Learning Theory

The article, 'Learning theory', the encyclopedia of informal education’, as reviewed by Smith, M. K. (1999)and stated by him, discusses the following subject areas:
• learning as a product
• task-conscious or acquisition learning, and learning-conscious or formalized learning
• learning as a process
• the behaviourist orientation to learning
• the cognitive orientation to learning
• the humanistic orientation to learning
• the social/situational orientation to learning

The article presents an approach that may be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of what is learning in terms of examining if it is a process or product. Through research by Säljö (1979) where he asked adult students what they understood by learning, the article discusses the responses in five different categories but Smith was able to simply sum it up as 'knowing that' and 'knowing how'. The article identifies several issues emerging connected to Conditioning and Cognitivism with an evaluation that takes these topics from theory to practice. A brief discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different learning theories and how they might best be utilized is included.
Smith, begin his commentary by examining learning as a product and as a process. He later takes the reader “into the arena of competing learning theories - ideas about how learning may happen”. He also discusses acquisition learning and formalized learning as posit by Alan Roger's (2003).
This article is very useful for the Instructional Designer in the making who is trying to get a grasp of what exactly learning theory is for them. The author discusses learning theory in relation to models, product and process and provides a number of comparisons, e.g. active learning and flexible learning, in an effort to show relationships.

Mark Smith presented a table of 'four orientations to learning' which compares Behaviourist, Cognitivist, Humanist and Social / Situational orientations of learning theories and related them to a number of roles that as an online educator, I may one day find myself in again. For the information presented in the table, I was able to come to the conclusion that as an Instructional Designer, I have the responsibility to not only understand my own learning needs and habits, but also the learning methods that are best suited for my students.

The conclusions that I drew from this article was that individuals learn in many different ways. Studying the processes that Smith described in this article has helped me to realize I use a combination of varying aspects of the learning theories. This understanding has now lead me to think about the best methods for me to utilize these learning theories in my Instructional Designing. In reality, there is no single method. I find that the best approach is a multifaceted one. Like Smith, I do agree that not every learner will be happy with reading text, nor will they be satisfied with videos all the time.

The author presents an approach that may be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of what is learning in terms of examining if it is a process or product. Through research by Säljö (1979) where he asked adult students what they understood by learning, the article discusses the responses in five different categories but simply sums it up as 'knowing that' and 'knowing how'.

The article identifies several issues emerging connected to Conditioning and Cognitivism with an evaluation that takes these topics from theory to practice. A brief discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different learning theories and how they might best be utilized is included. However, the section of the article that caught my attention, and would encourage me to further research this resource, relates to Smith’s focus on humanist approach to learning. Humanistic theory and current discussions on learning put the learner in the centre and try to interpret learning from his/her perspective. I tend to favour this approach and I believe that it can be better served to promote e-learning more so that any of the other theories as it does not support a learning process that is totally controlled by the teacher. But the more relevant part of this discussion was the introductory paragraphs Smith cited that Rogers identified as being present in learning.