Great Minds on Learning

'We're now beginning to unpack what is really good for learners and teaching' says Donald Clark, 'and it's not what we thought it was.' Learning Theory over the ages has concentrated largely on the 'front end' of the process: learning as an event and an experience. Less attention has been given to the back end, how one makes it stick. This episode concentrates on the people who explored these questions of practice and transfer, from William James to the present day. What they discovered was a quite startling, counter-intuitive truth – one which has largely ignored by the educational establishment to date. ---------- 00:56 - Introducing pragmatism & practice 04:51 - What's the timeline? 05:47 - William James (1842 - 1910) 16:39 - John Dewey (1859-1952) 26:32 - K. Anders Ericsson (1947-2020) 36:37 - Robert A. Bjork (1939- ) & Elizabeth L. Bjork 43:41 - Henry L. Roediger III (1947-) and Jeffrey D. Karpicke 49:00 - Summing up ---------- Books mentioned in the discussion Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning By Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger (III), Mark A. McDaniel · 2014 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Make_It_Stick/oneWAwAAQBAJ?hl=en Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise By Anders Ericsson, Robert Pool · 2016 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Peak/eHfkCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 The Blog that started it all: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2020/08/100-learning-theorists-2500-years-of.html James bit.ly/2T2GntN Dewey bit.ly/37Z35ra Ericsson bit.ly/2PBrvR3 Bjork bit.ly/2PA9UZZ Karpicke & Roediger bit.ly/3uPhumZ Contact Donald Twitter: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer Twitter: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: http://johnhelmerconsulting.com/ Download the new white paper from Learning Pool written by John Helmer & Ben Betts – Suite Dreams: The Past, Present and Future of Learning Systems https://learningpool.com/suite-dreams/

In this episode, Donald and John discuss a group of theorists who mostly focused directly on instructional design, and who between them created a body of work which is canonical to the practice of learning design. Although their most famous maxims feature prominently on PowerPoints and blogs about learning design to this day, their ideas are often cherry-picked and misrepresented – as in the strange case of Benjamin Bloom and his eponymous Taxonomy. Donald calls for a revaluation, arguing passionately for their continued relevance and far-sightedness. 00:56 Introducing the Instructionalists 06:52 Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) 12:51 Benjamin Bloom (1913-1999) 26:29 Robert M. Gagné (1916-2002) 38:43 Robert F. Mager (1923-2020) 50:09 M. David Merrill (1937 -) 59:41 Summary The Blog that started it all: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2020/08/100-learning-theorists-2500-years-of.html Taylor bit.ly/2Qmi6g4 Bloom bit.ly/32QB3NL Gagne bit.ly/38iITR0 Mager bit.ly/38gyGVl Merrill bit.ly/2wtTyeo Contact Donald Twitter: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer Twitter: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: http://johnhelmerconsulting.com/ Download the new white paper from Learning Pool written by John Helmer & Ben Betts – Suite Dreams: The Past, Present and Future of Learning Systems https://learningpool.com/suite-dreams/

In this first episode of the first season of Great Minds on Learning, Donald Clark discusses the Behaviorists, a group of theorists who, starting with Pavlov in the early part of the 20th Century, did much to put psychology and the psychology of learning on an experimental, empirical basis. He argues that the Behaviorists have been much misunderstood. In particular, the myths surrounding B.F. Skinner, which have turned him into something of a hate-figure, have helped to spread the notion that behaviorist ideas were wrong-headed and have been superseded by cognitive psychology. In fact, their ideas, though still controversial, are probably more pervasive than ever. ---------- 00:56 - What is Behaviorism, and why do people hate it so much? 06:09 - What is the timeline? 07:50 - Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) 14:50 - John B. Watson (1878 - 1958) 23:31 - B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) 31:17 - Edward L. Thorndike (1874 – 1949) 36:56 - Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959) 41:31 - Albert Bandura (1925-2021) 49:36 - Behaviorism: the legacy ---------- The Blog that started it all: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2020/08/100-learning-theorists-2500-years-of.html Pavlov bit.ly/2V2cbQV Watson bit.ly/3lj33mD Skinner bit.ly/39Rlw2f Thorndike bit.ly/3bRXuWP Tolman bit.ly/3CqImwE Bandura bit.ly/32frFTg Contact Donald Twitter: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer Twitter: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: http://johnhelmerconsulting.com/ Download the new white paper from Learning Pool written by John Helmer & Ben Betts – Suite Dreams: The Past, Present and Future of Learning Systems https://learningpool.com/suite-dreams/

Another chance to hear the inaugural episode of Great Minds on Learning, which was originally aired back in March 2021 to considerable acclaim. In this series, Donald Clark – the internationally famous author, blogger and entrepreneur, joins John Helmer to discuss the history of thought and theorising about learning. This particular episode is about The Cognitivists, a group of theorists who made a vital contribution to what we now know about the mechanics of memory and learning. ---------- 00:47 Why is memory such an important focus for the cognitivists? 02:27 Introducing the Cognitivists 04:07 Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) 13:49 George A. MIller (1920-2012) 19:25 Richard C. Atkinson (1929- ) & Richard Shiffrin (1942- ) 24:09 Alan Baddeley (1934- ) 28:49 Endel Tulving (1927- ) 37:57 John Sweller (1946- ) 47:04 Summing up: the Cognitivists and Behaviourism ---------- The Blog that started it all: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2020/08/100-learning-theorists-2500-years-of.html Ebbinhaus bit.ly/2VvoxkX Miller bit.ly/37OaB85 Atkinson & Shiffrin bit.ly/37SEKTK Baddeley bit.ly/37WfFHq Tulving bit.ly/2VmFKNw Sweller bit.ly/2I7Pt2t Contact Donald Twitter: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer Twitter: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: http://johnhelmerconsulting.com/ Download the new white paper from Learning Pool written by John Helmer & Ben Betts – Suite Dreams: The Past, Present and Future of Learning Systems https://learningpool.com/suite-dreams/

Internationally respected author, blogger and learning expert, Donald Clark joins John Helmer of the Learning Hack podcast to discuss the history of thought and theorising about learning. From the Greeks to the Geeks, they cover 2,500 years of thought and science on learning. The inspired, the enduring, the wacked-out weird and the just plain wrong, from Socrates to the present day. Starting with a repeat of the popular pilot episode The Cognitivists on 30 August, the series proper kicks off on 13 September and runs fortnightly. Here's Season One: * The Behaviorists * Instructionalists * Practice * Holists * Online Educators * The Enlightenment Don't miss a single episode: subscribe now.