*This script goes along with the human development Prezi presentation

Today we will be talking about Human Development and Learning.

There are several different theories of development that we will talk about. It is
important to understand that while they all have different ideas about how humans
develop and learn, they all share the common idea that these skills we learn and
develop are a combination of nature and nurture. This means that we either learn
as a result of our DNA, and what we already have in our bodies and minds, or if it is
a result of our environment, and how we are taught to value different ideas in life.

The main theorists that we focused on, all though there are many, many more, were
Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky. All though their theories and ideas
were complex, very simple first explanations of them are as follows:

Erik Erikson, who gathered and modified the ideas of Freud to gain his own ideas,
came up with the idea that all learning is cumulative in our lives.

Jean Piaget was the first ever developmental psychologist, making his ideas very
radical for his time.

Vygotsky created the sociocultural genetic method, which states that learning takes
time and repetition to be successful.

Before we dive into the theories of constructivism, behaviorism, and cognitive

science, we need to understand a few basic theories of learning and development.
The first of these is the Myth of Er, which states that our prior knowledge in life
comes from our souls either drinking too much or too little from the Forgetful River
before being reborn, and lead us to either knowing things from our past lives
really well, or knowing nothing at all. The second is the Simile of the Cave, which
says that who are chained up in a cave and can only see shadows of what is outside
the wall will mistake the shadows for reality. While this theory seems radical, it
gives us our ideas of appearance versus reality and that while things may often
appear to be one way, we may not learn the truth about it until we learn or study it.
Next there is the idea of Tabula Rosa, or being born as a blank slate, one that is
ready to be imprinted with knowledge. The final basic theory we need to
understand is Lockes Atomistic Model, which contradicts itself by saying that must
be a blank slate but also have some prior knowledge in order to learn.

The first main theory we are going to cover is Behaviorism. Behavioral sciences
state that experiments must be empirical, and replicable, in order to create validity
or provide a basis for refutation. Behaviorism also introduces the idea that basic
behaviors are the same across the whole animal kingdom, including humans. So
elephants behave the same as mice, which behave the same as people like you and
me.
There are two main behaviorists and behaviorism theories that we mainly recognize
today. The first is classical conditioning, which was created by Ivan Pavlov.
Classical conditioning changes behaviors by changing the stimulus of the
experiment in order to gain a different response. Pavlov did this with dogs, and
trained the dogs to salivate once they heard the bell for their dinner. He did this by
first bringing the meat to the dogs, and having them salivate as a response. The
second stage was to bring the meat and ring the bell as they brought the meat to the
dogs and having them salivate as a response. The final stage, and preferred
response was that the dogs heard the bell ring and immediately started salivating,
as they knew that meant dinner time. The second behaviorism theory is operant
conditioning, which leaves the stimulus the same in the experiment and creates
different responses. The main theorist in this perspective was Edward Thorndike.
He used cats in his experiment, and had the cats in cages. The cats would pace in the
cage, as they were unhappy, and then would cry, showing this unhappiness. But if
the cats tripped the lever in the cage, they could escape from the cage, and therefore
had a favorable reaction. The cats eventually caught onto this pattern and proved
Thorndikes law of effect correct: you can extinguish unwanted behaviors and create
favorable behaviors through a reward and punishment system.

So lets talk a little more about this relationship we see in behaviorism between the
stimulus and response. The stimulus is directly related to the response, and often
creates the response, whether favorable or not. Heres an example to better explain
how these two are connected in our everyday lives. Imagine you are 5 again, and
you are cooking in the kitchen with your mother. You touch a pot, without realizing
it is hot, and immediately pull your hand away because it hurts. You have now
learned not to touch a hot pot, because it punished you by hurting you. In this
example, the stimulus is the hot pot, and the response is pulling your hand away.
This relationship appears in our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not.

