Four Psychological Perspectives of Learning

Smaldino, Lowther, and Russell (2008), assign the responsibility of creating a classroom atmosphere conducive to learning by all students to the teacher. They define this “learning environment” to include “physical facilities, the academic and emotional atmosphere, and instructional technology.” (p. 10). While the teacher often has little, if any, control over the physical facilities, other than the arrangement of furniture within the classroom, a teacher has a tremendous amount of influence over the other aspects of the learning environment. The way teachers conduct the business of learning in the classroom has much to do with their views on how learning takes place.
Behaviorists are influenced by the work of B.F. Skinner. He proposed that learning takes place when desired behaviors are reinforced. Many computer-assisted instructional activities reflect this emphasis on producing correct responses. There is little interest in non-observable actions or thoughts. While this approach may work well with rote activities, such as memorizing mathematical facts or important dates in Social Studies, behaviorism has little to offer in the way of explaining how people process information or make inferences.
Cognitivism is based on the work of Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist. The emphasis is on how people think, how their thinking is used to solve problems and other higher level thinking processes, such as decision making as well as the development of skills to solve increasingly complex problems. As a result, cognitivists view students as more independent of the teacher. Rather than memorizing rote solutions, the cognitivist views as successful student as one who uses strategies they have developed to learn.
Constructivism takes Piaget’s ideas a step further. The responsibility of the teacher is to create situations in which students can learn through realistic activities. The teacher is a facilitator of helping students find ways for them to solve problems on their own rather than teaching them how to solve the problem itself.
Social psychology, as the name suggests, the social aspect of learning. What is the structure and motivating force of the classroom. Do students work independently in competition with one another or do they work cooperatively in groups with the success of a problem solved and the collaboration with peers valued above who finishes first or who has the highest grade.? Social psychologists such as Robert Slavin believe that not only is cooperative learning a more effect method of learning, but that it is also encourages more beneficial social interactions among learners.
In choosing appropriate technology for the classroom, teachers should strive for a variety of types in order to facilitate the different types of learning. While a computer game can be a more motivating way to learn math facts or spelling words than repetitive written practice, streaming videos, field trips, or learning centers would be more appropriate for many social studies lessons. In order for a teacher to best utilize technology in the classroom, she must be familiar not only with various types of technology, but also understand the instructional strategies each type of technology best supports.