Three Paradigms that Embrace All Learning Theories

Sfard’s metaphors (as discussed in the earlier blog)  indicate that learning theories need to address both metaphors to be strong in explaining the process of learning can the three paradigms of learning explain things much more satisfactorily? 

Greeno, Collins & Resnick (1996 cited by Mayes and de Freitas, 2004) have classified learning theories into three groups:

 ‘associationist (learning as activity), cognitive (learning as achieving understanding) and situative (learning as social practice)’ (pp 7).  

The last two actually fit well with Sfard’s (1998) contrast of acquisition and participation metaphors as discussed in the previous blog. To elaborate, the associationist approach views knowledge as an accretion of associations and skills and learning as ‘the process of connecting the elementary mental or behavioural units, through sequences of activity’. (Mayes and de Freitas 2004, pp 7) It will need reinforcement of particular connections through feedback to strengthen connections. Thus the behaviourist and connectionist approaches to learning lie within this theme. The applications of these are explained by Gagne’s (1985) theory of teaching. ‘Learning tasks are arranged in sequences based on their relative complexity according to a task analysis, with simpler components as pre-requisites for more complex tasks.’ (Mayes and de Freitas 2004, pp 7)

The cognitivist approach takes into account metacognitive processes and encourages the view of learning as problem solving and information processing. The learning occurs through construction of meaning based on prior information / knowledge. As this happens the individual becomes more skilled and conscious thought is no longer required. 

Within the situative perspective the learning is distributed socially. The meaning is constructed in relation to the situation and is contextualised. Again it appears that the individually each paradigm has its limitations and a combination of them allows for a stronger theory of learning as the paradigms complement each other. These will be discussed in the later blogs.