Educational Theorists

Question 1

Albert Bandura

Answer 1

Theory: Social (or observational) learning theory
Theory: Modeling

Children learn by observing others

Distributed cognition - a person is able to learn more in a group setting than alone

Observational learning requires several steps:

1. Attention: Attending to the lesson
2. Retention: Remembering what was learned
3. Reproduction: Trying out the skill or concept
4. Motivation: Willingness to learn and ability to self-regulate behavior

Question 2

Jerome Bruner

Answer 2

Theories: Discovery learning and scaffolding

Learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas based on knowledge or past experiences. Discovery learning allows students to discover information by himself or in a group.

Scaffolding - instructional support provided by a teacher or capable peer in a learning situation

Question 3

John Dewey

Answer 3

Theory: Learning through experience

Father of progressive education - cooperative learning, project-based learning, and arts-integration activities

• School is a social institution and a process of living, not an institution to prepare for future living
• Schools should teach children to be problem solvers by helping them learn to think
• Students should be active decision makers in their education

Question 4

Erik Erikson

Answer 4

Theory: 8 stages of human development

1. Infancy (0-1) Trust vs. Mistrust
2. Toddler (1-2) Autonomy vs. Doubt
3. Early childhood (2-6) Initiative vs. Guilt
4. Elementary/middle school (6-12) Competence vs. Inferiority
5. Adolescence (12-18) Identity vs. Role Confusion
6. Young adulthood (18-40) Intimacy vs. Isolation
7. Middle adulthood (40-65) Generatively vs. Stagnation
8. Late adulthood (65-death) Integrity vs. Despair

Question 5

Carol Gilligan

Answer 5

Theory: Stages of the ethic of care (moral development of women)

1. Pre-conventional - Individual survival
2. Conventional - Self-sacrifice is goodness
3. Post-conventional - Principle of nonviolence

Question 6

Lawrence Kohlberg

Answer 6

Theory: Theory of moral development

Pre-conventional (Birth to 9)

1. Obedience and punishment
2. Individualism, instrumentalism, and exchange

Conventional (9-20)

3. Good boy/good girl - approval of peers and others
4. Law and order - abiding the law and responding to obligations

Post-conventional (20+ or maybe never)

5. Social contract - genuine interest in the welfare of others
6. Principles conscience - respect for universal principles and the requirements of individual conscience

Question 7

Abraham Maslow

Answer 7

Theory: Hierarchy of needs

1. Physiological needs: Very basic needs - air, water, food, sleep, sex
2. Safety needs: Secure home and family
3. Love and belongingness needs: people need to belong to groups - schools, clubs, families, gangs, churches, etc
4. Esteem needs: self- esteem results from competence or the mastery of a task, ensuing attention and recognition received from others
5. Self-actualization - People who have achieved the first 4 levels can maximize their potential. They seek knowledge, peace, self-fulfillment

Question 8

Maria Montessori

Answer 8

Theory: Follow the child

Believed childhood is divided into four stages:
   Birth - 6
   6 - 12
   12 - 18
   18 - 24

Three stages of the learning process:

1. Introduce a concept by lecture, lesson, experience, read-aloud
2. Process the information and develop an understanding of the concept through work, experimentation, and creativity
3. “Knowing” - the ability to pass a test with confidence, teach the concept to another, or express understanding with ease

Question 9

Jean Piaget

Answer 9

Theory: Stages of cognitive development (cognitivist)

1. Sensorimotor (Birth-2) Explore the world thru senses and motor skills
2. Preoperational (2-7) Believe that others view the world as they do. Can use symbols to represent objects.
3. Concrete operational (7-11) Reason logically in familiar situations. an conserve and reverse operations.
4. Formal operational (11+) Can reason in hypothetical situations and use abstract thought

Question 10

B.F. Skinner

Answer 10

Theory: Operant conditioning

Grandfather of behaviorism - conducted much of the experimental research that is the basis of behavioral learning theory. His theory of operant conditioning is based on the idea that learning is a function of change in observable behavior. Changes in behavior are the result of a persons response to events (stimuli). When a stimulus-response is reinforced (rewarded), the individual becomes conditioned to respond.

