Foundational and Developmental Learning Concepts

Foundational and Developmental Learning Concepts groups theories about the learner's own underlying nature, developmental stage or individual differences, the ground a specific learning-mechanism theory or instructional design is then built on. Belongs here: Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development, Jean Piaget's account of the developmental sequence learners pass through; Tabula Rasa, John Locke's foundational empiricist concept of the mind as blank at birth; Multiple Intelligences Theory, Howard Gardner's account of distinct forms of intelligence; Learning Styles, the individual-preference theory of differing sensory or modality preferences; and Montessori Method, the developmental theory of sensitive periods and a prepared environment underlying Maria Montessori's work, distinct from Montessori Education, the whole named school system grouped under the approach type's Named Pedagogical Models and Movements. Does not belong here: a theory of a specific learning mechanism operating once a learner is at a given stage, such as Schema Theory, grouped under Behaviorist and Cognitive Processing Theories, and a whole named pedagogical movement built on a developmental foundation, which is an approach-type entity rather than a theory-type one.