The Learning Theories

Knowing and getting a better understanding of different learning theories can be a tough and tiring task, but for an effective and knowledgeable employee base, it is important to assess the learning potential of your employees. It is needed to be done so that the companies can predict the success rate of employee training campaigns, i.e. whether they are investing their time and money at right spot or not and for how long they will have to keep on investing.

Learning theories are the basis of getting an idea of how different people learn different things and how much time they will need to learn them. It is a fact that some people are successful at learning new knowledge and skills which other people are unable to grasp. That’s where these theories come in as a guiding light to help in the analysis of the learning capabilities of their employees. Moreover, by providing the necessary knowledge, these, actually provide alternative means for achieving a target like pre-defining a broad spectrum of workshops, training courses and much more.

4 – Most Important Learning Theories

1. Constructivism learning theory

An instructor using the constructivism theory actually focuses on making the employees play an active role in their learning and development process. It makes use of the fact that the morale of the learners boosts up quickly when they take responsibility for their own development in their career as well as general life. For the purpose, the individuals are required to keep an eye on the working experiences from the past, cultural background as well as their true personality and molding their responsibilities under the light of these points.

Career development is not something that even employee will take lightly since they understand that their chances of success rise higher with every expertise that they gain in their existing field or having knowledge of the fields, newer to them. So, there’s no reason for them to drop their morale and job satisfaction. Since this strategy requires the employee to revise his previous working experience and putting it use in the situations at hand, so it ensures the safety of their skillsets that they had before joined the company which can be used for the cause of the company. 

2. Behaviorism learning theory

It is Just as its name suggests, the behaviorism learning theory unveils the effect of the external factors that impact the process of learning and its pace. For the purpose, it assumes that all the positive and negative factors that affect the mental situation of the individual, either directly or indirectly, can also accelerate and decelerate the rate of learning.

In simple words, it targets the instructors rather than employees. According to this model, an instructor’s praise, upon the successful completion of a particular task, and punishing for the behaviors that are against the rules and regulations, can improve the rate of learning immensely. This assumption does not base itself on the age limit e.g. it is not limited to just kids who are studying in schools but also to adults who might be working under an organization currently.

3. Cognitivism learning theory

 According to the Cognitivism model, the educators need to focus on discovering new and improved methods for making their mental processes better rather than the physical actions. So, the main job left for the instructors is to assist them in expanding their knowledge along with paving up their way to success. The strategy can be used by small business owners to encourage the employee base for reshaping their strategic thinking practices into something more professional.

This also involves manipulating their problem-solving skills along with their memory. This objective can easily be achieved by the conduction of games, contest and different types of activities that make the employ feel as if they are being challenged by something that they can solve, just, if they manage to link up to their various parts of brains. All this takes their attention, flexibility, speed and ingenuity to a higher level than before, and the same goes for the productivity of the workplace.

4. Connectivism learning theory

 Thanks to Connectivism learning theory, all of the successful entrepreneurs understand that it’s the interconnectivity of different types of people that take their business to success. Since, in the present age, computer and internet act as the basis of every other device that makes the everyday life of a normal person easy and fun to live. According to this model, learning grows extremely quickly when it is reinforced with a variety of working environments and those different environments are provided to a normal learner through the internet. Today, free online courses are available which can be used by anyone for taking an advantage of the opportunities that originate throughout the world by developing a new and better skillset, techniques and gather more knowledge.

 This model visualizes the learning as a process which flourishes extremely fast when it comes in contact with diverse opinions, resources, and techniques. Moreover, it is also true that people want more control of what they learn and at what pace, which they can’t achieve especially when they are trying to achieve their goals through the training and development processes ran by companies.

All this scenario gives rise to the best conditions for the social networking technology to hop in for letting people connect with others, no matter how far they live. So, the physical boundaries do not cast bad effects to the connectivity and learning processes which alter the future of the students. Furthermore, the topics with simulation effects or interactivity attached to them show better results for the companies.

 Since smaller companies and even individuals also have access to the learning resources distributed over the internet, this means that they, now, have even higher chances for putting this new knowledge for effective use, just like larger enterprises.