Principles of Learning

The questions guiding my study are: 1) What causes learning to happen? 2) By what principles shall we teach? Combining 1 and 2: 3) What are the fundamental and universal principles of learning? 4) By what vehicle are the principles made manifest in learning? (practice) There are additional questions that I've been working from implicitly. I need to state them explicitly here...

- Learning may or may not involve an instructor - Learning may be formal or informal - Learning may be intentional or incidental

"What are instructional events? These are the classes of events that occur in a learning situation. Each event functions to provide the external conditions of learning." (Aronson and Briggs 1983, p. 89) pg. 90 1. Gaining attention 2. Informing the learner of the objective 3. Stimulating recall of prerequisite learnings 4. Presenting the stimulus material 5. Providing learning guidance 6. Eliciting performance 7. Providing feedback about performance correctness 8. Assessing the performance 9. Enhancing retention and transfer

There is an ongoing debate between practicing part skills and then combining them into whole skills, once each part is mastered, to work on sequence, flow and smoothness versus practicing whole skills. I have seen this manifest as a person preference. My two sons chose to learn breaststroke differently. The oldest wanted to practice the whole skill. The second chose to practice kicking first, then pulling, and then later combining the two.

It is sometimes useful to teach similar and contrasting concepts at the same time, such as: north and south, longitude and latitude, up and down, subject and predicate). This does not seem to me to be true of teaching skills (such as motor skills). Perhaps this is because of the complexity involved in learning a skill or processes. Aha... I just thought of a counter example where it does make sense to teach similar or contrasting skills: pronunciation. It is useful to juxtipose two similar sounds in teaching and practice to help the learner differentiate between the two in recognition and production. - Gagne's instructional event "stimulating recall of prerequisite learnings"

Subsumes: - prerequisites (two kinds: essential, supporting -- from Aronson and Briggs 1983 p. 85) ex. Pole vaulting (essential: strength and coordination; supporting: positive attitude (something subsumed in my model of learning by principles of engagement) - learning hierarchies, Gagne (Aronson and Briggs 1983, p. 86); terminal skill is at the top and below it are all the essential prerequisites (note: I disagree with the poitn Aronson makes about learning hierarchies being only pertinent in the intellectual-skills domain; it seems like they also apply to motor skills and attitude and other types of learning) - Gagne's instructional event "stimulating recall of prerequisite learnings"

From Aronson and Briggs (1983) p 83 Gagne described two kinds of conditions of learning: internal and external. 1) Internal conditions (primarily recall) - acquisitioni and storage of prior capabilities tha the learner has acquired that are either essential to or supportive of subsequent learning. 2) External conditions - various ways that instructional events outside the learner function to activate and support the internal processes of learning. ::Type of Learning Internal Conditions External Conditions :: Cognitive strategy I - recall of relevant rules and concepts E - successive presentation (usually over an extended period of time) of novel problem situations with class of solution unspecified; demonstration of solution by student :: Verbal information I - recall of larger meaningful context E - present new informatioin in larger context :: Attitude I - recall of information and intellectual skills relevant to the targeted personal actions E- establishment or recall of respect for

From Aronson and Briggs (1938) p. 81-82 1) Intellectual skill Using concepts and rules to solve problems; responding to classes of stimuli as distinct from recalling specific examples 2) Motor skill Executing bodily movements smootly and in proper sequence 3) Verbal information Stating information 4) Cognitive strategy Originating novel solutions to problems; utilizing various means for controlling one's thinking/learning processes 5) Attitude Choosing to behave in a particular way "For Gagne, learning occurs when an individual acquires a particular capability to do something." "The capability that one acquires when learning verbal information (e.g., a spouse's birthday) is stating the information. On the other hand, the capability that one acquires in learning an attitude is choosing to act in one way or another...When a person has learned a concept, which is one type of intellectual skill , the person has the capability to correctly identify or classify any pr

