Learning Theories

Is the acquisition of higher levels of knowledge a self afflicting mechanism, a battle of inter and intra personal driven mediation or it happens through progressive elaboration? Do we master higher skills due to our continuously evolving innate reflexes into more complex mental structures? Do we do that because our inner language needs to be synchronized with the language of our social surrounding? Do we become higher beings, as we conquer lower levels of understanding and consequently we develop appetite for higher intelligence?    
According to French psychologist Jean Piaget’s cognitive theories, learning and knowledge develop using initial structures given to the human brain by nature. Initially, this is merely a set of build-in reflexes such as sucking, grasping, shaking, etc. which at later age stages, develop into more complex mechanisms. Consequently, natural development precedes learning process. Therefore, children learn much differently from adults and their cognitive development, from infancy to adulthood, falls into four different stages; sensorimotor during infancy (0-2 years), preoperational during toddler and early childhood (2-7 years), concrete operational during elementary and early adolescence (7-11 years) and formal operational for the rest of the adolescence and adulthood period. Furthermore, every mental representation of the world used as a referral in order to respond and assess a situation, is stored as a script of actions called the schema. Schema is initially stored by the assimilation and equilibrium process. Any subsequent formations or alterations of the initial schema are done through the accommodation and equilibrium sequence. Having equilibrium being the key element of learning, classroom strategies should be student-centered, anchored to individual’s biological readiness, facilitated and not directed by the teacher, assessed for determining adequately attainable tasks, focused on both group and individual activities,   entailed...