Question 11

Lev Vygotsky

Answer 11

Theory: Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky is credited with social development theory of learning.
-Social interaction influences cognitive development

Zone of Proximal Development - Students learn best in a social context in which an adult or peer teaches something that a student could not learn on their own

Question 12

Benjamin Bloom

Answer 12

Theories: Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning domains

Cognitive Domain (Knowledge)

1. Knowledge - To recall information
2. Comprehension - To understand meaning of instruction and
3. Application - To use a concept in a new situation
4. Analysis - To separate concepts into parts
5. Synthesis - To build a pattern from diverse elements
6. Evaluation - To make judgements

Psychomotor Domain (Skills)

1. Perception - To use senses to guide motor activity
2. Set - To be ready to act
3. Guided responses - To use trial and error
4. Mechanism - To respond in a habitual way with movements performed with some confidence
5. Complex overt responses - To perform complex movements skillfully
6. Adaptation - To use well-developed skills and able to modify
7. Origination - To create new movement patterns

Affective Domain (Attitude)

1. Receiving phenomena - To be aware, selective attention
2. Responding to phenomena - To actively participate
3. Valuing - To determine worth
4. Organization - To organize values into priorities
5. Internalizing values- To control behavior using own value system

Question 13

Howard Gardner

Answer 13

Theory: Multiple intelligences

• Verbal/linguistic - students learn best by saying, seeing, and hearing words
• Logical/mathematical - conceptual thinkers, use mental math, reason problems easily
• Visual/spatial - Think in mental pictures and visual images
• Bodily/kinesthetic - athletically gifted and acquire knowledge through bodily sensations
• Musical - have sensitivity to pitch, sound, melody, rhythm, and tones
• Interpersonal - have the ability to engage and interact with people socially
• Intrapersonal - make sense of their own emotional lives as a way to interact with other
• Naturalist - have the ability to observe nature and see patterns

Question 14

Nitza Hidalgo

Answer 14

Theory: 3 levels of culture

1. Concrete - clothes, music, games, food
2. Behavioral - social roles, language, nonverbal communication (gender roles, family structure, political affiliation)
3. Symbolic - values and beliefs (customs, mores, religion)

Question 15

Luis Moll

Answer 15

Theory: Funds of knowledge

Working-class Mexican-Americans students have abundant knowledge that the schools do not know about that can be intellectual resources for a school

Question 16

David Ausubel

Answer 16

Theory: Advance organizer

The advance organizer is introduced before learning begins. It is designed to help students link their prior knowledge to the current lesson’s content (KWL chart)

Question 17

Lee Canter

Answer 17

Theory: Assertive discipline

Teachers clearly communicate expectations and class rules and follow through with expectations. Students have a choice to follow the class rules or face consequences.

Question 18

William Glasser

Answer 18

Theories: Choice theory (or control theory)

Teachers focus on the students’ behavior, not students, when resolving classroom conflicts (class meetings)

Students who have a say in the rules, curriculum, and environment of the classroom have a greater ownership of their learning (safe place to learn)

Question 19

Jacob Kounin

Answer 19

Theory: With-it-ness

Awareness of what is happening in their classrooms.

Question 20

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 20

Theory: Classical conditioning (behaviorist)

Pavlov’s dogs - trained to salivate to bell

Unconditioned response - one that is naturally occurring

Unconditioned stimulus - one that automatically produces an emotional or physiological response

Conditioned stimulus - one that creates an emotional or physiological response after learning

Conditioned response - a learned response to something that was previously neutral

Question 21

Edward Thorndike

Answer 21

Theory: Behaviorism

Connectionism -the theory of mental associations

The association between stimulus and response is solidified by a reward or confirmation.

Thorndike’s Law of Effect states that “responses that produce a desired effect are more likely to occur again whereas responses that produce an unpleasant effect are less likely to occur again”.

Praise and planned ignoring

Question 22

John B. Watson

Answer 22

Theory: Father of Behaviorism

Based on the belief that behaviors can be measured, trained, and changed.

He believed that all behaviors were the result of conditioning. Any person, regardless of his or her background, could be trained to act in a particular manner given the right conditioning.