As you reviewed this week's goals and objectives it should have become clear that beyond getting a handle on the course as a whole our focus this week is on defining theory and understanding the process of building theory towards the goal of you being able to begin the process of articulating your personal theory of learning and instruction. Personal theories are thought to greatly influence many of our day to day decisions yet their influence is mostly unconscious. When asked why they did something a certain way or how they knew the solution to a particular problem, many people reply, "I don't know, I just knew it would work." or "It has always worked for me when I do it that way." Rarely does anyone actually begin to explain to you his/her personal theory of the way things work (some could talk for days on the topic and some couldn't even if they tried). [NOTE: This is why the children's series of books entitled "The Way Things Work" is so popular with parents. They don't know the answers to those basic questions in life, like "Why do bees buzz?" that all children seem to enjoy asking endlessly and parents are afraid to admit they don't know.]

Articulating a personal theory, especially one related to learning and instruction, is not an easy task when there are multiple competing explanations for how we learn and how instruction should be arranged. To begin the task, you need to first understand what constitutes theory and the process of building theory. While your text discusses building theory as a formal process and we will discuss theories that have been developed utilizing this process, I also want you to begin to apply this process informally to yourself and your instructional context by identifying questions you have or problems you have encountered in your learning setting that may be answered or solved through application of the theories we will be discussing in the upcoming weeks. It is also important for you to understand the main epistemological traditions that underlie the theories we will be discussing to understand how these assumptions and beliefs about the nature and origin of knowledge influence the development of your own and other theories.

Most weeks at the Institute we will have Interns involved in three types of sessions.

The first session, In the Classroom, will include information related to your text chapters and focusing on developing basic knowledge related to the theory(ies) we are focusing on within that week. Required activities most often associated with this session will be Chapter Quizzes as introduced in this week's update.

The second session, In the Library, will include information related to web resources, library resources, and other material that will expand your knowledge related to theory beyond what is in the text. In addition, this session will also assist you in developing research and writing skills that are necessary skills for all interns to develop in order to pass this course and become Masters in Education. Required activities most often associated with this session will be threaded discussions or activities related to developing your research and writing skills.

The third session, In Practice, will include activities related to developing your ability to take the knowledge you are constructing in the previous 2 sessions and put it into practice. Required activities most often associated with this session will be those that allow you to work towards completing your papers/projects and also some group discussions of how to apply what you are learning.

I hope this overview of the general direction for each week at the Institute will help you see how we have designed your internship experience here with attention to working from declarative to procedural knowledge and from theory to application.

What is Learning?

Human learning takes many different forms. Some forms are easily recognizable, observable and measurable whereas others are more subtle. Humans learn for many different reasons and there are a plethora of possible pathways each person may follow to achieve learning. Human learning is a phenomenon that has been explained from a variety of perspectives that have evolved through the systematic study of human behavior within the last century. Learning is a complicated process, and psychologists disagree with each other on even very basic issues such as how to define learning. We are most often interested in how humans know what they know (how does learning occur), what factors are necessary for learning to occur at all, what factors make learning more efficient and effective, and how we can model or test our conscious and hidden knowledge about memory, language and culture or other ways of representing the world and externalizing what we know. Scientific inquiry among educators, psychologists and others has generated principles and theories of learning, cognition, motivation, and instruction.

Psychological foundations encompasses the study of these principles and theories and their application to (a) the design and development of educational and training programs and products; (b) the assessment and evaluation of learners, curriculum, and programs; and (c) the analysis of learners, learning and behavior to solve educational problems. Your internship is aimed at providing you with the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to clearly and succinctly communicate your understanding of these principles and theories of learning, cognition, motivation, and instruction and their utility in a variety of contexts.

What is a Theory?

A theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena (in our case human learning). It is a set of ideas that tries to tie a body of knowledge together.

Any scientific theory must be based on a careful and rational examination of the facts. Theories, however, are not the facts themselves, but an explanation or explanations which correlate and interpret the facts. A variety of interpretations can be put forth for a single fact and it is up to each individual to determine which interpretation is the most credible or applicable (e.g. the role of egotistical speech in young children – Piaget or Vygotsky?).

