Science of teaching

Learn like a the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything.

"No, no, that's not what I want"; "Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now I'm grasping and comprehending what I need and what I want to know!" Carl Rogers 1983: 18-19.

Educational Psicology theories about human learning can be grouped into these perspectives:

Behaviorist:

Learning theorists:   Thorndike, Pavlov, Watson, Guthrie, Hull, Tolman, Skinner.

POV. of learning process:   Change in behaviour.

Action on:   Stimuli in external environment.

Purpose in education:   Produce behavioural change in desired direction.

Educator's role:   Arranges environment to elicit desired response.

Cognitivist:

Learning theorists:   Koffka, Kohler,Lewin, Piaget, Ausubel, Bruner, Gagne

POV of learning process:     Internal mental process.

Action on:    Internal cognitive structuring

Purpose in education:   Develop capacity and skills to learn better.

Educator's role:     Structures content of learning activity

Humanist:

Learning theorists:      Maslow, Rogers

POV of learning process:     A personal act to fulfil potential.

Action on:   Affective and cognitive needs.

Purpose in education:     Become self-actualized, autonomous

Educator's role:     Facilitates development of the whole person.

Social and situational:

Learning theorists:   Bandura, Lave and Wenger, Salomon

POV of learning process:     Interaction /observation in social contexts.

Action on:   Learning is in relationship between people and environment.

Purpose in education:   Full participation in communities of practice, utilization resources.

Educator's role:     Establish communities in which conversationand participation can occur.

And face it, on two point of view about what's learning:

Learning is something external to the learner. It may even be something that just happens or is done to you by teachers. In a way learning becomes a bit like shopping. People go out and buy knowledge  "it becomes their possession".

Learning as a quantitative increase in knowledge.
Learning is acquiring information.
Learning is storing information that can be reproduced.
Learning as acquiring skills, and methods that can be retained and used as necessary.

Or is something internal or personal aspect of learning. Learning is seen as something that you do in order to understand the real world.

Learning as making sense or abstracting meaning.
Learning involves relating parts of the subject matter to each other and to the real world.
Learning as interpreting and understanding reality.
Learning involves comprehending the world by reinterpreting knowledge. (quoted in Ramsden 1992: 26)

Your choise has strong implications, not only on what are you interested but on how your are going to learn.