EDUCATION THEORIES:

A REACTION PAPER

ROWENA J. PALACIO and ROBELYN J. DIAN

PhD-1
CAGAYAN STATE UNIVERSITY -APARRI
 EDUCATION THEORIES: A REACTION PAPER
By: ROWENA J. PALACIO and ROBELYN J. DIAN
PhD-1

Learning is a continuous process which enable everyone to learn at his own pace.
Acquiring knowledge and skills may take time regardless of how young or old the man is.
This is the reason of having different theories from numerous philosophers and
psychologists- to guide human race in understanding deeper the why’s and how’s of the
learning processes of men.

In education, there are several psychologists who contributed a lot in the education
sector. They have different views and ideas in terms of learning, but at the end of the day,
only the individual himself can tell which theory can help him best.

First in the list is LEV SEMYONOVICH VYGOTSKY, a Soviet psychologist

who is best known for his sociocultural theory. He believed that social interaction plays a
critical role in children’s learning- a continuous process that is influenced by culture.
With his theories. He firmly believed that somebody can be more knowledgeable than a
student who can teach something or some things to him. His lines from “Mind in Society,
1978” can be considered as one of his greatest word- “Learning is more than the
acquisition of the ability to think ; it is the acquisition of many specialized abilities for
thinking about a variety of things”. Truly, Lev Vygotsky contributed much in early
childhood development with his theories.

Next is JEAN WILLIAM FRITZ PIAGET, a Swiss psychologist known for his
work on child development. With his theories, he placed much importance on children’s
education. He is such a great influencer in the field of education wherein some of his
principles are still in used in the four walls of classrooms like discover learning, problem
solving and stage-based teaching. With his four stages of cognitive development, he
theorized that children learn through direct and active interaction with the environment.
Implications for teaching arose from Piaget’s theories: 1) That the focus should be on the
process of learning, rather than the end product; 2)Educators should recognize the crucial
role of children’s self-initiated, active involvement in learning activities; 3)Instruction
should be individualized so children can learn in accordance with their own readiness;
and 4) Educators should evaluate the level of the child’s development so suitable tasks
can be set.

BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER or B.F Skinner was an American

psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor and social philosopher argued that the goal of
science of psychology was to predict and control an organism’s behavior from its current
stimulus situation and its history of reinforcement. His Operant Conditioning is based
upon the idea that learning is a function of change in overt behavior. That changes in
behavior are the results of a man’s response to stimuli in the environment. It further
explains that response produces a consequence that when a particular stimulus-response
pattern is done, the individual is conditioned to respond. Reinforcement is the key
element in BF Skinner’s theory. And this is what teachers are doing in teaching the
students. In order to motivate them to give their best in school, they give rewards as
reinforcement.

Next in line is JEROME SEYMOUR BRUNER, an American psychologist who

made a significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning
theory in educational psychology. In his theory, learners go from a tangible, action-
oriented stage of learning to a symbolic and abstract stage of learning. By this theory,
learners can build new knowledge upon knowledge they have previously learned. This
can lead to better understanding of what students are learning. With his three modes of
representation- enactive (action-based), iconic (image-based) and symbolic (language-
based), he firmly believed that learning is possible and effective when faced with new
material to follow a progression of representation. And this is not only true for students,
even adults can learn effectively through the three modes pf progression.

BENJAMIN SAMUEL BLOOM, an American educational psychologist who

made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of
mastery learning. His Bloom’s Taxonomy was created in order to promote higher forms
of thinking in education like analyzing and evaluating rather than just remembering. This
theory is such a helpful one specially to teachers in constructing HOTS or higher order
thinking skill form of questions. This really enables learners to think outside the box,
relating to real life situations and applying things that they have learned in real life
scenarios.

Lastly is HOWARD EARL GARDNER who is an American developmental

psychologist who developed the theory of multiple intelligences. In this theory, he
claimed that human beings have different ways in which they process data, each being
independent. In order to capture the full range of abilities and talents that people possess,
Gardner theorizes that people do not have just an intellectual capacity, but have many
kinds of intelligences in them. Therefore, teachers must not only focus on the visible
intelligence or skill of a student, rather, she has to stimuli the inactive ones that has yet to
come out.

There are several theories in education. People may think that a person needs to
follow a certain one for him to be successful in learning. But one thing is for sure,
nobody can say that a certain theory is the best one. It surely depends on how a certain
person accepts and behaves on the things happening around him because every man is
unique in his own way and he learns at his own pace.