View All Theories I know what you’re thinking. “How the hell am I supposed to do all of these” or “which ones should I use” or “I’m more confused than ever!”. That’s how I felt when I was doing my teacher training. The truth is, great teaching involves a cocktail of most of these at […]

View All Theories Rudolf Dreikur proposed the theory that mutual respect should be the basis for discipline and that this mutual respect motivates learners to display positive behaviours. He believed students have an innate desire to feel like an accepted member of a group and to feel like they have value and confidence to contribute […]

View All Theories Assertive discipline is a structured system to enable teachers to manage their classrooms. It focuses on the teacher developing a positive behaviour management strategy rather than being dictatorial. Canter’s proposition is that the teacher has the right to decide what is best for their students and that no student should prevent any […]

View All Theories Developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1980s, facilitative learning is a humanistic approach to learning. Humanism. Humanism was developed to contrast cognitivism and behaviourism. Both Rogers and Maslow (see above) based their work in humanism. The key perspectives of humanism are as follows: ● People have a natural desire […]

View All Theories Operant Conditioning. Operant conditioning is based on Thorndike’s “Law of Effect” (1898), in which it is proposed that behaviours that are followed by positive responses are likely to be repeated and those that are followed by negative responses, not repeated. Skinner refined the Law of Effect by introducing “reinforcement” into the descriptions. […]

View All Theories In 1985 Dugan Laird stated in his book ” Approaches to Training and Development ” that learning occurs when the senses are stimulated. He quoted research that found that 75% of an adult’s knowledge was obtained by seeing. 13% was through hearing, the remaining 12% was learned through touch, smell and taste […]

View All Theories The Peter Principle was developed by American educational theorist Laurence Peter and was explained in the book “The Peter Principle” that Peter wrote with his colleague, Raymond Hull. Originally the book was supposed to be a satirical view on how people are promoted in organisations but it became popular as it actually […]

View All Theories   David Kolb, an American education theorist proposed his four-stage experiential learning theory in 1984. It is built on the premise that learning is the acquisition of abstract concepts which can then be applied to a range of scenarios. “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” […]

View All Theories Erik Erikson was a stage theorist who developed Freud’s “Psychosexual Theory” and adapted it into a psychosocial (having both psychological and social aspects) theory encompassing eight stages. According to Erikson, we experience eight stages of development during our life span. Within each stage, there is a dilemma that we must resolve in […]