Scientists seek to develop theories that (a) are internally consistent and compatible with evidence (b) are firmly grounded in and based upon evidence that has been tested against a diverse range of phenomena – in this case all manner and variety of human learning (c) possess broad and demonstrable effectiveness in problem-solving, and (d) explain a wide variety of phenomena.

The body of scientific knowledge changes as new observations and discoveries are made. Theories and other explanations change. New theories emerge and other theories are modified or discarded. Throughout this process, theories are formulated and tested on the basis of evidence, internal consistency, and their explanatory power.

What are the Elements of a Theory?

To completely communicate understanding of a theory you must be able to describe or explain several elements that compose a theory. These elements are (a) definition of the phenomenon, (b) description of how the phenomenon occurs, (c) major tenets or principles, (d) existing evidence, and (e) strengths and limitations. The following paragraphs outline what a complete description of a theory might include in order for a student to show comprehension of the theory and the ability to apply the theory to a given situation.

First, you must define the phenomenon the theory intends to explain. For our purposes, if the theory is one of learning then how is learning defined by the theorist(s) that has proposed the theory? If the theory is one of motivation then how is motivation defined? Such clarification allows everyone to review the explanations and interpretations of facts, evidence, and/or results of experiments related to the phenomenon in light of the definition to make personal judgments on the credibility and/or applicability of that theory (e.g., learning as defined by behaviorists vs. cognitivists).

Second, you must carefully and clearly describe the process of how the theorist(s) proposes that the phenomenon occurs (i.e., how does learning occur, what makes someone motivated to learn or perform, what makes instruction effective, etc.). Such a description must include use of the terminology used by the theorist and any definitions that are necessary to fully understand the way in which the theorist describes the occurrence of the phenomenon.

Third, a description of theory should include the major tenets or principles that identify the specific factors that are required for the phenomenon to occur or that influence the nature of the phenomenon and are clearly linked to the theorist’s description of how the process occurs. These tenets or principles tell us what factors are important for the phenomenon (e.g., learning) and the theory tells us why these factors are important.

Fourth, you should provide a summary of the evidence (i.e., cite research) that exists to support the theorists explanation of the phenomenon (what research findings support their description of the process and interpretations of the facts). Such evidence may emerge from both quantitative and qualitative study of the phenomenon by the theorist(s) and others. Such evidence might be restricted to a particular content area, social or cultural group, developmental level, etc.

Fifth, a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the theory is necessary through comparison/contrast with other theories (on the same phenomenon) and/or noting its wide or limited application to a range of phenomenon, its parsimony, its compatibility with evidence and ability to make accurate predictions, or other positive and negative elements.

Good theories of learning (a) allow us to summarize the results of many research studies and integrate numerous principles of learning, (b) provide starting points for conducting new research, (c) help us make sense of research findings, and (d) can help us design environments, products, programs, materials, instruction, curriculum, etc. that facilitate human learning.

What Constitutes Application of a Theory?

Knowing that a theory exists and being able to communicate the major elements of any particular theory is only part of the goal of psychological foundations. For this knowledge to be of use it must be applied. Psychological theories of learning, cognition, motivation, and instruction can be applied in a plethora of contexts and across all ranges of learners. As stated above, these theories can be applied to (a) the design and development of educational and training programs and products; (b) the assessment and evaluation of learners, curriculum, and programs; and (c) the analysis of learners, learning and behavior to solve educational problems. Application of theory might also be evidenced when making sense of research findings and designing and conducting new research.

What one must first decide prior to application of theory is to what situation a theory is going to be applied. Such a situation might be a learning problem of a learner, designing an online learning environment, a behavior problem of a class, a curricular decision that must be made, designing an assessment for learners, evaluating the effectiveness of a newly implemented educational program, or numerous other problems or situations that require careful analysis in order to make a decision or plan an approach towards solving the problem or addressing the need that has been identified. To communicate application of theory to another individual, you must carefully describe the details of the situation to which you plan to apply the theory. You may need to describe the learner(s), the learning environment, the specific problem or situation that needs to be addressed as well as other important elements that will assist others in understanding the situation to which you are applying theory. You may consider highlighting specific elements/factors that are salient to the situation and the application of the theory.

