Task 1C

Theories of learning in relation to my lesson.

There are many different theories of learning that can support teachers within the education sector,
some of these theories have been around for many years, whilst new theories are being worked on
and adapted as new research comes through. According to Shuell (1986) ‘there is no one definition
of learning that is universally accepted by theorists, researchers, and practitioners’, therefore it is
common for these theories to overlap (Schunk, 2012) and so whilst teaching a class, it is likely that
you will, in some way, relate your work to these theories. There are five predominant paradigms of
educational learning theories that can be used to support teachers in their teaching, these are
behaviourism, constructivism, cognitivism, social learning and humanism.

Within the Equestrian Industry, a large majority of the work is practical based, for this reason when
students study this subject at a college or university setting, it is likely that they will complete a
number of practical sessions a week. The lesson that I will be discussing in this report was a practical
session involving the learners working on the yard, the students had an approaching formative
assessment so they had been given time within their lesson in order to ‘brush up’ on their practical
skills and improve on any that they struggled with, this also allowed the students to build on their
work-based portfolio and gain more practical hours. When creating lessons plans for this subject, it is
easy to link the work to many different learning theories as the cohort was a mixed group of
learners, some of these learners had SEN, Child (1995) stated that the label Special educational
needs (SEN) extends to a broad range of children with varying forms of difficulty in learning, opposed
to the majority of their peers of a similar age and so would be taught in a slightly different way in
relation to what was their preferred method. One theory that I looked at when creating this lesson
was Arnold Gesell’s Maturation Theory (1925), this behaviourist theory investigated the
physiological stages of child development. Gesell stated that children matured in stages and not
ages, it was written that the development of children was not chronological like it was with age. This
theory also stated that the development of children was influenced by internal and external factors,
this can be seen within my lesson as many of the learners come from different walks of life and the
levels of development reflects the learners upbringing. Support from this comes from John Watson
(1928), who argued that children are born as blank slates and parents are totally responsible for
their upbringing. This supports the different levels of development within the lesson, however it
does not account for the pupils with SEN, they may have an excellent upbringing but they still have
trouble learning, for this reason we can look at Skinner’s Operant Conditioning (1938) in ways in
which to support these students, rather than looking at the upbringing, we can condition the pupils
when educating them. This is an easy task when working practically as students can be rewarded
with positive feedback when they have done something correctly, this in turn will illicit a desired
response from the students, such as correctly approaching a horse. Their behaviour will be
reinforced and so they will be conditioned, and learning has taken place.

Another key theory that can be aligned with teaching practical work is cognitivism, this theory was
first developed by Piaget (1936), it explains the ways in which a learner constructs a mental model of
the world. Child (1995) explains how this theory is genetic, maturational and hierarchical, as with
Gesell’s theory, Piaget claims that development is in stages that can occur at different rates,
depending on the individual, he also stated that children need rich environments that allow for
active exploration and hands on activities in order to learn (Schunk, 2012), which supports the use of
practical activities, such as those used by myself. However, according to Piaget’s theory,
development is universal and cultural differences have no effect on the stages (Pressley and
McCormack, 2007), which led to criticism from Dasen (1984) who found differences in stages of
development of Western children compared to Aboriginal children. This led to Vygotsky’s socio-
cultural theory which stressed the role of social interaction on cognitive development (Vygotsky,
1978). Vygotsky believed that children gain knowledge from conceptual tools which is transferred to
them by the more intellectually developed, this could be in the form of parents, same age peers or
teachers (Snowman and Biehler, 2006). This theory can align with my form of teaching in the way
that I believe the pupils will learn from my experience and subject knowledge, as I have experience
within the industry I can pass this on to the learners to allow them to create their own ideas and
understanding of the industry and how it is run. This style will also align with the constructivist
theory, this states that learners construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world
(Bruning et al, 2004), which supports Vygotsky (1978) who argued that ‘the development of
language and thought go together and that the origin of thought and reasoning is more to do with
our ability to communicate with others than our interaction with the material world’, this can also
link to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) (see appendix, table 1). This constructivist
theory relates to my lesson, as it is a practical, learners will be working with both myself and the
horses, they will learn by my instruction as well as the behaviour of the horse regarding if what they
are doing is correct, according to Houpt (2004) the behaviour of a horse will reflect negative
emotions and management.
A common application that can be used to aid the cognitive skills of learners is the concept of
instructional scaffolding (Schunk, 2012) (see appendix, rationale) it refers to the process of
controlling tasks which are beyond the learner’s capabilities so they can focus on and master the
task they can grasp quickly (Puntambekar and Hubscher, 2005). It works in a way that the teacher
will initially take most of the responsibility whilst gradually passing this on to the learner so that they
can perform independently (Campione et al, 1984), this allows the learner to stay within their ZPD
and was discussed by Bruner (1984). This method is used within my lessons to allow pupils to gain
more confidence within their own work before being expected to work independently, it also allows
differentiation between learners, those at higher level will spend longer with more help.

