Essentials of Learning for Instruction

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Essentials of Learning for Instruction

• Gagné and Driscoll
• Chapter 1
• Introduction

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The Role of the Instructor

• Provides instruction
• Set of events designed to initiate, activate,
  support learning
• Planned
• Delivered

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What is learning?

• A process
• Typically involves interaction with external
  environment
• Inferred by a change or modification in behavior
• Persistent over time

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Knowledge about Learning

• Through research that must be both valid and
  reliable
• By observational studies that may lead to
• Correlational studies show negative or positive
  effects
• Experimental studies show variable effects

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Knowledge about Learning(continued)

• Experimental data yields inferences about
  non-observable process of learning.
• These inferences give rise to generalized
  knowledge about learning (called learning
  principles).
• These inferences are verified by predicting
  additional learning outcomes in a new situation.

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Example of the Study of Learning .. 6
Map! What map??
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Research Terminology

• Reliability
• addressed by repeated observations
• leads to replicable data
• Validity
• measures or evaluates what it says it does
• Controlling conditions

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Research TerminologyInferences about internal
processes

• Use many studies to validate premise
• For example
• Research Conclusion
• Facts are learned more readily when they can
  be meaningfully related by the learner, i.e.
• Generalized Inference
• A story has framework / schema to hang facts
  on

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Learning Theory Basics

• Research on learning produces data
• The data accumulates and allows the formulation
  of learning principles
• As the knowledge grows, ways are suggested to
  organize disparate facts into a single
  conceptualization called a theory

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Learning Theory(continued)

• A learning theory is designed to explain several
  specific facts that have been independently
  observed by relating these facts to a conceptual
  model
• Models are designed to generate predictions of
  behavior
• when predictions are not verified the theory is
  either modified or rejected

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Behaviorist Learning Theory

• 1913 E.L. Thorndike
• Law of Effect (stimulus, response, reinforcement)
• Restated by B.F. Skinner in the 50s
• Law of reinforcement
• all conditions were external or observable

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Modern Learning Theory Its Model

• Analogous to the workings of a computer
• Information is transformed
• These transformation are called learning
  processes
• Model represents learning as we know it

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Information Processing ModelLindsay Norman,
1977
Executive Control
Expectancies
Effectors
Response Generator
Environment
Sensory Register
Short-Term Memory
Long-Term Memory
Receptors
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Purpose of Learning Theories

• Planning lessons
• Discloses the limits of what is possible
• Conducting lessons
• Guides you in an appropriate course of action
• Assessing lessons
• Makes it possible to compare what students know
  and what they can demonstrate