Once you have provided a clear description of the situation to which a theory might apply, you need to discuss how a particular theory assists you in interpreting the salient aspects of the situation. What explanatory power does a particular theory have that makes it applicable to this situation? What predictions does a particular theory have that allow you to make appropriate decisions or plan appropriate actions? What principles drawn from this theory can be applied to the situation at hand? How can a particular theory assist you through identification, explanation, prediction, description, analysis, and/or evaluation of the phenomenon on which you are focused? Focusing on this aspect of application of theory requires that you use appropriate terminology from that particular theory associated with its explanation of the phenomenon or identified within particular principles and specify how it applies in the given circumstances. Your goal is to explicitly and without reservation state how the theory and its principles apply to the situation. Finally, it is often good to note the strengths and limitations of applying the particular theory you chose. These strengths and limitations may be drawn from the theory itself or from the ambiguous nature of the situation or many other possible elements.

The better we understand the factors that influence learning (principles) and the processes that underlie it (theories), the more effectively we can promote the kinds of learning that will facilitate students’ long term success rather than interfere with it. Theories of learning, cognition, motivation, and instruction portray human learning from different perspectives and sometimes even contradict one another. What is often necessary is to resist the temptation to choose one theory over others as being the “right” one. Different theories are applicable in different situations, depending on the environmental factors under consideration, the specific content being learned, and the objective of instruction among other things. At the same time, each theory provides some unique insights into how and why humans learn and how instruction might be designed to enhance student learning (Ormrod, 1999).

In future weeks as we delve into individual theories of learning it will be important for you to review the five points above related to elements of a theory. Several assignments will first require you to provide a complete description of the theory you are applying. It will be necessary for you to return here and review to make sure your description/summary of any particular theory includes these five elements.

Learning and the Brain

The brain is still, in large part, a mystery to scientists as well as lay people. Did anyone see the recent Newsweek magazine article on a new theory that tries to explain the reason that more boys are autistic than girls? What the researcher is proposing from what I read is that it is genetically based within the functioning of the brain. New research and reports continually reveal what we still don't know about how the brain works and its role in learning. Chapter 2 of your Ormrod text gives you a great introduction to what we do know and how we have come to know it as well as the direction of current and future brain research. In future weeks, as you begin applying learning theory it will be important for you to return to this chapter and reflect on how the structures and functions of the brain as well as the development of the brain are (or are not) taken into consideration within different learning theories we will explore.

Session Activities

• Read the directions for the chapter quizzes.
• Complete the Chapter One Quiz for Ormrod in eLearning. You will have 80 minutes for this quiz.
• Complete the Chapter Two Quiz for Ormrod in eLearning. You will have 80 minutes for this quiz.

Reading/Research

What is Your Personal Epistemology?

Epistemology is the part of philosophy that concerns itself with the theory of knowledge. This is simply the investigation into the grounds and nature of knowledge itself. A person's epistemology is also called their theory of knowledge. This involves asking questions like: What can we know? How do we know it? Why do we know some things, but not others?

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational convictions—or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.
—Ayn Rand, Philosophy, Who Needs It (p. 5)

Everyone has a philosophy, even if we cannot express it in words. Philosophical convictions are often subconscious or inarticulate. We experience them emotionally in what Ayn Rand called a "sense of life." Your sense of life reflects the fundamental ways you relate to the world and other people; it is your intuitive feeling of how things are and how they ought to be. Each of us needs to understand his own convictions consciously, to be able to put his sense of life into words. Otherwise we don't really have a clear idea of what we believe or what is motivating us to make our biggest decisions—or whether it is true. We need to know what we think on philosophical questions, because our answers can affect the course of our lives. And the sense of life that dominates nations or cultures can determine their fates.