Overall, I found that theories relating to active learning, such as cognitivism and constructivism,
supported my lessons more than the rest. However, according to Bruner (1985) theories attempt to
explain various types of learning but differ in their ability to do so and as most these theories are
aged, and proposed by theorists that can be seen as ‘pale, male and stale’, it may be time for a
reform regarding educational theories.
 Reference List

BRUNER, J. S., 1984. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development: The hidden agenda. In B. Rogoff & J. V.
Wertsch, Children’s learning in the “zone of proximal development” pp. 93–97. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

BRUNER, J. S., 1985. Models of the learner. Educational Researcher, 14 (6), pp. 5–8.

BRUNING, R. H., SCHRAW, G. J., NORBY, M. M., and RONNING, R. R., 2004. Cognitive psychology and
instruction. 4thed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

CAMPIONE, J. C., BROWN, A. L., FERRARA, R. A., AND BRYANT, N. R., 1984. The zone of proximal
development: Implications for individual differences and learning. In B. Rogoff & J. V. Wertsch, Children’s
learning in the “zone of proximal development” pp. 77–91. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

CHILD, D., 1995. Psychology and The Teacher. 1st ed. Cassell Press: London.

DASEN, P. R., 1984. The cross-cultural study of intelligence: Paget and the Baoule. International Journal of
Psychology. 19 (1-4) pp. 407-434.

GESELL, A., 1928. Maturation and infant behaviour pattern. Psychological Review. 36 (4) pp. 307-319.

HOUPT, K., 2004. Horse Behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 89 (1-2) pp. 181-182.

MEECE, J. L., 2002. Child and adolescent development for educators. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

PIAGET, J., 1936. Origins of intelligence in the child. 1st ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

PRESSLEY, M. and MCCORMACK, C.B., 2007. Child and Adolescent Development for Educators. Guilford
Press: London.

PUNTEMBEKAR, S., and HUBSCHER, R., 2005. Tools for scaffolding students in a complex learning
environment: What have we gained and what have we missed? Educational Psychologist. 40 pp. 1–12.

SCHUNK, D., 2012. Learning theories. 6th ed,. Boston: Pearson, pp.3-9.

SCHUNK, D., 2012. Learning theories. 6th ed,. Boston: Pearson, pp. 238-260.

SHUELL, T. J., 1986. Cognitive conceptions of learning. Review of Educational Research. 1 (56) pp. 411–
436.

SKINNER, B. F., 1938. The Behaviour of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York: Appleton-
Century.

SNOWMAN, J. and BIEHLER, R., 2006. Psychology Applied to Teaching. Houghton Mifflin Company, U.S.A.

VYGOTSKY, L. S., 1978. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge,
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WATSON, J. B., 1928. Psychological care of infant and child. New York, NY, US: W W Norton & Co.
Table 1

Table 6.4

Key points in Vygotsky’s theory.

 Social interactions are critical; knowledge is coconstructed between two or more people.

 Self-regulation is developed through internalization (developing an internal representation) of actions

and mental operations that occur in social interactions.

 Human development occurs through the cultural transmission of tools (language, symbols).

 Language is the most critical tool. Language develops from social speech, to private speech, to covert
(inner) speech.

 The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the difference between what children can do on their own
and what they can do with assistance from others. Interactions with adults and peers in the ZPD
promote cognitive development.

(Meece, 2002)