Theories of Human Learning: What the Old Woman Said

by Guy R. Lefrancois

Both a serious academic text and a delightful story, this book offers a clear, readable look at a full range of learning theories-from behavioral to cognitive- and also covers memory, motivation, connectionism (neural net models), and social learning. It concludes with a comprehensive synthesis. Its most apparent strength is its easily accessible style, but its greatest value lies in the clarity of its concepts. THEORIES OF HUMAN LEARNING is told by an old woman. But this old woman isn't just anyone. In fact, professors familiar with previous editions of this book may conclude that she is related to Kongor and Kro, those extraterrestrials who, in earlier editions, so successfully guided students through the maze of historic and current theories that help us understand how humans learn. And, wise as she is, the old woman does the job even more effectively than her predecessors in this fifth edition of THEORIES OF HUMAN LEARNING: WHAT THE OLD WOMAN SAID.

408 pages, Hardcover

First published June 29, 2005

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the fuck? I guess it's kind of cute to make a textbook story-like and told through the perspective of an "old woman". I guess. Honestly, it's kind of weird. Props for trying to be different than every other textbook.. but can you just give me the facts? And not have all this.. filler? I already have to sit through the wretched class that uses this book. Ugh.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many theories regarding learning. The author addresses several of these from Pavlov through Skinner and beyond. This is a handy reference for the teacher of any field.