Education encompasses teaching and learning.  One teaches so that others may learn.  But what does it mean to learn? How does one learn? Questions as these lead to theories on learning and in turn, theories on the "best approaches" to teaching.  These learning theories are meant to help us understand the complex process of learning and tend to be categorized into three main philosophical frameworks: behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism. 

The following are a few readings relate to educational psychology.  

[ The below bibliographies have also been listed within the TIMELINE section of this site.  Therefore, in this section along with the COMPUTERS and GAMES sections I have simply attempted to separate the readings into their most appropriate category.  Noting that many of the readings could be placed within multiple sections. ]

In his article, Edgar Dale articulates the “cone of experience” as a visual aid summarizing concepts of direct and indirect experiences as will as concrete and abstract experiences.  He divides the cone into ten sages.  In observing these sages, we are told that each division is representative of a stage “between direct experiences and pure abstraction.” Therefore, by moving up the base we are in the order of decreasing directness and increasing abstraction.  For example, the foundation of “Direct, Purposeful Experiences” being the highest level of directness and lowest level of abstraction. Similarly, the cones pinnacle of “Verbal Symbols” being the lowest level of directness and highest abstraction.  He continues by explaining each of the ten sections, and then he notes various points to help prevent mistaken impressions about the cone.  These ten sages are further classified into three sections that involve “Doing”, “Observing”, and “Symbolizing.” Overall, the cone is meant to be a simplified visual in explaining the inter-relationships of various audio-visual materials and their individual positions in the learning process. 

In her article, Catherine Fosnot argues that instructional designers have been grounded in empiricism and yet to grip the tenets of constructivism.  She begins by giving a historical review of various studies on instructional uses of media.  She then moves onto various studies regarding the constructivist model of cognitive development and explains the constructivists position in relation to media and educational technology. She notes a previous study on media research that pointed out how research has yet to support the direct influence of media on learning.  This research suggested the role of instructional designers to be one of determining the necessary conditions when analyzing instructional problems.  However, her overall attempt is to reinterpret that research within a constructivist framework as she intends to bring insights into the learning mechanism that might benefit future educational technology research.   

In this article, the authors argue that knowledge is situated, “being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used.”  That the effectiveness of teaching practices are limited when they implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from the situations in which it is learned and used. They propose cognitive apprenticeships, which “honors the situated nature of knowledge” and give two examples of mathematics instruction that exhibit this approach of teaching.  Furthermore, they state that conventional schooling often ignores the influences of school culture on what is learned in school. Among the many aspects of this article, they present a figure representing “students’ progress from embedded activity to generality.  Within this figure they suggest that “as students gain more self-confidence and control, they move into a more autonomous phase of collaborative learning, where they begin to participate consciously in the culture.”  This culture would then help them develop its language and belief system and promotes the process of enculturation.  Overall, they state that the importance of activity and enculturation to learning suggests a new epistemology might hold the key to a new perspective in education and the improvement in learning.

This article was a response to Brown, Collins, and Duguid’s “Situated cognition and the culture of learning.”

This article was a response to Brown, Collins, and Duguid’s “Situated cognition and the culture of learning.”

This article was a response to the responses by Palincsar and Wineburg.

In this article, David Jonassen analyses the philosophical assumptions within instructional systems technology (IST) and its behavioral and cognitive foundations.  While these foundations are primarily objectivist, he then contrasts the philosophical assumptions of objectivism with constructivism. He begins with the shifts in learning theory in the past decades as he explains the differences between behaviorists and cognitive psychologists.  Behaviorists being only concerned with what learners do, whereas, “cognitive psychologists are interested in what learners know and how they come to acquire it.”   He goes deeper into cognitive learning theory, its influences and limitations. He then compares the objectivist and constructivist theories of thinking and learning. Afterwards he suggests the need to incorporate more the constructivist theory in instructional systems technology (IST) which is mostly objectivist.   Nonetheless, he states learning entailing both constructivist and objectivist activities, therefore “the most realistic model of learning lies somewhere on the continuum between these positions.”   

In this article, D. B. Perkins underlines the basic goals of education that are retention, understanding, and active use of knowledge and skills.  The author states that these goals have proven difficult to achieve, however feels information processing technologies and educational practices surrounding the idea of constructivism lead to positive aspirations of meeting the educational goals.  The author continues by breaking down learning environments into five facets: information banks, symbol pads, construction kits, phenomenaria, and task managers.  Then talks about the constructivist approach to technology.  The author then presents morals regarding three facets of educational design: front-end analysis of tasks, instructional strategies, and assessment.  Overall, the author is stating that independently of one another, information-processing technologies and constructivism have much to offer approaches of instruction, yet combined together they are even more effective and efficient.