Rachel Doss

December 3, 2014
EME 602 - Personal Theory Paper

The purpose of this paper is to clearly identify, explain, and support my personal theory
of learning and instruction, as well as describe how this learning theory will play a role in my
future as an Instructional Designer. An individuals personal theory of learning, especially in the
field of Instructional Design and Technology, can impact important decisions regarding
developing, designing, and creating instruction for learning.
Humans are unique to the world in the fact that they have the ability to learn just about
anything, as well as store that knowledge for use in the future. While this sounds simple, learning
is a detailed and intricate process. As people go through life, their brain, mind, and body are
always changing. Humans start off as babies, not knowing anything about the world around
them, but as they travel through lifes journey, individuals learn and gain knowledge, skills, and
information that helps mold them into their individual unique self. As time goes on, that
knowledge, skills, and information may expand or become lost/forgotten over the years. Due to
the different stages of life and the changing of ones mind and body, the ways in which people
learn need to change too. One learning theory is not going to work on every single person, just
like it is not going to work during every stage of life. With a combination of Radical
Behaviorism, Cognitive Information Processing, and Constructivism during the stages of ones
life, people will be exposed to the most effective way of learning during certain stages of their
life.
Four months ago, when I was first asked to think about my personal theory of learning, I
came to the conclusion right away there are different ways in which people learn. Individuals
learn from teachers, experience, demonstrations, hands on activities, and their senses, to name a
few. People also need motivation and proper instruction to perform certain learning objectives,
and to ultimately learn and retain information. These aforementioned ways of learning
incorporate three predominately used learning theories, which are Radical Behaviorism,
Cognitive Information Processing, and Cognitivism. After learning about these three theories,
there was a point in which I needed to rank the three theories on how I was thinking at that exact
moment on how these three theories fell into my personal learning theory. At that time, my
personal theory of learning was 40% Cognitive Information Processing, 35% Constructivism,
and 25% Radical Behaviorism. When considering the ranking now, I believe that all three of
these learning theories are equally important due to the fact that my personal learning theory
finds that all three of these theories are significant relative to ones stage in life.
In the early stages of life, knowledge and experience is very limited, or in some cases
nonexistent. Due to this lack of knowledge and life experiences, individuals learn by being told
or shown how to behave. The learning theory in which behavior can be fully understood is
Radical Behaviorism. Theorists associated with Radical Behaviorism believe that individuals
learn by actively observing their surrounding environment, and then acting on those
observations. If the individual does not properly perform the behavior or skill, then learning did
not occur. On the other hand, if the behavior or skill that the individual is expected to perform is

observed, then learning took place. To encourage the individual to continue a behavior or skill,
one may introduce positive or negative reinforcement. Reinforcement describes the simple
strengthening or weakening of a response already in the repertoire of the learner (Driscoll,
2005). To reduce or weaken a particular response of an individual, one might use punishment.
Radical Behaviorism also covers principles in how to teach new behaviors by using shaping,
chaining, and fading, and how to maintain desired behaviors by using interval schedules.
Children in their early formative years lack complex cognitive networks in their brain.
With this lack of networking, infants and children are unable to properly store knowledge and
develop connections with previous knowledge. As infants and children are exposed to their
environment and take part in their own life experiences, these complex networks begin to take
form. Since these networks are not readily available during this stage of life, environmental
stimuli teach these infants and children the behaviors and skills that are acceptable. It is
important for parents, teachers, and other individuals to behave in an appropriate manner and
take the time to strengthen or weaken the behaviors that they observe from these infants in
children.
Once complex networks form and take shape in the brain, it is an appropriate time to
introduce Cognitive Information Processing into the learning process. The theory of Cognitive
Information Processing focuses on the actual processing of information. The learner is perceived
to be a processor of information, which means that stimuli is observed through sensory memory,
moves into working memory, also referred to as short-term memory, and then finally makes its
way into long-term memory in which the information is stored for future use. When information
is first observed, it is important for learners to give that information meaning or make
connections to knowledge that is already stored in memory. These connections allow the new
information to be stored into network models in long-term memory, which in turn will make it
easier to retrieve this information when needed. Network models can be thought of as a mental
dictionary, and with the proper storage/organization, the learner will be able to access this
information with ease. Cognitive Information Processing also focuses on the process of chunking
and rehearsing to move information from working memory into long-term memory. As
individuals move through the next stages of their life, Cognitive Information Processing remains
to be an integral part of the learning process, and subsequently matures with the individual.
As life continues, individuals take part in more life experiences, which ultimately matures
their complex cognitive networks in their brain. With these intricate networks, new information
can be interpreted, analyzed, and stored in ways that the individual can retrieve. When the
learner constructs knowledge, the theory of Constructivism takes place. Constructivism focuses
on learners taking in new information, interpreting that information based on previously stored
knowledge and experiences, and then constructing their own knowledge of this new information.
Constructivists also believe that teachers should facilitate learning, acting as a guide in the
learning process. It is important for learners to take part in Constructive learning so that they can
use and apply what they already know. The way in which individuals construct knowledge may
be different due to different life experience, religion, ethnicity, and so forth. By using
Constructivism in some high school classes, college level courses, and continued education
programs, learners are challenged to collaborate with one another, think critically, self reflect on
the learning process, and be held responsible for their learning. Constructivism encourages
individuals to be their own person and to use their knowledge to think outside the box.

With a combination of Radical Behaviorism, Cognitive Information Processing, and

Constructivism during the different stages of life, individuals will have access to the learning
theory that is best designed for their cognitive ability. As ones body matures, their brain and
cognitive cellular networks mature, which play a major role in the three learning theories. If a
learning theory is introduced at the wrong stage in life, learning may not occur. My personal
theory of learning will be helpful in my future as an Instructional Design due to the fact that I
want to develop, design, and create instructional material for either K-12 schools or higher
education. Given this large range of age groups, it is important to understand how learning takes
places in different stages of ones life, as well as how instructional material should be designed to
ensure that these students are learning with properly designed education.

References

Driscoll Marcy. P. (2005) Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Boston, MA:

Pearson Education, Inc.