Benjamin Samuel Bloom.
Born on 21st February 1918 in Lansford Pennsylvania, Benjamin Bloom’s work on the taxonomy of educational objective and cognitive domain made a massive impact towards learning and development (Guskey 2012, pp. 56). His work set-forth the hierarchy of learning, beginning of factual knowledge, and leading through understanding. Bloom’s cognitive domain touched on six levels of physical development; knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Bloom identified the simplest recall and recognition of facts, referred as knowledge, as the lowest level in the cognitive domain through an increasingly, abstract, and complex mental level to the highest level classified as evaluation (Guskey 2012, pp. 58). According to Bloom, knowledge refers to as the ability to remember and recall previously learnt material.
Bloom defined comprehension as the ability of a learner to grasp the meaning of material by either in the form of interpretation or estimation of future trends. This step goes beyond the first step of simply remembering learned material. Application refers to the learner’s ability to use material in concrete or new situations. This may include the use of things such as methods, concepts, rules, laws, or theories (Guskey 2012, pp. 58). At this level, learning requires a higher understanding level than in comprehension and knowledge.
Analysis is the ability to break down learnt material into understandable components. Such may include identification of parts, identification of relationships, and organizing the principles involved. Synthesizing refers to the ability to put all parts together to form a new and unique structure. Evaluation, on the other hand, involves the ability to judge the value of learnt material (Guskey 2012, pp. 59). This is the highest ranked in the cognitive domain as the learner has the elements in all the other categories, and can consciously judge every criterion.
John Broadus Watson.
Watson was born in1878 in Greenville, South Carolina. In his research, Watson used animals as subjects but later shifted to human behavior and emotions. He theorized that children have three emotional reactions; fear, love, and rage (Hergenhahn and Tracy 2014, pp. 381). His contribution towards psychology and learning lies massively on the term ‘behaviorism’, which he developed in 1913.
Behaviorism assumes that behavior can be observed and correlated with other observable concepts. The concept of behaviorism aimed at explaining the relationship between stimuli (antecedent conditions), responses (behavior), and consequences (punishment, rewards, or neutral effects) (Hergenhahn and Tracy 2014, pp. 381). Watson’s theory was more skewed towards stimuli than two the other two components of behaviorism.
According to Watson behaviorism is a theory of learning that develops from conditioning in infants. Conditioning refers to the interaction with the environment, which is mainly through observation. Conditioning can either be classical or operant (Hergenhahn and Tracy 2014, pp. 381). The theory suggests that infants respond to the environmental stimuli, which shapes their behavior.
The theory suggests that, in development, only observable behavior should be studied as internal states such as emotions, cognitions, and moods are too subjective. Watson believed that any person can be potentially trained to perform different tasks, regardless of factors like internal thoughts, genetic background, and personality traits: All it takes to learn and develop is the right conditioning.
Watson derived most of his thoughts from the work of Pavlov on classical conditioning where he argued that learning and development occurs through a substitution of stimulus. He argued that learning occurs when a learner is subjected to substitution from one stimulus to another (Hergenhahn and Tracy 2014, pp. 381). While his work is considered limited on explaining human learning, it is considered as the platform of development of learning science.
Edward Thorndike.
Edward was born in Massachusetts in 1874, and by the late 19th century he was amongst the top American scientists. His work on animal and human learning is amongst the most influential contributions in the history of psychology (Leonard 2002, pp. 110). Through a long and extensive research on animals, he developed devices called; puzzle boxes’. This was an example of instrumental conditioning where when an animal made some response and was awarded, the response was learnt. If the response was not awarded, the response could disappear.
Thorndike worked by using a hungry cat, placed it in a box, and observed its behavior as it tried to escape in search of food. On studying several cats, Thorndike noted that the animal did not realize what it had to do to escape; rather the connection between its situation and the response rendered a ‘trial-and-error’ condition (Leonard 2002, pp. 111).
