ABSTRACT
This essay takes a new look at four well-known learning theories: behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism, and humanism. It suggests that each of them is unable to address the complexity of human learning on their own, but that each one occupies a useful niche in a wider habitat of learning. The four theories can each be regarded as theoretical narratives with their own characteristic embedded metaphors and proposes that the theories can be seen as parts of an overarching ecological theory of learning. This approach might allow educators to choose which theory is most useful in a given learning situation.