Being aware of and being able to discuss your personal epistemology is an important aspect of understanding the theories of learning, cognition, motivation, and instruction that you are likely to be drawn to when looking for explanations of varied phenomena. Most people come to educational settings with their epistemology already somewhat developed and this can both facilitate and hinder your ability to open your mind for considerations of multiple theories of learning and their application. One of your goals throughout your coursework and beyond is to develop a good grasp of your own personal epistemology and be able to articulate it in light of a variety of theory that is consistent with your beliefs as well as remain flexible in your ability to take into consideration new theories or explanations that emerge as research and our own experiences continue to further inform us of how learning can be explained.

Your text discusses epistemology and epistemological beliefs and their influences in a later chapter but I always like to cover this early in a course so you can begin to see what influences these beliefs have on an individual's practice. It is important to always be aware of the beliefs you hold and how they may assist you in life but also how they may limit the ways in which you think or the options you may consider. This is especially true when applying learning theory to your own learning or to someone else's. If you want to look ahead to this section you can find Ormrod's discussion of this on pages 375 - 380. Additional resources that may assist you with this week's objectives include the following:

• The Epistemology Page
• Introduction to Epistemology
• The Epistemology and Learning Group at MIT (Seymour Papert lives here)
• Funderstanding: Engaging Kids http://www.funderstanding.com/theories.cfm
• Educational Psychology Interactive http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/index.html Note: Go to “course listings” and then click on “index of topics”
  

Writing

Writing is a large part of your graded assignments in this course and is not always easy for everyone. This creates an additional burden if you come to this class with shaky (or simply rusty) writing skills or statistics knowledge because it will slow the rate at which you can complete assignments. One thing you will see here each week to assist you with your writing is a weekly APA tidbit. It is required beginning from today and throughout the rest of the course that all written documents turned in MUST be in APA 5th edition style unless otherwise noted. The manual is a required text for this course. If you think you can get by without it I would like to suggest you rethink it. I’ll provide suggestions to strengthen your written expression and mechanics as we proceed through the course. Don’t be threatened. Writing is a skill developed by opportunity to practice and provision of feedback from readers. The intent is to facilitate growth, but you must make a best effort toward applying it in order to receive feedback and, therefore, grow in your knowledge and application. If it is obvious to me that you have not attempted/bothered to apply APA style as well as attend to grammar and spelling in the documents you turn in then your document will be returned ungraded.

Most social science research is written using the conventions contained in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition) and your written work should be in the APA format for this course. Each week I’ll begin this section with a note about one of the common APA errors I find in my work, student papers, and dissertation manuscripts. Additional assignments in later weeks will also include practice application of APA in short quiz-like formats.

APA Tidbit

The ubiquitous anthropomorphism is this week’s APA tidbit. A writer attributing human characteristics or abilities to something animal or inanimate commits an anthropomorphism (see page 38 of the APA manual). They are acceptable in the popular literature and can be an effective tool for fine-tuning meaning. They are not generally acceptable in the professional literature, especially the research literature. You will see anthropomorphisms that slipped past a journal editor, but work on avoiding them in your writing this term. Examples of anthropomorphisms frequently appearing in dissertation manuscripts are:

This study sought to determine if the …. (a human can determine, a study can not). Revise to state, the author of the study sought to determine if the…

The elementary school grouped students into… (teachers can group students, a school can not). Revise to state, the students in the elementary school were grouped into… or the school principal grouped the students into…

These data imply… (a researcher can identify implications from data, but the data can not). Revise to state, from the data analysis, the author identified three implications.

A few links that may assist you in your application of APA throughout this course (but should be used only in addition to your text) are:

• APA Style Web Site
• APA Style for Electronic Formats
  

• Read Chapters One and Two of your APA Manual
• Submit to me via email one APA Tidbit (modeling the above) related to something (a tidbit/guideline) you learned within these 2 chapters. State the tidbit and then provide an example of its application.
  

