Theories and Practices of Teaching and Learning

“Teachers must learn how to teach … they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.” –B.F.Skinner. When we say the word “learning”, we usually mean “to think using the brain”. This basic concept of learning is the main viewpoint in the Cognitive Learning Theory. The theory has been used to explain mental processes as they are influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which eventually bring about learning in an individual.

Some time we teachers believe that, learning is knowledge and thing that can simply be given by the teacher at the front of the room to students in their desk. We get chance to give students to construct their knowledge. After studying this theory I came to know how wrong we are. Knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development. Students learn by fitting new information together with what they already know.

Important people in behaviorisms are:

     Ivan Pavlov – Did the experiment with the dogs. Came up with the theory of classical conditioning.

    B.F.Skinner – Developed the theory of operant conditioning.  Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behaviour.

    John B. Watson – The “little Albart” experiment. He gets credit for establishing the psychological school of behaviourism.

  Threndike – The law of effect

     Cognitive and behaviorism are two schools of thought we have learned in this module. Cognitive psychologists try to understand the process involved and how they operate.  They argue that in order to understand the behaviour of an individual, the internal events that happen within the individual must be studied. Behaviourist believes that learning is just a change of behaviour.  According to them, behaviourism does not really explain how the mind operates and people attempt to organize and make sense of the information they learn.

   Constructivism is a learning theory found in psychology which explains how people might acquire knowledge and learn. It therefore has direct application to education. The theory suggests that humans construct knowledge and meaning from their experiences. Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy.

    Constructivist theory believes that knowledge is not something that individual gain from the outside rather it is something they gain from their own active experiences.    In this topic I have learn more about Social Constructivism. Social constructivism emphasized the importance of social interactive, culture and language in the construction of knowledge and learning.    Vygotsky’s theory states that knowledge is co-constructed and that individuals learn from one another. Learning happens with the assistance of other people, thus contributing the social aspect of the theory. A fundamental aspect of Vygotsky’s theory is the Zone of Proximal Development. This is a “range of tasks that are too difficult for an individual to master alone, but can be mastered with the assistance or guidance of adults or more-skilled peers (Vygotsky, 1962).” Another part of this theory is scaffolding, which is giving the learner the right amount of assistance at the right time. If the learner can perform a task with some assistance, then he or she is closer to mastering it. This theory is relevant to healthy adolescent development because if students work in pairs, they are interacting with people and therefore can learn different academic ideas from one another. This theory shows that students learn from each other; they can assist one another and co-construct knowledge.   

Metacognition is, put simply, thinking about one’s thinking.  More precisely, it refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance. Metacognition includes a critical awareness of one’s thinking and learning and oneself as a thinker and learner.Initially studied for its development in young children (Baker & Brown, 1984; Flavell, 1985), researchers soon began to look at how experts display metacognitive thinking and how, then, these thought processes can be taught to novices to improve their learning (Hatano& Inagaki, 1986).    

Advantages of Metacognition are:" Metacognition enhances and enriches the learning experience"."Applying metacognitive strategies such as self-awareness and self-monitoring is to develop independent learners who can control their own learning and learn how to learn for life"(Papaleontiou-Louca, 2008).   Metacognition provides self-monitoring, which is a step-by-step process of evaluation during the learning process.  

Cooperative learning is an educational approach which aims to organize classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. There is much more to Cooperative Learning than merely arranging students into groups, and it has been described as "structuring positive interdependence. This topic I have learnt in classroom management module also, so it made me easy to understand the concept of this topic.
  Cooperative learning is very common term I heard and also I use this teaching strategy in my class. Sometime I felt that when I assigned some tasks, some of my students are not participating and class become too noisy. Because of many reasons like this, I was afraid to conduct cooperative learning in my classroom.