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Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget developed the theory of Cognitive Development, which breaks down a child's intellectual development into four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. -
B.F. Skinner
Skinner argued that through Operant Conditioning, children learn desired behaviors by experiencing consequences from undesired behaviors. By using rewards and punishments, children can be conditioned to perform the desired behavior. -
Bloom's Taxonomy
Benjamin Bloom created Bloom's Taxonomy to capture the order of cognitive skills, which has helped teachers promote higher-level thinking skills in their classrooms. -
Erik Erikson
Erikson's Theory of Psychological Development argues that there are eight predetermined steps of psychological development. These steps are: trust/mistrust, autonomy/shame, initiative/guilt, industry/inferiority, identity/role confusion, intimacy/isolation, generativity/stagnation, and ego integrity/despair. The steps begin at infancy and the last step encompasses ages 65 and older. -
Andragogy as a Theory
Malcolm Knowles proposes andragogy, also known as the adult learning theory, to describe the unique learning style of adults. -
Lev Vygotsky
Vygotsky's theories stress the importance of social interactions in a child's development. He believed that social learning came before any type of development. -
Four Critical Assumptions
Malcolm Knowles wrote that there are four characteristics of adult learners that are different from child learners: self-concept, experience, readiness to learn, and orientation to learning. -
Howard Gardner
Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences argued that IQ tests ignored other areas of a child's intelligence. He then formulated eight abilities: musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. -
Marzano's New Taxonomy
Robert Marzano proposed this to align with new standard-based instruction. It consists of three systems (self-system, metacognition, cognitive) and the knowledge domain. This includes factors that affect how students think, and it helps teachers find ways to improve. -
Connectivism
This new theory, proposed by George Siemens, explains how the Internet has aided in learning across the world. The theory argues that learning can happen in a purely online setting, with the learner having the ability to search out information independently.