" Learning theory is a descriptive theory used in guiding the initial creation of prescriptive principles of instructional design. Learning theory as it has been developed and is now taught is not specific to particular subject-matter domains. Thus there is a need for a 15 domain-specific learning theory. Such a theory could be called a learning theory of progressive attainments in a specific domain of learning. This article uses the term domain theory to refer to a descriptive theory of the contents, substantive processes, and boundaries of a domain of human learning and growth that gives an account of construct-relevant sources of task difficulty; and conjointly, an account of the substantive processes operative at different levels of growth along the scale(s) that span the domain." Bunderson 2003, p. 15-16

" In the field of research on human learning and growth, one-time snapshots of learning effects are not enough. They do not test each of the several theories involved. They may be too artificial and contrived actually to allow the key constructs to exert their effects. Design experiments over repeated cycles in live settings offer a powerful alternative solution to these problems." Bunderson 2003, p. 14 pdf

" The current dominant philosophy of science apparently favored by most practitioners in educational measurement is logical empiricism. Trout (1998) gives an extensive treatment of logical empiricism and contrasts it to a newer philosophy, Measured Realism. Logical empiricism, a descendent of logical positivism, does not privilege theory equally with data. Data rules, and theory to the logical empiricist brings with it shaky, speculative, and metaphysical content." in Bunderson 2003, p. 14 pdf

From Bunderson 2003, pp. 12-13 USER CENTERED DESIGN 1. Overall appeal. 2. Usability. The instrument will be easy to use, understandable, quick and efficient. 3. Perceived value to the target users, perceived positive consequences. CONTENT and CONSTRUCT evidence of validity 4. Content coverage and appropriateness. 5. Substantive processes -- The important but typically invisible mental processes used by those whom we would wish to score as more successful on an instrument, or affective attributes of persons such as their beliefs, attitudes, and values. It is only through theories of the cognitive, linguistic, affective or perhaps psychomotor processes that we can design appropriate questions or performance tasks to get at different degrees of these usually invisible processes. 6. Structure of the constructs. The starting number of questions or tasks is expected to collapse into a smaller number of separate unidimensional measurement scales. The scales we design should correspond with an

" Quantitative psychologists have been quite happy with the idea of experimental design. Perhaps more of us can become comfortable with the principled design of both instruments and theory. Why not forthrightly seek to design and revise and experiment until we have evidence for all six aspects of construct validity, as well as evidence for desirable values, positive consequences, utility as ease of use, and all aspects of the unified validity model?" " Validity centered design as its current practitioners understand and use it is the beginning of a principled design process for designing and developing improved domain theories, the construct-linked measurement scales associated with them, and documenting the evidence for a validity argument. The validity argument is not accomplished all at one (and indeed, never ends), but is improved step by step as we complete work on each aspect of validity. It also includes planning for future activities to improve other aspects of t

" Cronbach (1988) introduced the term “Validity Argument” after analogy to House’s (1977) notion of “the logic of evaluation argument”. Cronbach was in agreement with the complex but unified nature of validity, and its inseparable connection to values and consequences. Instruments cannot be validated themselves, and interpretations and uses change constantly. As a result, an instrument (and, we add, its associated theories), are never validated once and for all. There is an interplay between evidence and instrument features, and the instrument and theory evolve and are improved to reflect evidence and the correction of identified inadequacies. All we can do is continue to improve the argument for the theory, the construct-linked scales, the instrument, and its delivery system. We do this as Messick stated, through evidence and theoretical rationales.' (Bunderson 2003, p. 11 (pdf))

" Extensive research is often needed to understand the nature of the substantive process constructs that explain the ordering from lesser to increasingly able learners. This research may start with qualitative probes to get an initial idea of the domain constructs, followed by the discovery of qualitative order relationships, eventually leading to a qualitative model of the domain. The construction of many tasks – items, testlets, performance rubrics – is necessary, as it provides confirming evidence of theoretical 6 propositions about how many essentially unidimensional scales are needed to span the domain. An increasingly mature domain theory identifies a set of unidimensional scales that approximate equal interval scales, each giving a precise parameterization of the expertise space of a specific knowledge domain. It has a pool of real and possible tasks calibrated on the scales that can be used to measure accurately learner progress within the domain. When a domain theory is a

