarterly, 6(4), 50-72.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press.
