Without understanding educational psychology and theory as it relates to technology, instructors are left to "guess" which approaches are most appropriate. In this course, we not only work on the "how" of things, but we also focus on the "why." From this view, understanding theory is crucial. Educational psychology and theory describes views on how people make meaning from the world around them. It is predictive in terms of learning, outcomes, or behavior. Note that pedagogy can be thought of as the application of theory. For example, if students construct meaning from their environment (theory), then instruction (pedagogy) based on that idea would involve manipulations of the environment.
To complete this task you are asked to search online for a breadth of theoretical approaches (I suggest 7-10 as an appropriate number) and complete a document. You will focus on one of these in a later activity.
Resources:
Guidelines:
- Locate and synthesize several (7-10) key educational theories
- Do not copy and paste from the Internet
- Complete the learning theories summary chart and submit
- Be sure to understand the different between Pedagogical approaches and Educational theory
- Save yourself some time: avoid Multiple Intelligences (this is not a learning theory), Learning styles (this literature does not describe learning, it describes preferences), and Gagne's Events of Instruction (this is instructional design, not learning theory).
- These are valuable to know, but don't exactly fit into the assignment.
The following documents are examples of our the Learning Theory assignment:
Younsu Kim
Bronwen Steele
Steve Nicoloff
Patti McFeely
Taleha Malik
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