" the general boundaries of the domain are initially established, but the process is not complete until a set of essentially unidimensional measurement scales is developed, which together define the scope and boundaries of the domain of learning and growth. Because perfect unidimensionality is impossible to achieve, we must settle for essential, or near, unidimensionality. Delineating a domain to a point where essential unidimensionality in each of a small set of domain-spanning scales is achieved is not always accomplished in practice, as it is often a time-consuming and lengthy process. Constructing a set of domain-spanning measurement scales elevates a good qualitative model of a domain to a theory." (Bunderson 2003, p. 5)

" Instruments are developed to assess learning progress and performance in domains of human knowledge, proficiency, and accomplishment. Domains are usually signified by familiar content or topical names, like calculus, American history, accounting, network engineering, and nursing. Topics signify categories of what people may know, but they do not describe what people can do, so other uses of language, such as objectives or work-models are needed." (Bunderson, 2003, p. 5 (pdf)

"A domain theory is a descriptive theory of the contents, substantive processes, and boundaries of a domain of human learning and growth that gives an account of construct-relevant sources of task difficulty; and conjointly, an account of the substantive processes operative at different levels of growth along the scale(s) that span the domain. Based on the constructs that account conjointly for difficulty and level of processing, and using measurement instruments linked to the constructs in the domain theory, testable predictions can be made about the relationships between tasks, processes, and locations along the scale(s)." (Bunderson 2003, p. 5 (PDF))

"...we need a domain theory to explain what is easy, what is somewhere between easy and hard, and what is hard. When we understand these things, we can measure, give meaningful feedback, and can teach people who desire to do so how to rapidly progress from lower to higher levels in either type of domain. These lead to the construction of learning maps that reflect progress up the domain scales, or reveal standing on a map of individual difference variables." (Bunderson, 2003, p. unknown --- pdf available online at http://www.edumetrics.org/papers/How_to_build_a_Domain_Theor.pdf )

Landa (1983) also claims that instructional theories may not be derived from learning theories (p. 65). This is because a given proposition of a descriptive learning theory (such as "if a person better understands a text, then he or she remembers it more easily" may not be true and complete when phrased as a prescriptive instructional rule such as "In order for a learner to better memorize the text, it is necessary (or sufficient) to teach him or her how to understand it (or bring him or her to understanding it)." "Of course, in order to secure that a learner memorizes a text better, it is important to make sure that he or she understands it or to teach him or her how to understand it. But understanding is just one of the conditions leading to better memorizing, and to secure (or teach) the understanding is not sufficient for gaining the best results in memorization. Other factors not mentioned in these propositions of a learning theory (both descriptive and

Landa (1983) states that "prescriptive instructional theories cannot be automatically derived from descriptive instructional theories." He gives an example to illustrate why this isn't so: "Suppose we have a descriptive proposition: 'If a student repeats a statement many times, he or she memorizes it better." This is a 100 percent true proposition. Let us convert it into a prescriptive proposition: 'In order to memorize a statement better, one has to repeat it many times.' This proposition is not as true as the first one because the state of 'memorized' is determined by many factors, not just repetition. For example, for a particular student to memorize a statement, it may be more important to understand it rather than just mechanically repeat it. Some students, due to the specific characteristics of their memory, the personal significance of the proposition for them, and some other factors, may not need to repeat it at all." [p. 60] He

T / / /---\____/ C ----/ - Forgetting curve (Ebbinghaus) - What can be done, felt, recalled, believed, or values with assistance - Approximations of T (parts of, imperfect instances of)

Intensity Effort Uniqueness Appeal

Knowledge Skills Values Beliefs Capacity Potential Instinct Passions Drive Desires Light Purity

I disagree with Landa's distinction between instructional and learning theories: "The major difference between them is that instructional theories...deal with relationships between teachers'...actions as causes and students' psychological and/or behavioral processes as effects (outcomes), whereas learning theories and programs deal with relationships between learners'...actions as causes and [their own] psychological and/or behavioral processes as effects (outcomes)." (Landa, 1983, p. 62) I see learning theory as dealing with how, or the conditions under which, people learn.