The final aspect of behaviorism that we must acknowledge is the way that
behaviorists shape the favorable and unwanted behaviors. Most commonly, this is
done through a reward and punishment system, where a reward is simply a reward
for good behavior or the correct response, and punishment is simply a
punishment, whether it is indirect or direct, for a bad response or incorrect
response. There are positive and negative ways that both reinforcement and
punishment can be used. As you can see in this reinforcement chart, positive
reinforcement is when you add something pleasant when the favorable behavior is
performed, and negative reinforcement is when you remove something negative to
get the desired response. This is the most difficult system to understand, and is
often misinterpreted. An example of negative reinforcement would be parents
telling their students that if they get an A on a test, that they dont have to do their
chores for a week. They are reinforcing the desired result by taking away the
negative action, chores. Positive punishment is when something that inhibits
success is added to extinguish the bad behavior, so a negative consequence.
Negative punishment is when something pleasant or desired is removed to
extinguish the bad behavior. To help with understanding the complexity of this
topic, here is a fun video of the reinforcements and punishments being used in a real
classroom setting!

Next, we will talk about constructivism. Constructivists have four main beliefs that
they believe contribute to our learning, they are: activity, reflection, interpretation,
and social aspects. There are four main families, or categories of constructivists.

The first category is radical constructivists. They believe that we can only know our
own experiences.

The second category is the constructivists, who believe that we have our own
experiences, but that we compile our experiences together to come to one correct
answer.

Next, there are social constructivists who believe that learning happens on 2
different social levels, both in the different groups we participate in and with
ourselves.

Finally, there are cultural and contextual constructivists. They believe that we use
our different experiences in different cultures and contexts to learn how to behave
in different situations.

While these families are vast, and contain too much to explain every aspect of
each, there are a few crucial constructivists and their theories that are worth
mentioning. The first is the Gestalt theories, which are our aha moments, or when
we figure something out, when we have truly learned a concept. This is like our
light bulb going off in our head. The next important theory is Vygotskys zone of
proximal development, which is the difference between what a learner can do
without help compared to what a learner can do with help. Finally, we have Dewey,
who focused most of his studies on children, and came up with 4 different areas of
instinct or impulse that children have: communication, construction, investigation
and art.

Now, lets take a quick look at the different mechanisms of learning in

constructivism.

First, there is assimilation, which is fitting new information into existing structures.
Learners must also be aware and careful of forced assimilation, which is the
hardening of structures, so no new information can fit into our existing structures.

This is when accommodation must occur. Accommodation is changing our cognitive

structures to accommodate for new information coming in.

Finally, there is equilibration, or a cognitive balance between things we know and

how to interact with them. Again, learners must be aware and careful of
disequilibration, which occurs when we are faced with a new idea that is unfamiliar
to us.

Finally, we have the Cognitive Science perspective of learning and development.

This approach consists of well organized, easily accessed cognitive structures that
constitute better learning for the learner. This approach is most commonly known
for its computer metaphor of the mind, which compares the brain to the central
processing unit of the computer, or the monitor, and like the monitor, controls every
part of all processes.

These processes include our random access memory, where we hold random
memory files, our iconic memory, which holds pictures, our episodic memory, which
handles scripts, and our semantic memory, which controls languages, and holds
them in a non-stop process of input and output in our memory.

The final, and possibly most complex, aspect of the Cognitive Science approach is
Motivation, or how we are moved to complete certain actions or activities.

The first input of motivation is situational cues, or the cues in an environment that
tell a person that an action or event may occur. It also can be a cue that a person
should act a certain way, or respond to a situation in a certain way.

Situational cues, and how we respond to them then influence our cognitive and
motivational sets. Cognitive sets are our personal theories of intelligence, and
include the entity theory, which suggests that intelligence is a fixed, genetic trait,
and the incremental theory, which suggests that intelligence is dynamic and can be
increased through hard work. Motivational sets are our beliefs, like what we have
access to, how people react to our actions in the past, or how the world has treated
us for our actions.

These sets then lead to our values and expectancy of the goals we are expected to
carry out. This can be seen in Atkinsons Expectancy times Value theory, which
shows that a learner inputs their expectations of success and failure and pride and
shame of their actions in order to figure out whether or not they will strive for
achievement of the goal.

This then leads a learner to the choice of whether or not they will fully exert
themselves in the goal.

This leads to a good or poor performance of the goal.

And it all finally leads to a good or bad outcome that was influenced by every step of
the learners actions and decisions.

That is the end of my own development and learning of the different theories of
these two topics we have discussed this semester. Thank you.