Slides accompanying a live webinar (with some screenshots of interaction) from an introductory course on teaching in higher education.

1. What are learning theories
good for?
James Atherton
(FSLTHE14: Oxford Brookes University)
10 February 2014

2. Plan of session
 Introduction—getting to know a bit about your teaching
 Short presentation on some underlying issues, with
discussion opportunity
 Brief introduction to broad types/families of theory
 Opportunity for discussion
 Relating types of theory to your practice, and issues
they pose.
 Summary and close
This was a live webinar to
support week 3 of a MOOC.
Some of the material
which only makes sense in
that context has been
removed

3. Anchor point
In your particular
 Discipline
 Setting
 Students
…which of the theories are likely to be of
most use to you?

4. In what discipline do you mainly teach?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
STEM
Social sciences
Arts and Humanities
Languages
Fine/performing arts
Professional studies
Other
The reason for this
question was to flag
the significance of
different academic/
professional disciplines
for deciding which
approach to teaching is
most applicable.

5. In what discipline do you mainly teach?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
STEM
Social sciences
Arts and Humanities
Languages
Fine/performing arts
Professional studies
Other
The reason for this
question was to flag
the significance of
different academic/
professional disciplines
for deciding which
approach to teaching is
most applicable.
So STEM disciplines are
“hard”, convergent,
and privilege precision.
Fine/performing arts
on the other hand
value freedom and
creativity.

6. In what discipline do you mainly teach?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
STEM
Social sciences
Arts and Humanities
Languages
Fine/performing arts
Professional studies
Other
Most of the
participants selfidentified as B, C or F
The reason for this
question was to flag
the significance of
different academic/
professional disciplines
for deciding which
approach to teaching is
most applicable.
So STEM disciplines are
“hard”, convergent,
and privilege precision.
Fine/performing arts
on the other hand
value freedom and
creativity.

7. How would you describe your familiarity with the
different varieties of learning theory?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Close, quite knowledgeable
Recognise them when mentioned
Vague—remind me
Non-existent
Numbers were fairly
equally divided
between A and C with
a few Bs

8. Aspiration
 To help you locate learning theories in
relation to each other, so you can
evaluate their relevance to your interests
and practices.

9. Argument
 The problem of how to construe
“learning”
 Status of “learning theories”
 Evaluating their range of convenience
 Applying that to your interests and
practice.

10. No promises, but any particular points you would
like to see covered? Or at least pointed at?
These were some of
the suggestions which
appeared on the
whiteboard

11. This is “learning”

12. This is “learning”
The software converted this into
a neat circle—which spoiled the
point!
It’s the haziness and
amorphousness of the concept
which make it so difficult to
conceptualise

13. How big is the pie?
Are we confining the
idea to what happens
in formal “learning and
teaching” situations?

14. Or does it embrace all
kinds of informal
learning—some of
which we may not
realise is happening?
Or is it this big?

15. Let’s say it is this big…
This is just a
stipulative
definition.

16. Do we slice it this way?
Formal learning
Informal learning
But what important
features does a theory
need to capture?

17. Or this way?
Bloom’s
domains,
of course
Cognitive
Affective
Psycho-motor

19. So theories of learning are not like
scientific theories, which explain
and predict phenomena—they are
more perspectives or models,
which draw attention to
(“privilege” in the jargon) certain
selected aspects of the topic.

20. What implications do such limitations have
for your use of theory to inform practice?

21. "Scientific"
Behavioural
Bare bones
e.g. Animal models
Skills
Organism
Learning
Theories
Cognitive
Differences
Capacity
Maturation
07/02/2014 - v4
Humanistic
Motivation
Values
Transformation
Social
Context
Communities of Practice

22. "Scientific"
Behavioural
Bare bones
e.g. Animal models
Skills
Organism
Learning
Theories
Cognitive
07/02/2014 - v4
Humanistic
These are the major families
Differencestheories as you will find
of
Capacity them in most textbooks.
We’ll just go through the
Maturation
kinds of theories they are,
rather than their substantive
Motivation
content
Values
Transformation
Social
Context
Communities of Practice

23. "Scientific"
Behavioural
Bare bones
e.g. Animal models
Skills
Organism
Learning
Theories
Cognitive
Differences
Capacity
Maturation
07/02/2014 - v4
Humanistic
Motivation
Values
Transformation
Social
Context
Communities of Practice

24. This axis is one
fairly obvious set
of differences…
"Scientific"
Behavioural
Bare bones
e.g. Animal models
Skills
Organism
Learning
Theories
Cognitive
Individual
Differences
Capacity
Maturation
07/02/2014 - v5
Humanistic
Motivation
Values
Transformation
Social
Context
Communities of Practice
Social

25. Individual







Teacher-focused
Content
Proactive
Prescriptive
Convergent
Planned
Etc…
But there are
many different
ways in which
other axes can be
described
 Student-focused
 Process
 Reactive
 Facilitative
 Divergent
 Opportunistic
 Etc.
Social

26. Individual
I’m arbitrarily
going to collapse
all those
alternatives, into
one:
Content
Process
Social

27. So where would
Individual
Content
you
locate the
theories we have
so briefly
discussed?
Process
Social

28. "Scientific"
Behavioural
Bare bones
Skills
Organism
Learning
Theories
Cognitive
B
e.g. Animal models
Differences
Capacity
C
Maturation
07/02/2014 - v4
Humanistic
Motivation
Values
Transformation
H
Make the letters
big
if you can
Social
Context
Communities of Practice
S

29. Individual
Content
This is where the participants
located the theories
(identified by initial) on the
model. As you can see, the
conversation was quite
animated… It largely came
down to underlying values
Process
Social

30. Teacher focus
Conceptual
Change
Information
Transmission
Student focus
11 February 2014

31. We briefly related the
model to one
developed by Prosser
and Trigwell (1999)
Teacher focus
Conceptual
Change
Information
Transmission
Student focus
11 February 2014

32. Teacher focus
14
12
Promotes
surface
learning
10
8
6
4
Conceptual-24 -20 -16 -12 -8
-32
-28
Change
Opportunities
for deep
learning
2
0
4
8
12
-2
20
Information
28
32
Transmission
24
-4
-6
-8
-10
-12
-14
-16
Student focus
11 February 2014
16
Whose research
suggested this…

33. So?
 Horses for courses
 Each theory will direct attention to a
different aspect of the process
 Find whichever is most useful for your
particular area
 Don’t expect them all to point in the
same direction

34. www.learningandteaching.info