Three Learning Theories

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Up to now, there are a lot of theories of teaching and learning about how people learn. However, there are three sets of learning theory widely used in different disciplines. They are: Behaviourism, cognitivist, and constructivism. I will try to discuss concisely definition of these three learning theory. The principle idea of the behaviourist theory is that learning comprises of a change in behaviour based on the acquisition, strengthening and application of connotations between stimuli from the environment. According to Berkeley 2011, Cognitivist teaching methods aim to assist students in assimilating new information to existing knowledge, and enabling them to make the appropriate modifications to their existing intellectual framework…show more content…
For example, economics will be studied another disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, political science as a social science as well as the business, accounting, marketing, finance and management. Generally, the department of economics offer two types of courses: major courses and minor courses. A major in economics provides different types of training in the field of economics and in the application of econometric techniques to understand the situation of the specific economy as well as the world economy. On the other hand, a minor in economics comprise introduction to microeconomics, introduction to macroeconomics and quantitative methods in economics (basically maths and statistics). At Swinburne University of Sarawak, since last two years, I have been teaching two courses, namely using Basic Concepts of Economics under the diploma program and Monetary Institutions and Monetary Policy in undergraduate level. Under the constructivist learning pedagogy, learners actively construct knowledge in their attempts to make sense of the world, then instruction is likely to emphasized the development of meaning and understanding. There are different types of teaching approaches under the constructivist view. They are: active learning, learning-by-doing, scaffold learning and collaborative learning. Broak and Lopus (2004) identified activity-based economics lessons can be classified into one of the three broad categories: 1. Group work-presentation, decision-making or problem solving 2. Simulation- participants follow prescribed behaviours or role

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