Associationism

Correspondence Discourses are perspectives on learning that assume a radical separation of mental (or internal, or brain-based) and physical (or external, or body-based). That separation sets up the need for a correspondence between what’s happening in the real, objective world and what’s happening in one’s inner, subjective world. Most assume object-based metaphors, linear/direct imagery, and Newtonian mechanics, thus framing learning in terms of acquiring, attaining, inputting, and/or linking.

Psychoanalytic Theories comprise several schools of thought that are concerned with the study of the actions and beliefs that are not mediated (and often not moderated) by the conscious mind. Psychoanalytic Theories are most often focused on mental-health disorders. Many of these theories’ core constructs have come to be embedded in Western culture, and some are commonly assumed in prominent educational discourses.

Radical Constructivism focuses on personal knowing – that is, the ongoing, iterative dynamic by which individuals construe coherent sense from their personal perceptions and experiences. Concisely, learning is understood as a continuous process of revising concepts to maintain personal coherence in the face of new experiences/demands.

Coherence Discourses regard distinctions and descriptions as useful devices to make sense of the complex dynamics of learning, but they caution that such devices are mere heuristic conveniences. Coherence Discourses suggest that truths do not exist independently or outside of a system – which is a commentary on humans’ understanding of reality, not a commentary on reality. Most Coherence Discourses employ biological and ecological metaphors, with dynamics framed in evolutionary terms.

Representationalism is the belief that the world one perceives in one’s mind is not reality, but an internal copy/replica/representation of reality. That means there can be no first-hand knowledge of the world; every observation and every concept is an internal re-creation (of reality or truth) that is based on incomplete raw data provided by the senses.

Connectionism asserts that mental phenomena can be modeled and explained using artificial neural networks that are interconnected in ways that mimic the brain’s nested and distributed structure. The theory builds on the realization that cognition is not a global process that emerges in the collective activity of neurons, but a process that is embodied at each level of the brain’s nested structure.

Behaviorisms reject the notion that knowledge is some sort of external, stable, and context-free form. Rejecting attempts to explain learning in terms of unobservable mental processes, Behaviorisms focus instead on observable and measurable phenomena – thus operationally defining learning in terms of changes in behavior that are attributable to environmental factors.

Empiricism is more commonly understood as a theory of knowledge than a theory of learning, but the line is often blurred in discussions of education. Empiricism states that knowledge comes from sensory experience, and thus emphasizes the role of experience and evidence. The “hard” version of Empiricism is associated with rigorous scientific research, and the “softer” versions emphasize inquiry, exploration, sense-making, and argumentation.