While the world continues to grow and develop, education is becoming more and more important each year. With teaching, there is no exact answer to which way is most effective, every child learns differently. It is the teacher's job to investigate the ways their individual students learn and adjust their teachings accordingly. A learning theory is the framework that describes the way information is going to be absorbed, processed and then retained. Three different learning theories are Behavioral, Cognitive, and Constructivist (Koch 94). .
Behaviorism is the theory "that learning takes place in response to reinforcements from the outside environment," (Koch). With behaviorism, observable behavior is the main focus. This means behaviorists focus on the behaviors that can be seen, such as body language. They believe the nature of reward and punishment (stimuli) are factors that influence learning. Behaviorists see the role of memory as hardwiring of repeated experiences. Memory of a concept is attained by repeating the process, mostly task-based, several times (Koch). According to B.F. Skinner, a key figure in the behaviorism theory, infants are born without any knowledge at all. However, as they grow and learn, they are capable of distinguishing differences of the environment around them and responding to them, after they have been exposed to the factors several times. This is the same thing that occurs during a student's school years. The more the student is exposed to information, the better chance they have of retaining that information. The environment is one of the largest factors on a student's learning capabilities: "the external environment is what is to be noted and copied internally," (Strauss 193). In behaviorism, there are no cognitive restraints (Strauss 193). .
There are two types of cognitive learning theories. The first one is cognitive learning which involves explanation of the learning process.
