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- [Instructor] Welcome
to the theory primer.

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Theories give us perspective.

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Theories are like windows in a house

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where you can look though multiple windows

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into the same room

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and get a different view
point from each window.

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We talk about learning instruction,

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we have three different perspectives.

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The first is behaviorism.

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Behaviorism views the mind as black box.

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According to behaviorism,

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learning is regular, expected responses.

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We know learning has occurred

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when we receive regular,
expected responses.

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Instruction, according to behaviorism,

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is repetition and reinforcement,

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and that is how we help
people learn and develop.

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The second perspective is cognitivism,

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and it views the mind as a computer.

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According to cognitivism,

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learning is recall of stored information.

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If we can recall stored information,

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we know that learning has occurred.

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Instruction, according to
cognitivism, is helping

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to grab someone's attention

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and then help make sense of information

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and store it for later recall.

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The third perspective
is of constructivism.

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And constructivism views
the mind as a rhizome.

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That is, all the different
skills and knowledge

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are nodules that are interconnected

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to be drawn off of as needed.

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According to constructivism,

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learning is building knowledge by doing.

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Instruction, according to constructivism,

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is guiding problem solving.

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We're responsible for guiding our learners

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solving new and ill-defined problems.

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Now based on those perspectives,

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we come up two different
types of theories.

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We have what is called descriptive theory,

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and descriptive theory in education

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helps us to answer the
question, what is learning?

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Learning theory, which
is the outcome of that,

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attempts to describe what learning is.

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The second type of theory

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that we have is prescriptive theory,

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which answers the question,
how do we help people learn?

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The outcome of that is
instructional theory,

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which give us methods for
how to foster learning.

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In summary, we have three
different perspectives,

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behaviorism, cognitivism,
and constructivism.

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From those perspective
we have two theory types,

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descriptive theories,

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which are learning theories
which try to explain

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what learning is and how it happens,

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and prescriptive theories,

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instructional theories
which try to prescribe ways

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to help people learn and develop.