Behavioral, Cognitive, and Constructivist Theories of Learning Essay

Behavioral, Cognitive, and Constructivist Theories of Learning - Essay Example Learning has always played an important role in the lives of human beings. It is only because of learning that human kind is able to enter the recent boosting of technological development. For learning, human kind has always developed certain methodologies and learning theories that can be employed for successful learning. The learning theories that are quite well known are behaviorism, constructivism and cognitivism. Learning can be assessed by the transformation of a person, which is considered by all the above mentioned theories. The learning theories of behaviorism, constructivism and cognitivism regard knowledge as acquirable and identify various ways with the help of which, a person is able to learn in this world. This paper takes into consideration the critical features of behavioral, constructivist and cognitive theories of learning. According to the learning theory of behaviorism, the knowledge that a person keeps or attains by means of experience or rationality can be assessed by means of change of behavior (Gredler, 2005). When a person attains knowledge, his/her behavior changes with the acquisition of knowledge. The behaviorism philosophy can be defined as a philosophy that deals with the transformation of behavior as an indication of learning (Vaill, 1996). Therefore, in behaviorism learning theory deals with the transformation of behavior of an individual as a sign of his/her learning. Learning theory of behaviorism regards learning as wholly external. The behaviorist theory of teaching is more concerned to theoretical knowledge and the teacher divides the learning tasks into chunks and then instructs the students to learn the divided tasks one by one (Vaill, 1996). The teachers’ skills are needed in terms of direct teaching in the behaviorist theory. The students are not only taught but they are also asked to do practice that