Learning Theories and Instruction Paper Jessica Willis ... · LEARNING THEORIES AND INSTRUCTION PAPER 2 Abstract This paper addresses the learning challenge of working in an alternative

Running head: LEARNING THEORIES AND INSTRUCTION 1

Learning Theories and Instruction Paper

Jessica Willis

James Madison University

LEARNING THEORIES AND INSTRUCTION PAPER 2

Abstract

This paper addresses the learning challenge of working in an alternative educational setting and

providing instructional material in a way that commits to long-term memory using learning

processing theories. Learning process theories focus on how students learn in relation to the

brain and the best methods for optimizing the amount of information students retain. Although

many theories can be categorized as learning process theories, the three that will be featured in

this paper are Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory, Gagne’s Nine Phases of Learning, and

The Dual-Coding Theory. This paper will identify the strengths and weaknesses of learning

process theories along with providing suggested practices for using these theories in the

classroom.


Learning Theories and Instruction Paper

Alternative education exists in my district because there is a large group of students that

cannot learn and be successful following traditional methods. Experimenting with untraditional

and “out of the box” methods to teaching have proven to be successful for my students. Working

in alternative education does have its own challenges including absenteeism, truancy,

disciplinary problems, and court involvement. It also has its rewards, such as being able to

follow nontraditional routes for students to be successful, individualizing educational plans for

students, and allowing students to feel comfortable in a smaller learning environment. The

alternative educational setting I work in is a high school program that serves students who have

been removed from a traditional high school setting into our program due to behavior problems.

The learning challenge for this environment is creating instructional material and practices that

will allow students to be successful while also helping them commit material to long-term

memory. Success in this environment is different than in a traditional instructional setting

because having some students meet the bare minimum is a huge feat. This is not to characterize

all students in our program, but with the variety of instructional needs present, delving into how

students learn and process information can only help solve the learning challenge. In my opinion,

learning process theories can aid in solving this problem. Learning process theories focus on how

the brain works and provide specific theories on how to best provide instruction to optimize

student learning. This paper will describe the three learning process theories I found most

relevant to my work environment, the uses for each in the classroom to meet the learning

challenge in alternative education, discuss performance standards that can be used to determine

success, and lastly provide the strengths and weaknesses of learning process theories to solve the

learning challenge.


Performance Standards

Even though the environment I work in differs from a traditional high school setting the

performance measures and standards required are the same. Due to this similarity, the

performance standards that would be acceptable to be used to determine if using learning process

theories would solve the learning challenge will remain consistent with what has been used all

along. Test scores and student performance will be the performance standards used in relation to

applying theory into practice. The successfulness of putting theories into instructional practice

can be measured using many different determinants. For example, test scores received using

these learning theories could be compared to those received in the past using traditional teaching

methods. Also, nine weeks or semester grades could be compared to those received in the past as

well. To achieve a more focused comparison, a class could be split in half with half of the class

as a control group and the other half an experimental group. Regardless of how the performance

standards are used, since the application would be in a traditional instructional setting, the

performance measures used will be the ones that are most commonly used in the classroom, test

scores, and quizzes.

Learning Process Theories

Many learning process theories exist ranging from perspectives on how the brain

processes information to how behaviorism plays a role in cognitive processes to designing

instruction to organize and optimize learning (Gredler, 2009). With all these into consideration,

the three theories that I found best suitable for the learning challenge in alternative education are

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory, Gagne’s Nine Phases of Learning, and The Dual-Coding

Theory. It is my belief that these three theories could be applied in practice to solve the learning

challenge present in my alternative educational setting.


Multiple Intelligence Theory

Howard Gardner created the Multiple Intelligence Theory. He proposed that there were

eight intelligence areas versus the traditional idea of intelligence. These eight intelligences

included linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily-

kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal

intelligence, and naturalist intelligence (Armstrong, n.d.). In alternative education, it’s common

to find students that learn differently. In my setting, many of the students were not successful

because the traditional method of teaching and learning did not work for them. The Multiple

Intelligence Theory provides another venue for students to show their intelligence or

understanding of a material in a way that they feel confident and compliments their

“intelligence”. As a teacher, once becoming aware of the types of intelligences that exist in the

small classrooms that alternative education provides, it can be a useful tool to teach catering to

the intelligences that are present in your classroom.

Teachers should structure the presentation of material in a style, which engages all or

most of the intelligences. When teachers center lessons on the students’ needs, it

optimizes learning for the whole class. Teachers who teach towards the multiple

intelligences realize the benefits such as active learners and successful students. Each of

the intelligences is potential in every learner and it is part of a teacher’s job to nurture and

help the children develop their own intelligences (Nolen, 2003).

