T2P Week Three: Huh?

“He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass, and never knows where he may cast.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci

Ow, I've hurt my brain

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”  
~ Yogi Berra


It can be quite a challenge to apply theory to practice in the classroom, to view reality through the lens of abstraction.  There seems to be no end to the number of learning theories out there, and as much as I want to keep reminding myself of da Vinci’s words, Yogi too often exemplifies my confusion.  Perhaps I’m too much the scientist, craving facts and data while dispensing with vagaries.  But no, science can indeed be creative, and teaching is an art.  I can do this.  So let’s rip it apart and build it back up!

Some observations
In parsing the various theories on learning to which I’ve been exposed thus far, they all seem fundamentally different.  How can this be?  If there are two seemingly valid, competing theories, then OK.  I can review the data on each and see if the conclusions hold up to reality.  But what if there are five, or six, or ten theories?  My first inclination is to say that either most of the theories are invalid or all the theories need to be unified.  After all, if we’re going to eventually come up with a different theory for each individual learner, then we end up with a theory of nothing.  Fortunately, a little more analysis is getting me to a better place.  Not all theories of learning are mutually exclusive.  In Learning Theories: Pillars of Teacher Decision-Making, Jerrid Kruse provides a great example of how three different learning theories are brought to bear on one example of a student misunderstanding (Kruse, 2009).  To me, this hits the spot.  Finding synthesis is an important step in understanding phenomena that are ostensibly unconnected.

Application
How can I bring theory to practice in the classroom?  Am I a Piagetian?  Sorry, but I take umbrage with his methodologies (his sample set was his own kids).  Maslowian?  Honestly, his ideas seem not to be suited much for learning theory.  So what is my own take?  Let's start with the concept that a student’s conceptual framework gives them a basis for taking in and assigning meaning to new information, sort of a map that gives coherence to ideas.  Since this framework is unique to each individual, learning is achieved in different ways for different students.  But rather than fret over which learning theory fits which student, perhaps it is more appropriate to view both learning and learning theory in totality as having various facets as well.  Personally, this will compel me to “multi-think” when assessing understanding or misunderstanding.  I may have to cycle through a few different thoughts to get to the root of the matter, but in the end (and with lots of practice) I’ll be in a much better position to recognize learning in my students.  If I want to get the best out of all my students, I need to be cognizant not only of their different learning styles, but also of their different developmental stages, social settings, and experiences.  And let’s face it.  If you want to improve your classroom management skills, you could do worse than Skinner and his good ol’ operant conditioning!

In Summary
To sum up, if teachers are to truly assess student learning and deep understanding, then they must be prepared to consider how these are affected by past experiences, developmental stages, social settings, and the environment, because no one theory on learning is applicable to all.  And don’t forget that teachers are learners too!


Kruse, J., (2009). Learning theories: Pillars of teacher decision-making.  Iowa Science Teachers Journal. 36(2), 2-7.