Learning Theorists in History

Aristotle

350 BCE

Considered theoretical intelligence to be superior to practical intelligence.

St. Augustine (Augustine of Hippo)

354

Augustine thought teachers should adapt their teaching to their students, whom he distinguished into three kinds: those well educated in the liberal arts, those who had studied with inferior teachers of rhetoric and who thought they understood things they did not actually understand, and those who were uneducated. The teacher needs to begin with all students by questioning them about what they know.

Al-Ghazali

1058

Early childhood development was a central focal point of Al-Ghazali. He worked to influence and develop a program to mold the young minds of children at an early age to develop their mind and character.

Desiderius Erasmus

1467

The formation and correct use of language was a primary concern for Erasmus. He wrote several works that would seem to provide a starting point for a philosophy of language.

Charlemagne

1768

Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship, promoting the liberal arts at the court, ordering that his children and grandchildren be well-educated, and even studying himself under the tutelage of Paul the Deacon, from whom he learned grammar, Alcuin, with whom he studied rhetoric, dialect and astronomy (he was particularly interested in the movements of the stars), and Einhard, who assisted him in his studies of arithmetic.

Jean Piaget

1923

Regarded cognitive development as a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

Lev Vygotsky

1933

In Vygotsky's view, spontaneous and scientific concepts belong to a dialectical unity and become organized together along opposite paths: spontaneous concepts proceed from the concrete to the abstract; scientific concepts, from the abstract to the concrete.