In addition to teaching to the multiple intelligences or catering to the dominant ones’

present in the classroom, teachers can also offer an array of activities, one for each intelligence.

Another possibility for solving the learning challenge would be to allow students to enhance their

own intelligence by completing projects and activities that fall under their intelligence category.


For example, if a student is musically intelligent, allowing them to write a song that illustrates

their knowledge of a topic would honor this.

In a study conducted at the University of Extremadura, by members of the Faculty of

Education (Spain), the Multiple Intelligence Theory was used in the design of a technology

lesson to test student learning and engagement. There were two groups, a traditional learning

group, and an experimental group. The experimental group completed nine activities each

categorized by one of the intelligence areas to learn the material while the traditional group

learned in a traditional method. The traditional method consisted of a lecture and taking notes.

The results of this study proved that by following the Multiple Intelligence Theory students were

more successful judging by the post-test scores than those students that learned following the

traditional method (Martin-Sanchez, Gragera-Alvarez, Acedo-Davila, & Mellado, 2017). Taking

the time to individualize instruction and apply this theory into practice would be beneficial to

student learning and to solving the learning challenge.

Other ways to apply this theory into practice could be included in lesson design. At the

beginning of the year, students could have the option of completing introductory projects with

options that fall under each category. Although it is not a quiz that would place students in a

specific intelligence category, it would give the teacher an opportunity to make observations

about each student moving forward. Another way to incorporate the Multiple Intelligence Theory

into practice would be in cumulative or end of section review. Allowing students to display their

knowledge of a topic through an avenue of one of the intelligences is another way to allow

students to not only enhance their intelligence but allow an opportunity for students to improve

their academic performance (Martin-Sanchez, Gragera-Alvarez, Acedo-Davila, & Mellado,

2017).


Gagne’s Nine Phases of Learning

Learning process theories surround how students learn and process information. Robert

Gagne created the Nine Phases of Learning which provides an instructional framework with the

goal of optimizing student learning and the amount of information they retain (Gredler, 2009).

The nine phases are attending, expectancy, retrieval to working memory, selective perception of

stimulus features, semantic encoding, retrieval and responding, reinforcement, cueing retrieval,

and generalizability. The idea behind this theory is that it would provide an instructional

framework for teachers to follow when designing lessons. If this were to be put into application,

if executed in sequential order, by the end of the learning process the student would be able to

transfer learning to new situations which would meet the learning challenge.

Although the ideal instructional practice I suggested to solve the learner problem of this

paper was a lesson plan using the nine phases as an outline for teaching a lesson, a study

conducted at INTI-International University in Malaysia gives a multimedia example of how

Gagne’s phases of learning can be used in design to breed success for the learner. Dr. Mai Neo

and Dr. Tse-Kian Neo created a Business and IT multimedia web-based module to be completed

by students. In this experiment, they used Gagne’s nine phases of learning to outline the web-

based course so that each phase was honored in the make-up of the learning module.

For example, to stimulate recall of prior learning “Before entering the learning sections,

learners go through a 'Refresh Your Mind' section where they can access materials from

their prior courses to stimulate prior knowledge. This link is available throughout the

lesson” (Neo, Kian-Tse, & Leow, 2011).


Students were given a pre-test, post-test, and survey following their learning. Students scored

significantly higher on the post-test and overall enjoyed learning in a way that was more

engaging and student-centered (Neo, Kian-Tse, & Leow, 2011). Even though this study would be

different than a lesson plan design using Gagne’s nine phases, I believe that the effects of

learning would still be more beneficial than learning following traditional methods.

It is my opinion that for this theory to incite change in alternative education the nine

phases of learning would need to be strongly encouraged by the administration. Essentially the

nine phases of learning serve as an instructional framework with the end goal of the student

being able to apply their learning to a new situation. If all the teachers in an alternative

environment were to design lessons using this sequential order, not only would students become

accustomed to this type of learning but would be encouraged to learn past the point of rote

memorization. It is my belief that if students can apply learning to a new situation then they have

mastered a concept past the requirement of learning the bare minimum.

Dual-Coding Theory

“Dual coding theory (e.g., Pavio, 1986) explains that the visual, auditory, and haptic

modes can each encode information both verbally and nonverbally, and that presenting verbal

and nonverbal elements together improves recall” (Rosen, Fullwood, Henley, & King, 2012).

