1. Edward Thorndike- First propose the connectionism.

He is popular in the 1st half of the

20th century, he said that learning is the responding to stimuli.
2. Connectionism- Thorndike main philosophy. It say that learning is a product of the
relationship between stimulus and response.
Stimulus- is something that causes a reaction for example think of what happen when a
big pieces of gooey chocolate cake is put in front of you? The sight and smell of the cake
are the stimulus and they are likely to produce a response and maybe even a growling
stomach.
- Stimulus and response are connected in a person minds, like associating in chocolate
cake with drooling. This connection between stimulus and response is called
Stimulus- response band or the S- R bond. The stronger the band the better the person
has learned the lesson. What is the connection in education? If the student every time
they study their lesson they got a good grade and every time they did not study they
got a bad grade.
- Where is the stimulus? – Study
- Where is the response- good grade = S-R bond Strong
The student believe that studying lead to good grade.
3. Law of Effect- the 1st law of connectionism
- If the stimulus result in a positive outcome, it strengthen the S-R bond.
- If the result is negative the S-R bond is weak.
- Example: the student got a good grade after studying – strong S-R bond
- The student think that the result of studying is a good grade.
- On the other side, if the student don’t study they get a low grade, so the S-R bond
weakend. The student learn that not studying result in low grade.
Advantages in Law of effect: it could use as a reward effort to make the struggling students work
hard to get his reward.