Various pedagogical perspectives or learning theories may be considered in designing and interacting with educational technology. E-learning theory examines these approaches. These theoretical perspectives are grouped into three main theoretical schools or philosophical frameworks: behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism.
Behaviorism
This theoretical framework was developed in the early 20th century based on animal learning experiments by Ivan Pavlov, Edward Thorndike, Edward C. Tolman, Clark L. Hull, and B.F. Skinner. Many psychologists used these results to develop theories of human learning, but modern educators generally see behaviorism as one aspect of a holistic synthesis. Teaching in behaviorism has been linked to training, emphasizing the animal learning experiments. Since behaviorism consists of the view of teaching people how to do something with rewards and punishments, it is related to training people.
B.F. Skinner wrote extensively on improvements of teaching based on his functional analysis of verbal behavior and wrote "The Technology of Teaching", an attempt to dispel the myths underlying contemporary education as well as promote his system he called programmed instruction. Ogden Lindsley developed a learning system, named Celeration, that was based on behavior analysis but that substantially differed from Keller's and Skinner's models.
Cognitivism
Cognitive science underwent significant change in the 1960s and 1970s to the point that some described the period as a "cognitive revolution" particularly in reaction to behaviorism. While retaining the empirical framework of behaviorism, cognitive psychology theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning by considering how human memory works to promote learning. It refers to learning as "all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used" by the human mind. The Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model and Baddeley's working memory model were established as theoretical frameworks. Computer Science and Information Technology have had a major influence on Cognitive Science theory. The Cognitive concepts of working memory (formerly known as short-term memory) and long-term memory have been facilitated by research and technology from the field of Computer Science. Another major influence on the field of Cognitive Science is Noam Chomsky. Today researchers are concentrating on topics like cognitive load, information processing, and media psychology. These theoretical perspectives influence instructional design.
There are two separate schools of cognitivism and these are the cognitivist and social cognitivist. The former focuses on the understanding of the thinking or cognitive processes of an individual while the latter includes social processes as influences in learning besides cognition. These two schools, however, share the view that learning is more than a behavioral change but as a mental process used by the learner.
Constructivism
Educational psychologists distinguish between several types of constructivism: individual (or psychological) constructivism, such as Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and social constructivism. This form of constructivism has a primary focus on how learners construct their own meaning from new information, as they interact with reality and with other learners who bring different perspectives. Constructivist learning environments require students to use their prior knowledge and experiences to formulate new, related, and/or adaptive concepts in learning (Termos, 2012). Under this framework the role of the teacher becomes that of a facilitator, providing guidance so that learners can construct their own knowledge. Constructivist educators must make sure that the prior learning experiences are appropriate and related to the concepts being taught. Jonassen (1997) suggests "well-structured" learning environments are useful for novice learners and that "ill-structured" environments are only useful for more advanced learners. Educators utilizing a constructivist perspective may emphasize an active learning environment that may incorporate learner centered problem-based learning, project-based learning, and inquiry-based learning, ideally involving real-world scenarios, in which students are actively engaged in critical thinking activities. An illustrative discussion and example can be found in the 1980s deployment of constructivist cognitive learning in computer literacy, which involved programming as an instrument of learning. LOGO, a programming language, embodied an attempt to integrate Piagetan ideas with computers and technology. Initially there were broad, hopeful claims, including "perhaps the most controversial claim" that it would "improve general problem-solving skills" across disciplines. However, LOGO programming skills did not consistently yield cognitive benefits. It was "not as concrete" as advocates claimed, it privileged "one form of reasoning over all others," and it was difficult to apply the thinking activity to non-LOGO-based activities. By the late 1980s, LOGO and other similar programming languages had lost their novelty and dominance and were gradually de-emphasized amid criticisms.
From a constructivist approach, the research works on the human learning process as a complex adaptive system developed by Peter Belohlavek showed that it is the concept that the individual has that drives the accommodation process to assimilate new knowledge in the long-term memory, defining learning as an intrinsically freedom-oriented and active process. As a student-centered learning approach, the unicist reflection driven learning installs adaptive knowledge objects in the mind of the learner based on a cyclic process of: "action-reflection-action" to foster an adaptive behavior.