Psychology and Learning (Essay Sample)

Associationist, Cognitive and Associative Approaches to Learning
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Associationst, Cognitive and Associative Approaches to Learning
Psychology plays a crucial role in understanding how people absorb and retain information. Therefore, some theories have been proposed to explain learners’ process of learning as well as an instructional process. Education goes beyond the physical interaction of teachers and the students in the school environment. Some theories such as Associationst, Cognitive and Associative ideas contribute significantly in the understanding of how learning takes place in school, at work like doing tasks like house chores and at social places. It is immutably agreed that teachers have explored these perspectives to decipher a variety of strategies to apply in learning.
Cognitive Theory and Learning
Cognitive informs the process of learning, problem-solving, conceptual development, reasoning, and communication. In essence, cognitive perspectives suggest that learning is a mental process. For instance, the mental process that involves the acquisition of language and sense perception is critical in education since it enables the teachers to give individualized attention to the learners. Furthermore, the approach also informs how knowledge needs to be structured in the minds of the learners when handling a task and when there is a need to transfer to a situation (Shi et al. 2020). Learning requires some cognitive experiences that are shaping the acquisition of knowledge as well as skills and how such experiences should be structured. It also emphasizes the need for contextual experiences that are informed by interactive learning which in turn is reliant on communication to motivate, facilitate and stimulate thought.
The cognitive learning approach informs the formulation and the implementation of educational practices and policies that reflect scientific processes such as reasoning, problem-solving, communication, conceptual development, and social participation. In practice, education should involve processes that stimulate the senses to begin the process of concept development. For instance, the education system inculcates the co-curriculum activities that enable students to interact with fellow students in sports and games.
Associationst and Learning
Associationst relate learning with an individual`s casual history. In essence, some pairs of thoughts are linked based on the learner`s experience. For example, a person will think about certain objects based on the interaction with the objects. Therefore, associationist perception can aid learning through behavior theorizing, mental structures, and connectionism. According to the associationsts, there are ideas or concepts in the mind that had never been experienced in the real life. Therefore, the aligning of information and ideas in the mind is dictated by the ordering of the perceptions in the real experiences that made the ideas emerge.
The approach aid learning by emphasizing contextual significance to stimulation of learning. For instance, the theory borrowed from classical conditioning where desirable experiences that are associated with certain objects are remembered while those that are less desirable are least remembered (Clancy, 2019). Therefore, the policies that are used to support learning and curriculum formulation should be centered on the interactive strategies so that learnings can be involved in the learning process. Active experiences and student-centered approaches to learning support the associationist theory to learning since there are active and effective absorption and retention of knowledge.
Situated Learning
According to the proponents of this approach to learning, learning takes place within an unintentional and situated context, culture, and activity contrary to the general belief that learning is intentional. Therefore, learning is embedded in an activity, culture, and context under a process called 'legitimate peripheral participation. That is to say, learning takes place when it is integrated and presented in an authentic context, situations, and settings that would associate the intended knowledge (Binti Pengiran, et al. 2018). Learners are involved in a community of practice that entails certain behaviors and beliefs and as the learners move from the periphery to the entre of the community of the practice they acquire knowledge. In essence, as the learners ge