From Landa (1983): "in order to teach effectively (and to teach at all), a teacher should be provided either ith a set of programs for solving particular instructional problems or with a method as to how to independently develop an instructional program (algorithmic or nonalgorithmic) on the basis of known descriptive and prescriptive instructional theories" [p. 61] "A necessity to pass from a theory (even prescriptive) to a program for solving individual problems explains why the knowledge of an instructional theory in itself (even if it were comprehensive and coherent) does not provide a teacher with an ability to teacher. The latter ability is based on a knowledge of programs for solving particular problems (or classes of problems) or the ability to pass from theoretical propositions to programs and be guided by them." [p. 61, footnote]

I believe that chaos theory is helpful in understanding the complexity, and apparent but not actual lack of predictability, in learning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

"All the notions used in the preceding description are relative . For example, one desired state of the object may represent the final goal with respect to one activity and a subgoal with respect to another. Moreover, a state that emerges as a final goal for one activity may turn into an initial condition or achieving a subsequent goal. "Each goal itself may be simple (unitary) or complex (multiple), the latter consisting of a set of component goals. the final goal (or state to be achieved) often represents a set of component goals (or states)." (Landa, 1983, p. 56)

"A frequently cited desideratum for a theory of instruction is its compatibility with a theory of learning. If the proposed metatheory [referring to Gropper's theory presented in this section] is on target in its emphasis on learning requirements and obstacles to their being met , then 'compatibility' is the wrong word. An instructional theory needs to build on a theory of learning." (Gropper, 1983) desideratum - "something needed or wanted" diserata - a want list; a list of wants

Aspects of learning that vary from one learner to another: - the instructional strategy used (learners learn through different types of presentation) - the content (some learners will know things others do not); the initial state of the learner is an important basis for prescription of content as well as strategy

"the 'learner control' metatheory (Merill, 1975, 1979, 1980; Reigeluth, 1979)...emphasizes training the learning to make the decisions about which strategy components to student when and for how long...For example, rather than presenting 'visual' instruction to some students and 'verbal' instruction to others, learner control prescribes making both representations available to all students, along with some brief training about what to pick and choose when, rather than studying everything." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 33)

"A useful distinction in the discussion of student characteristics is trait versus state. Traits are student characteristics that are relatively constant over time...whereas states are student characteristics that tend to vary during individual learning experiences, such as level of content-specific knowledge." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 32) Reigeluth also states that "many strategy components have been shown to help students with all kinds of traits to learn" [p. 32]. My position is that we do not know a priori which aspects of our instructional strategies, learning environment, motivator, etc... will generalize across many or all students. However, with a localized learning theory we can learn over time which do and which do not. At the same time, we will likely find ways of grouping students that we never would have before imagined.

"There has been some controversy over the useful breadth of instructional-design theory. Richard Snow is well known for his work on individual differences under the rubric of ATI, or aptitude-treatment interactions...ATI is a metatheory that in effect states that theories of instruction should prescribe methods (called treatments ) on the basis of student characteristics (called aptitudes ), because the effectiveness of those methods varies depending on student characteristics. Snow (1977) has stated that ATI (aptitude-treatment interaction) 'makes general theory impossible [p. 12]'---that instructional-design theories must be narrow and local to be of value. On the other hand, Scandura (1977) represented the view of many when he stated that instructional-design theories must be broad and comprehensive to be useful." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 31-32) Reigeluth sias the different of opinion can be traced to a focus on management vs organizational strategies.

Reigeluth (1938, p. 30-31) includes a section on how to build an instructional design theory that contains four steps which roughly correspond to Snow's different levels of theory (1971). Reigeluth's steps are: "1) Develop formative hypotheses about instructional design on the basis of data, experience, intuition, and/or logic. These hypotheses may be fairly narrow and local (the start of a basically inductive---or bottom up---approach to theory construction) or fairly broad and comprehensive (the start of a basically deductive---or top-down---approach to theory construction). "2) Develop a taxonomy of variables related to instrucitonal design...identifying, describing, and classifying variables that may be of importance to instructional-design theory. "3) Derive principles of instructional design. These principles usually describe cause-and-effect relationships among the variables identified in stage 2, and many of them are derived from the formative hypotheses

