» » Theorists in 140

Froebel
For the last year I've been regularly tweeting a series that I've called Theorists in 140, so today's (lengthy!) post explains what it's all about, and why I've been doing this.

One of the most common inquiries I deal with is people asking for information on different theorists on child development - figures such as Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, Lev Vygotsky etc. For a few years now I've found that students seem to struggle with finding enough information on different theorists - and yet there really is plenty of good quality, freely available information out there if you know how to look for it.

So the idea behind Theorists in 140 was really quite simple - I would try to demonstrate that a single tweet could contain enough information to give you at least a basic overview (and often much more detail) of a theorist's ideas. In practice this meant finding four URLs with useful information about or written by that theorist, and then squeezing them into a single tweet by using the bitly link shortener. Given how many different well-known theorists there are, that's a lot of information to find, so I spread the workload by posting each tweet on the relevant theorist's birthday.

Judging what qualifies as 'reliable' information is of course notoriously difficult when it comes to the Web, so I set some ground rules:
  • There would be no links to Wikipedia pages
  • If I thought a page might be in breach of copyright, I didn't link to it
  • Basically all links had to be to sites that students could be encouraged to use!
  • I also tried to ensure that each tweet linked to a diverse range of sources, rather than having four links to written articles which all covered the same ground
On a practical level, it was often easier to get high quality information that met the above criteria if the theorist in question had been dead for a long time! There's a good reason for this - works relating to these individuals tends to be out of copyright, and so it's easier to link to an EBook or other item which is freely available for anyone to use.

Owen
There's a serious point to this exercise, beyond tweeting links which people will hopefully find useful. If you can improve your research skills to the point where you can access relevant information quickly and easily, then you'll be able to spend more time actually reading and digesting that information rather than simply trying to get hold of it. And of course, the more diverse your source material, the more likely it is that you'll gain a deeper understanding of your topic.

I'm showing the complete list of Theorists in 140 at the bottom of this post, though if you're still wedded to print books then you should really have a look at Noel Sheehy's Fifty Key Thinkers in Psychology, or Colette Gray and Sean MacBlain's Learning Theories in Childhood, which both contain excellent overviews of a wide range of learning theories.

I'll keep tweeting the links below on the relevant days of the year, but who have I missed? Do get in touch if there's a theorist you think should be included in this series, and I'll see what I can put together. And why stop at theorists? If you've any ideas for another topic which would benefit from a 'in 140' approach then let me know and I'll investigate it further, or of course you could have a go yourself... Anyway, hopefully all site readers will find something useful in the collection below.

Carl Rogers 
Rogers in 140: Intro: bit.ly/mdkXSJOverview: bit.ly/VMfRhy Bio: Resources: bit.ly/y3jSh4 

Johann Pestalozzi 
Pestalozzi in 140: Profile http://bit.ly/13e6Tzl Essay http://bit.ly/euqhRS Biography http://bit.ly/VTtkEl EBook http://bit.ly/VQue3X

Loris Malaguzzi 
Malaguzzi in 140: Life http://bit.ly/12YS1Gv Article http://bit.ly/RSLGCU Interview http://bit.ly/Xkk4sW Obit http://ind.pn/15pDJym 

Steiner
Rudolf Steiner 
Steiner in 140: Profile http://bit.ly/t98J5 EBook http://bit.ly/VHW3yJ Archive http://bit.ly/mBnub Schools http://bit.ly/c4y2S3 

John Bowlby 
Bowlby in 140: Bio http://bit.ly/Yuoq4lArticle http://bit.ly/ZuNgjs Theory http://bit.ly/Douls Attachments http://bit.ly/PoMhzy 

BF Skinner 
Skinner in 140: Profile http://bit.ly/13QKuKo Theory http://bit.ly/m8fAjR EBook http://bit.ly/18pYMAc Video http://bit.ly/WjTK5k 

Friedrich Froebel
Froebel in 140: Profile http://bit.ly/ZcOFZe Autobio http://bit.ly/15ZUrUg Article http://bit.ly/WULOd8 Trust http://bit.ly/ZcPqSf 

Robert Owen
Owen in 140: Profile http://bit.ly/11Q3cNE Schools http://bit.ly/Z2Vxdz Essay http://bit.ly/10msnWK Museum http://bit.ly/15mVbq5 

Susan Isaacs
Isaacs in 140: Overview http://bit.ly/10EXD3x Bio http://bit.ly/14vOrBD School http://bit.ly/12wTqRn Article http://bit.ly/13rvvSj  

Erik Erikson
Erikson in 140: Theory http://bit.ly/heG6Xf Video http://bit.ly/11v8bSb Obit http://nyti.ms/diEwOX Research Paper http://1.usa.gov/19pyn9Z 

Howard Gardner
Gardner in 140: Overview http://bit.ly/11f3Rau Video http://bit.ly/Ufe76 Interview http://bit.ly/196g7Q9 Website http://bit.ly/diPAfk  

Margaret McMillan
McMillan in 140: Bio: http://bit.ly/qk2Uh0 EBook: http://bit.ly/190jTxe EBook 2: http://bit.ly/1bF5RRh Blog: http://bit.ly/L4PLzY 

Rudolph Schaffer
Schaffer in 140: Theory http://bit.ly/1apNwWM Study http://bit.ly/1dC789G Interview http://bit.ly/1bkbrdd Obit http://bit.ly/18iMXNx  

Jean Piaget
Piaget in 140: Bio http://bit.ly/16WMq0N Theory http://bit.ly/LcHP3p EBook http://bit.ly/13A8hx3 Video http://bit.ly/TEstqI 

Maria Montessori
Montessori in 140: Bio http://bit.ly/17GsrH Video http://bit.ly/iQNuDp Article http://bit.ly/10L51cw EBook http://bit.ly/MNO4D  

Jerome Bruner
Bruner in 140:Article: http://bit.ly/ixNE0Q Interview: http://bit.ly/bSqBEX Research summary: http://bit.ly/VuuAQ1 Vid: http://bit.ly/6Fc8mD 

AS Neill
Neill in 140: Profile http://bit.ly/QFqksk Film http://bit.ly/OxOLL5 EBook http://bit.ly/QU9ebo Summerhill alumni http://bit.ly/mUceke  

John Dewey
Dewey in 140: Profile http://bit.ly/Qrq2Hi Film bit.ly/pPeneI EBook bit.ly/o4wVvJEBook 2 bit.ly/ruRIZA  

Lev Vygotsky
Vygotsky in 140: Overview: bit.ly/UKzll2 Theory: Article: http://bit.ly/1faT6PYArchive: bit.ly/a9FiRn  

Albert Bandura
Bandura in 140: Profile http://stanford.io/18lnguj Theory: http://bit.ly/JiS0jB Essay: http://bit.ly/UbE1Qa Critique: http://bit.ly/TDuyF0
5:51 AM

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