There are numerous opportunities throughout this course for you to apply theories you are learning (as described above in session 1). There is at least one project with each major grouping of theories - behavioral, cognitive, and motivational. These projects will run over the course of several weeks for completion. Some projects are of longer duration. This week I am providing you with a link to one of the first projects. Other elements of this project and others will be introduced to you within course content each week and small portions of them will be due periodically to help you with time management and self-regulation. This week your task is to simply read these projects over to get a handle on where we are going this semester. Your first instinct might to be overwhelmed but do know that I try to create and provide a course schedule that balances time across projects. We will work on them one at a time.

The following links will take you to an overview of each of the projects:

• Applied Behavior Analysis Project
  

Finally, this week your actual application for content in this week's classroom and library sessions. Below in the session activities you will need to choose 2 of the 3 discussions to participate in.

Session Activities

Choose TWO of the following THREE activities to complete:

Option 1: What's YOUR Theory??
You have read about the process for theory building as originating with curiosity - a question or problem usually provoked by personal experience or life events. Each person's experiences lead him or her to ask different questions and to go about answering these questions (building theory) in a variety of different ways.

In a discussion I would like you to begin to articulate your own personal theory of learning and instruction as it relates to your own context (teacher, trainer, instructional designer, parent, student, etc.) by sharing with us the frame of reference from which you will likely be thinking about and applying the theories discussed throughout this course. While your frame of reference may change if you change jobs or change projects I think it will be useful (and more manageable) for you to try to focus on one to begin applying these theories. In your post include the following:

• Who are your learners?
• What are they like? (Your learners may be your students if you are a teacher, your trainees if you are a trainer, your children if you are a parent, or yourself)
• What is the learning environment like? (classroom, home, training center, via technology, etc.)
• What types of things (content, knowledge, skills, etc.) do you generally expect them to learn? How do you (and others, if applicable) expect them to show you they have learned?
• What curiosities do you have about this group and how they learn? What questions or problems do you have with your learners?
• What observations and conclusions (intuitive theories about learning and instruction) have you made (or research have you read) so far about their learning that have enabled you to begin to construct a personal theory of learning and instruction?
• Are there any particular theories you know about (from the TIP database, chapter 1, or other sources) that you think are particularly applicable with your learners?
  
  Depending on your experiences you may have only brief comments to make in your post or you may have a million and one questions to which you wish you had the answers. At this point in the course, I am only looking for a few short paragraphs that will assist me and others in getting to know you better and identifying what theories we may focus more or less on.
  
  Read your peers' posts and find at least 1 that has similar learners, curiosities, observations, or theories, and comment on his or her post. Then find at least 1 that is dissimilar to you and comment on his or her post.Your third reply can be to anyone.

Option 2: Your Epistemology? Take a Survey
Unger, Draper, and Pendergrass (1986) reported that students may have difficulty understanding epistemologies that clash with their own, tacit beliefs. They suggested, therefore, that students should examine their personal beliefs about knowledge and ways of knowing. Complete the survey they provide (directions for self scoring are included). How might your score be interpreted? They also discuss a variety of reasons accounting for different epistemological beliefs among groups of individuals, including gender, for example. All interns need to complete the survey and then discuss the results. What are possible reasons for the differences in your scores?

1. Download the article: 145 KB PDF file.
2. Report your score and interpretation and participate in the Option 2: Your Epistemology? Take a Survey discussion.

According to Schommer (1990), the epistemological beliefs learners hold may influence the manner in which they approach a learning task and what they subsequently learn. Read the article and report your impressions to the class. What do Schommer's findings imply for instruction? Should teachers or instructional designers be concerned with their students' epistemological beliefs? How should instruction be modified based on these beliefs?

1. Download the article: 179 KB PDF file.
2. Report your impressions of the article and your answers to the above questions in the Option 3: Learners' Epistemologies discussion.

• Email your Director;
• Email the Mentor;
• Email other interns.
• Refer to the Course FAQ.

Review Your Training Checklist
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