short descriptors of different learning theories

Some years ago I organised a wiki called "Learning Evolves". This folded because the hosts, Wikispaces, closed down. At the time I couldn't find an equivalent site (free for educators).

Back then I discovered lots of different learning theories. I was surprised by how many there were. Since then I've often thought of providing succint descriptions of some of the more important learning theories. This is one way (I stress here, not the only way) to make a start on how we learn.

Given my present confinement (recovering from a busted achilles tendon, which gives me more time for theory) I've decided to do it. This is a rough draft. I'm leaving a lot of stuff out. Probably I will return to this page and do updates from time to time.

In Society of Mind Marvin Minsky said the trick is that there is no trick. "There is no single secret, magic trick to learning; we simply have to learn a large society of different ways to learn". So we need to study a wide variety of learning theories to learn about the wide variety of tricks that different people use to learn. It's a lot of work and takes some time. There is no general theory of learning just as there is no general theory of intelligence. So, because learning theories are fuzzy, slippable, embodied and situated things and not sharp, hard edged purely logical things they do require a lot of study to understand them. It doesn't begin or end with study of learning theory. There is philosophy, history, evolution, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and more.

Enactivism: knowledge stored in the form of motor reponses and acquired by the act of "doing". It is a form of cognition inherently tied to actions, as in the handcrafter as way of knowing. It is an intuitive non-symbolic form of learning

Instructionism or Behaviourism: Responses that are rewarded tend to be repeated. Educational outcomes can be identified: fact recall, skills and attitudes. Education can be optimised to achieve measurable changes in these desired outcomes

Cognitivism: the mind is a bit like a computer, it has meaningful structures (schemas, representations, symbols) which receives inputs that are processed and produce outputs.

Constructivism: children build or construct their own intellectual structures

Constructionism: to build personal or social meaning with engaging objects controlled by computer code in a language like Logo which evolved into Scratch

Phenomenology: focuses on an individual’s first-hand experiences rather than the abstract experience of others

Social learning: the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers (the zone of proximal development, Vygotsky)

Update (11/5/24):

What is missing here is the need to combine different learning theories in a way which integrates their various strengths and leaves out their weaknesses. The best effort I have seen which does this is Diana Laurillard's, Conversational Framework. I have written up a summary of that framework which I feel needs some polishing before publishing.