The other theories proposed to solve the learning challenge seem to be instructional practices that

need to be taken on a large scale. The Dual-Code Theory is an instructional practice that would

need to be applied on a smaller scale but would also meet the challenge. The Dual-Code Theory

simply states that when presenting information there should be a verbal and nonverbal

association with the concepts, abstract and concrete, that are being presented. This is an

important instructional practice because once a concept is committed to a student’s schema using


the Dual-Code Model, it has the possibility of proceeding to their long-term memory (Gredler,

2009).

A study conducted at the University of Florida tested the Dual-Coding Theory in teaching

abstract concepts and found the benefits of using dual coding to be much more promising than

teaching an abstract concept in the traditional methods of verbal coding only (Rosen, Fullwood,

Henley, & King, 2012). This theory is an appropriate instructional practice because not only will

it solve the learning challenge of finding a way for students to commit instructional material to

long-term memory but it could create long-lasting foundational knowledge in topics that will be

relevant after high school.

There are many ways to habitually apply this theory in an instructional setting to meet the

learning challenge. The most common would be to incorporate this when teaching introductory

vocabulary or creating foundational associations about a topic. A teacher could present

vocabulary with images alongside a verbal explanation of a concept in a presentation for students

and consistently display these throughout the lesson. Another way to apply this theory would be

to allow students to create the dual-coding for topics that have already been taught. The

importance of this theory is to present information using dual-coding regardless of the topic.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Learning Process Theories

In my opinion, applying these three learning processing theories would solve the learning

challenge present in alternative education, specifically creating instruction that would allow

students to be successful. Although there are many other challenges in alternative education and

there is a possibility that this wouldn’t solve the learning challenge for all students, I believe it

would make a significant impact to most students.


With all theories and instructional practices, there are strengths and weaknesses, and

learning process theories are no different. Regarding alternative education, there are many

strengths in these theories, which is why they provide a solution to the learner problem. One

strength is the opportunity to enhance and strengthen multiple intelligences that may not happen

in a traditional classroom. For students who possess different talents and abilities, an opportunity

to choose how they know what they know can be empowering. It is also much easier to

understand the material if it is taught in the intelligence that you are the strongest. By varying the

intelligences that are taught throughout a single topic, many more students can be served and

have a better chance of being successful. Another strength is an instructional framework that

provides sequential steps for the desired learning outcome. Many teachers, like myself, can

struggle with how to teach and ensure that students learn. An instructional framework helps to

eliminate the struggle while also providing a guide with an end goal in mind. Lastly, a hidden

strength is the ability to engage the learner with dual-coding and various opportunities for

presenting verbal and nonverbal information. The more students retain through dual-coding, the

less re-teaching must occur, therefore exceeding expectations and barriers.

The weaknesses that exist with these theories include the uncertainty of success using

these theories, the lack of teacher commitment and effort, and lastly the lack of resources to

apply these instructional practices in an instructional setting. Regardless of the theories being

used to help solve the learner challenge sometimes the risks cannot be overcome, in alternative

education, this fact is a sad reality. As far as weaknesses in the individual theories, I don’t see

any other than newer theories that have been suggested that might better serve the environment,

given the many changes that have occurred in education. Even though these theories present

weaknesses, I believe the strengths outweigh them and are worth the application.


Conclusion

I would assume the first thought to solving a learning challenge in alternative education

would be behaviorism but I prefer to think differently. Although the behavior is a key issue that

exists, considering it is a school for children with behavior problems, many times the problem

surrounds learning. Either the student’s mind wasn’t being stimulated or traditional methods of

teaching did not resonate with that student. In the few years that I have worked in alternative

education, I have found that using unconventional methods for teaching have bred the most

success. The learning challenge that exists in alternative education surrounds creating

instructional material and practices that allow students to be successful and commit topics to

long-term memory. Learning process theories focus on cognition and how learners process

information. It is my belief that by using Multiple Intelligence Theory, Gagne’s Nine Phases of

Learning, and Dual-Coding Theory into application can solve the learning challenge present in

alternative education. Even though there are many obstacles, barriers, and issues that are

associated with alternative education, I believe that by using learning process theories and

focusing on student learning, success is inevitable.


References

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Gredler, M. (2009). Learning and Instruction Theory into Practice. Upper Saddle River:

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technology: From knowing to feeling enhancing emotional and content acquisition

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Rosen, T., Fullwood, H., Henley, T., & King, J. (2012). Dual Coding Theory and Split Attention

in the Learning of Abstract Words. International Journal of Instructional Media, 39(3),

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Learning Theories and Instruction Paper Jessica Willis ... · LEARNING THEORIES AND INSTRUCTION PAPER 2 Abstract This paper addresses the learning challenge of working in an alternative