"Crowder (1960, 1962) helped make considerable advances in the programmed instruction model of instruction by simultaneously relaxing its errorless-learning requirement and introducing branching sequences in the instruction. Thus, student errors provided the basis for individualizing the instruction. " (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 29)

"The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) formed a commissio in 1964 (Snelbecker, 1974) 'to delineated scientifically based theories from the more intuitively based and somewhat speculative 'theorizing' which had been so characteristic of educaiotn previously [p. 141].' This commission did much to focus attention on the need for 'scientifically based' instructional theories, and it provided guidelines as to the characteristics of such theories in the form of its Criteria for Evaluating Theories of Instruction (Gordon, 1968)." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 27-28)

Criteria for evaluating theories of instruction (which mine is not, but the criteria are still relevant): from Gordon (1968, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25) 1) Internal consistency - the theory should not contradict itself 2) Explicit boundaries and limitations 3) Not contradicted by empirical data (caution: apparent contradictions may be overturned with a reanalysis of the data) from Snelbecker (1974, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25) 4) Parsimoney (i.e. simplicity) from Snow (1971, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25) 5) Usefulness "The primary criterion for the evaluation of theory is usefulness, not truthfulness [p. 103]." and Hebb (1969, as cited in Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24-25): "A good theory is one that holds together long enough to get you to a better theory [p. 27]." Snow also says that a theroy should be useful for organizing existing data meaningfully and for producing useful hypotheses. (George Kelly also said something to that effect). from

"Knowledge of learning processes may be useful in developing an instructional theory, but it does not constitute any part of an instructional theory." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 24) I disagree with this statement. Knowledge of learning processes are critical to the development of as successful learning theory. The assumptions about how learning happens maybe be implicit, rather than explicit, but they must be part of the instructional theory.

This theory is not: - an instructional design theory (an instructional design theory must focus on methods of instruction rather than learning) - an instructional strategy - a learning theory This theory is: - a conceptual framework centered on universal and fundamental principles of learning upon which specific learning theories can be constructed - a foundational theory that provides a framework for growing domain specific theories - a theory about how to design local learning theories (which is similar to what was called by Landa (1983) an instructional metatheory, a theory about how to design instructional theories),

"Instructional models and theories should be as comprehensive as possible." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 18)

1) methods - different ways to achieve different outcomes under different conditions 2) conditions - factors that influence the effects of methods and are therefore important for prescribing methods 3) outcomes - the various effects that provide a measure of the value of alternative methods under different conditions (actual or desired) (kinds: efficiency, effectiveness and appeal of instruction) "Something that is a method variable in one school (because the teacher can change it) may be a condition variable in another school (because the teacher cannot change it)." Reigeluth, 1983, p. 14-15

They are: 1) analyzing the subject matter 2) diagnosing preinstructional behavior 3) carrying out the instructional process 4) measuring learning outcomes Glaser (1965, 1976) as cited in Reigeluth 1983, p. 14

"A principle describes a relationship between two actions or changes. This relationship may be correlational, in which case it does not state which action influences the other, or it may be causal, in which case it does state which action influences the other. . . .It also may be deterministic, in which case the cause always has the stated effect, or it may be probabilistic, in which case the cause sometimes (or often) has the stated effect. . . .the term principle is used here regardless of the degree of certainty of the relationship. Hence, it includes everything from pure conjecture or hypothesis (having little or no evidence for its truthfulness) to scientific law (having much evidence for its truthfulness). (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 14)

"...another factor taht will influence the predictive usefulness of a classification scheme is the level of generality of the concepts, especially of the methods. Many methods that have been investigated in the past are not very useful because they are too general (and often too loosely defined). . . .If progress is to be made in improving methods of instruction, then it is essential to break down such general methods into more elemental strategy components ---which are more precise, clearly defined, elemental, building blocks." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 13)

"Practically all classification schemes will improve our understanding of instructional phenomena, but concepts are not the kind of knowledge for which instructioal scientists are looking, except as a stepping stone. Instructional scientists want to determine when different methods should be used--- they want to discover principles of instruction ---so that they can prescribe optimal methods. But not all classification schemes are equally useful for forming highly reliable and broadly applicable principles." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 12)