The argument was that some stimuli and responses were connected or dissociated according to the stimuli, which added to Thorndike’s primary laws; law of effect, law of readiness, and law of exercise. The laws explained connectionism and behavior on recognition. The evaluation led to the argument that animals learn by trial-and-error, punishments or rewards. He used this evaluation called connectionism to describe what happens when human beings want to learn.
The theory suggests that learning depends on the presence of similar elements in an original and new learning situation. Connections are readily established when a learner perceives stimuli and response together. Thorndike developed several principles behind connectionism; learning requires both rewarding and practicing (Leonard 2002, pp. 111). Learning is also a series of connections and involves the transfer of previously encountered situations. Additionally, learning involves being intelligent, which is a function of several learned connections.
Abraham Maslow.
Maslow is best recognized for the development of the hierarchy of needs model in the 1940’s. The theory remains a source of reference today in understanding management training, human motivation, and personal development. Maslow argued that human beings are motivated by needs (Griffin and Gregory 2012, pp. 93). Most of these needs are inborn, and evolve over thousands of years.
The hierarchy of needs model has five levels that explain how the needs motivate humans. The lowest level comprises of physiological and biological needs, which are basic needs of life such as food, shelter, and clothing. At the top follows the safety needs, which include protection, stability, law, and order. Human beings also have a need for belongingness or love from their families, relationship, work places, and groups. This is followed by esteem needs, which are needs for status, responsibility, achievements, and reputation (Griffin and Gregory 2012, pp. 93). At the top most level are the self actualization needs, which are needs, for personal fulfillment and growth.
Maslow argues that human beings must satisfy each of the needs in turn starting with the first to the top most. Conversely, if the things that satisfy the lower needs are in absence, then human beings are no longer concerned about the higher ranked needs (Griffin and Gregory 2012, pp. 93). In a learning perspective, Maslow argues that learning needs must be satisfied in order. If a learner is subjected to aims and drives there, is an urge to shift to the higher ordered levels. The levels act as sources of motivation to drive learners to achieve the next stage of development. According to Maslow, self actualized individuals are comfortable with oneself, keen to reality sense; rely on their own experiences, and not susceptible to social pressures.
How teachers can apply stages of physical development.
The primary objective to an educator’s instruction is to develop critical thinkers. However, most teachers do not recognize that to achieve this objective, the learners must pass through different stages of development (Love and Victoria 1999, pp 67). To achieve their mission, teachers should recognize that students are not only intellectuals, but also emotional and social beings. Additionally, all these dimensions interact to impact on learning and performance.
The stages of development allow teachers need to have prior knowledge of the learners. This is inclusive of prior skills, beliefs, and concepts that have significant influences on what they notice about the stimuli, and how they can organize and interpret such information (Love and Victoria 1999, pp 66). Teachers can also apply the stages of physical development to determine the level of intellectual development amongst students. The stages can be used in knowing how students regard knowledge, and this should be the starting point to design classroom instructions.
The development stages can also be applied in determining the expectations of learners. For instance, by using the Maslow’ hierarchy of needs, a teacher can determine a student’s level, and the next stage that the student aspires to achieve. This may assist in creating an environment that may assist the learner to achieve the next level of needs or growth.
Additionally, these stages can be applied in helping students in approaching learning material (Love and Victoria 1999, pp 67). For example, by use of the cognitive domain, students will be equipped in differentiating between their abilities. This may allow both teachers and students to be aware of their intellectual growth as they learn. With such information teachers will apply the concepts necessary to uplift the students to the next stages of development.
References.
Griffin, Ricky W, and Gregory Moorehead. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
page 93
Guskey, Thomas R. Benjamin S. Bloom: Portraits of an Educator. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2012. Print.
Hergenhahn, B R, and Tracy B. Henley. An Introduction to the History of Psychology. , 2014. Print. Page 381
Leonard, David C. Learning Theories: A to Z. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002. Print.
page 110
Love, Patrick G, and Victoria L. Guthrie. Understanding and Applying Cognitive Development Theory. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999. Print.
