Question

You should give an overview of the theorist and their thoughts regarding development and learning. Then, compare and contrast that theory with the other two you selected. Your power point presentation might be organized like this:

Slide 1: Title slide with assignment name, student name, date, course

Slides 2 - 7: Overview of each theorist and then what they believed about learning and development (2 slides probably per person/theory) How did they influence the field of early childhood education?

Slides 8-9: Compare and contrast the theories - tell what is similar and what is different.

Slide 10: Resource slides lists our textbook in proper citation format. You can find this by going to

Answer 1

• Ivan Petrovich Pavlov,a Russian physiologist known chiefly for his development of the concept of the conditioned reflex. In a now-classic experiment, he trained a hungry dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, which was previously associated with the sight of food. He developed a similar conceptual approach, emphasizing the importance of conditioning, in his pioneering studies relating human behaviour to the nervous system. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for his work on digestive secretions.
• Classical conditioning, also known as "Pavlovian" conditioning, was an accidental discovery of Ivan Pavlov. He was doing a study on the role in saliva and what it did for digestion. During his study on saliva Pavlov noticed that the dogs were starting to salivate when the attendant that was feeding the dogs would enter the room the dogs would start to salivate. Either the sight or sounds of the attendant evoked this behavior in the dogs. Thought Pavlov was not studying the dogs for this reaction, it was a big discovery.
• The first step of classical conditioning is to introduce a neutral stimulus. When this neutral stimulus is presented another stimulus also needs to be presented. The second step is to introduce a second stimulus. This second stimulus needs to be something that is of significant, like in Pavlov's original experiments. When the attendant entered the room he had food. The end result is the dogs salivated when the attendant entered the room because the dogs new that he brought food.
• Operant conditioning was coined by behaviorist B.F. Skinner, which is why you may occasionally hear it referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that it was not really necessary to look at internal thoughts and motivations in order to explain behavior. Instead, he suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior.
• Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences." In other words, Skinner's theory explained how we acquire the range of learned behaviors we exhibit each and every day.
• His theory was heavily influenced by the work of psychologist Edward Thorndike, who had proposed what he called the law of effect. According to this principle, actions that are followed by desirable outcomes are more likely to be repeated while those followed by undesirable outcomes are less likely to be repeated.
• Operant conditioning deals with the modification of 'voluntary behavior' or operant behavior.Operant conditioning uses reinforcement, punishment and extinction. The reinforcement will cause the behavior to happen more. Punishment will cause the behavior to occur less frequently. There are positive and negative reinforcements and punishments. With a positive punishment or reinforcement the end result should be that that behavior is used more. With negative the behavior will hopefully decrease. Extinction occurs when there is a lack of consequences. This means that the behavior will occur less frequently.
• The Social Learning Theory originated from Albert Bandura. "Bandura's Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. His theory is considered the 'bridge' cogitative and behaviorist learning theories. The Social Learning Theory uses three things. These are observing, imitating, and reinforcements.
• Bandura thought that there was more to learning than just direct reinforcements in learning. He thought that people were able to learn by watching other people. This was called observational learning or modeling. Modeling can be used to explain a number of different behaviors. There are four conditions that are necessary for modeling. These conditions are attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.
• To learn something you must be paying attention. If something grabs your attention you might miss something important that you are trying to learn.
• Finally, after you pay attention, retain and reproduce the new behavior you are going to have to have motivation to imitate the new behavior.
• One of the major similarities is that both classical conditioning and operant conditioning is that both are learning by association. Classical conditioning is learning based on two stimuli. Operant conditioning is learning through either positive reinforcement or punishment or negative punishment or reinforcement.
• Other similarities in classical conditioning and operant conditioning are that neither will last if they are not reinforced. Also in both cases the responses are under control in a stimulus environment. Another interesting thing about these to conditions is that you can build new behaviors on the previously learned behaviors.
• Both the social learning theory and operant conditioning rely on motivation, rewards or punishment. In operant conditioning learning is based on what is acceptable and results in either a reinforcement (reward) or punishment. Social learning theory is based on watching and learning.
  
• One difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning is that the end result is not based entirely on one stimulus. In classical conditioning something learns a response based on a stimulus. With classical conditioning the response is not voluntary.
• With operant conditioning the person learning is participating in their learning. In operant conditioning things are learned through consequences. They know what they are doing and know that there will be something that will result from their action.
• With classical conditioning the response is a reflex. The subject has no control over its response.In operant conditioning things are learned through consequences and trial and error.
• The last important difference between classical conditioning and operant learning is in that in operant conditioning there is an incentive or reinforcement for an action. With classical conditioning there are no incentives for actions.
• The social learning theory is based on observing whereas classical conditioning is based on the introduction of a stimulus to get a result. The social learning theory takes place through observing, imitating, and modeling someone.With classical conditioning the result is predictable, after time, like when Pavlov's dogs were expecting their food.
• This is just an overview of the different theories and their similarities and differences,the rest can be asked as another question due to time constraints,thankyou