"Because our methods of instruction are generally ineffective, educators have not been able to devote much time and effort to the whole child. If we can develop highly effective instructional resources (whether in books or in computers), then we can free some (more) of the teacher's time to work on the social, psychological, emotional, and moral development of our children." "Rather than having primary responsibility for a subject, the future teacher will have primary responsibility for a number of children. The teacher will become an advisor, a motivator, and someone whose major interest is the child---the whole child. The teacher will be liberated from the more routine, boring aspects of his or her profession by well-designed instructional resoureces...by better testing methods, and by better record-keeping systems. But such improvements in education cannot occur before we improve our knowledge about how to design more effective, efficient, and appealing methods of

"Instructional design is a discipline that is concerned with understanding and improving one aspect of education: the process of instruction. The purpose of any design activity is to devise optimal means to achieve desired ends. Therefore the, the discipline of instructional design is concerned primarily with prescribing optimal methods of instruction to bring about desired changes in student knowledge and skills. " (Reigeluth, 1983, p. 4)

"It is important that we examine the bases out of which a field of knowledge developed, the theories of the field that have operated with some success, and how current work can be consolidated into new models pointing the way to further development . That is what Dr. Reigeluth and his authors have attempted with respect to their field of instructional design." "Can we really claim to have a base for solidly designing instruction? It seems only a short time ago that learning theorists were telling us that they did not think they had anything substantial to tell us about the practice of instruction. Of course, shortly after that, such modesty faded when behavioristic psychology was translated into teaching machines and into programmed learning. Education was to be revolutionized. But that has not happened. Though the tantalizing promise of these ideas remains, both teaching machines and programmed instruction have yet to achieve substatial educational roles. This suggests

"One can envision a time when there will be a variety of different models of instruction, each prescribing the best available methods for achieving a different kind of learning goal under different kinds of conditions. One can also envision researchers all over the world building upon this common knowledge base, continually improving and refining those models. it is my hope that this book will contribute in some small way to forming that common knowledge base." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. xii)

"This book is dedicated to increasing our knowledge about how to improve instruction. It is founded on the premise that the process of learning can be made easier and more enjoyable." (Reigeluth, 1983, p. xi)

::Gymnastics Learning to do a back flip Learning to do a pull over ::Skiing Skiing down a steep slope Jumping off a cat track Skiing with good form ::Music Learning to play a song on the piano ::Programming Learning a new programming language Solving a real-world problem (i.e. a bi-directional scrolling pane) ::Other Learning someone's name Learning a phone number

- Repetition > focus (required for repetition -- requires multiple encounters with the same thing) - Time - Sequence - Step Size - Constrast - Feedback - Significance (Intensity/Effort) Changes: - reducing Similarity/Contrast -> Differentiability to just Contrast

I believe it is useful to distinguish between different types of (or reasons for) practice: 1) Practice, or exercise, to increase one's mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual capacity to make it possible to know, understand or perform some desirable thing 2) Practice to get it. Example: learning to do a backhip circle is difficult, and the first time you make it around the bar, you got it. It may not be pretty, but you got it and then you can start working to perfect it. Another example: learning a song on the piano. Once you're able to play the song through, there may be some mistakes and the timing and rhythm may not be great, but you've got it. 3) Practice to perfect it. Once you're able to manage the basic thing, you can start working on the details of it to perfect it. Example: learning to point the toes and keep the body straight on the back hip circle; adding the dynamics to the song. 4) Practice to make it permanent. Once you've got it, and once you'v

Where there is a measurable or perceivable difference between a person's current state of attainment---in regards to some portion of knowledge, understanding, capacity, persuasion, or ability---and the possibility of some greater level of attainment there exists a learning potential. To have knowledge is to possess an awareness and a mental representation of some fact, model, relationship, process, etc... Knowledge - an awareness and mental representation of Undertanding - an explanation for why or how Capacity - the size of load one is able to comprehend or bear physically, emotionally, spiritually, or mentally Persuasion - one's personal system of values Ability - a combination of knowledge, understanding and capacity that enable one to perform some task or process