EFFECTIVENESS OF LEARNING THEORIES

       If you are a teacher or you are studying for being a teacher, you must know that being a teacher is one of the most difficult occupations because individuals are very different from each others. Individuals have different appearance, different viewpoints to life, different thinking system and so on.

     If we are talking about education, the most important thing is that we have different kinds of brain. We cannot learn everything at the same time, at the same degree and with the same method. So, teachers must know how to teach everything to people who are very different from each others and must use some kinds of methods to make teaching easier.

       The first thing that I want to explain is what are these methods. Psychologists call these methods “Learning Theories”. Behaviorism is one of these learning theories. “Behaviorism is a theory of animal and human learning that only focuses on objectively observable behaviors and, discounts mental activities.”

       This theory denies learning by mind, it asserts that people learn everything physically and environment effects learning process. In this theory there are always a stimulus and response. You can teach something to an animal or a human thanks to stimuluses. You understand whether you succeed teaching something to a human or an animal thanks to responses.

         If a human or an animal could not learn, you punish it. If a human or an animal could learn something, you reward it. For example, in circuses people make animals perform lots of acts. When these animals could perform their act, they are given some food and so animals try to do their best to get these food. This theory can be effective sometimes but not always.

         In circus, animals do their best to get food but they do not know what is the meaning of their acts, they have no idea about is it good or not. The only thing that they want is get food, so it is unnecessary to think about acts. In this situation animals learned something behavioral but not with their minds.

        Another learning theory is cognitivism. Cognitivism is like behaviorism. Cognitivists say that learning focuses on observable behaviors but it is also said that learning focuses on inner mental activities. Learning is a process and it occurs step by step. First step is perceiving of data by people. When people understand data, data convert into behavior. İf people do not use his or her brain, they cannot learn because learning is focused on brain.

“Cognitivism uses the metaphor of mind as computer: information comes in, is being processed, and leads to certain outcomes.”Cognitivists also believe that environment play an important role in teaching. “ Instructional explanations, demonstrations, illustrative examples are make learning easier.

         Constructivism is one of the learning theories. In this theory“ knowledge is a function of how the individuals creates meaning from his or her experiences”,more information can be found in annotated bibliography writing service.  Knowledge that is given is same but people who learn it are different so knowledge convert into own knowledge of people.

      Constructivists say that people have their own knowledge and teachers are trying to reveal knowledge, make it more clear to learner. In constructivism learner is more active because learner makes his or her own knowledge from the knowledge that teacher give him or her.

In constructivism students have a key role during lesson. Teacher serve as a guide. A constructivist teacher should understand and have a knowledge about her / his students. Lesson must be done according to needs of students.

       All of these theories are very useful for a teacher and they are very effective to teach something to students but none of these theories is effective alone to teach everything to every student. When you are teaching mountains, seas, lakes, plains etc. it will be more effective to go some of mountains seas, lakes etc. and see these geographical shapes in reality. If it is done, students will never forget the information that teacher give about these geographical shapes.

         If a student can understand something without need to see something about them, you do not need to go these places. It will be enough just give information at classroom but sometimes this situation is not based on student. If you are talking about emotions, of course it is not enough to show something about them. Students must have some experiences before and it will be effective to talk about these experiences and explain them which emotion come about in their experiences.

         In my opinion the most effective teaching way is make a relation between informations because every information is related to each other. For example, If you are talking about the colour of sky, at first student must know what is the meaning of sky.

         To sum up, none of learning theories is enough alone to teach everything. Teachers must use these theories appropriately according to student and according to subject that he / she teach. They can use rewarding and punishment method as behaviorists. They can have lessons that are teacher based or student based. They can teach traditional things or new things to student.

          Up to me teachers must use all of these methods according to student behaviors, understanding degree of them. At first they should know her / his student and then try to teach something.

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