I reckon that learning takes place when there is an active engagement of one’s cognition resulting in a permanent shift of their mental model. It is usually observable through the learner’s directed course of action and/or testable through an appropriate form of evaluation.

For such true learning to occur, it has to come with an effective method. The best teacher isn’t necessarily one who is always available by email/office hours, a PhD holder or gives the most elaborate assignments. Although all those may be bonus factors, the best teacher synthesizes the best of the learning environment to achieve the learning outcomes. He/she leverages whatever is the course content, student’s expertise in the knowledge area or lack thereof, available tools, learning styles and other limitations to meet the goals. Overall, the best teacher doesn’t just teach students to give them knowledge but enables the students to give/seek out of knowledge for themselves. That creates resultant learning beyond the classroom walls.

With the aforementioned discussion of learning and teachers, it is fairly square to pick what spectrum learning theory they belong in. Though various experts propose and advocate one learning theory or the other, the extremes seem to be objectivism and constructivism. In my viewpoint, holistic learning, over the years and especially in terms of higher education seems to be a progression from objectivism to constructivism. It begins in early pre-k and such that when students are taught the alphabets or nursery rhymes, they simply regurgitate information without much thought as to the hows or whys. As such students advance in educational pursuits there is a gradual shift from mirroring information to knowledge creation which peaks at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels. The latter is closely associated with constructivism, with it’s emphasis on knowledge creation.

For those of us studying learning, our strategies have to be flexible. We can be proponents of a particular theory in so far as it allows careful empirical investigation. But we must not be tightly bound by these, that we fail to evolve with anecdotal nuances. This is because the subjects and systems we study, humans and learning, are ever changing anyway. Additionally, issues of anthropological relevance are not to be neglected in such matters. For instance, what is proven to be relevant in one sociocultural setting, may not buttressed in a different setting because it does not provide the same accommodations.

I have a very ‘hippie’ unconventional view to learning; anyone can learn anything, anywhere, at anytime. I think learning itself is unstructured, and education is the ‘structuralization’ of it. This is from my own experience as a part of the learning system in various capacities as a participant (student), a support system (parent), and a subject matter expert (instructor). Thus, my personal philosophy can be surmised as this; learning is far too complex to be boxed into either objectivism, constructivism or sociocultural theories because it combines aspects of all three. One can learn from an expert, self or group; by replicating and/or constructing. Given the right context, each will find its effective place.