The Principles, Applications and Communication of Teaching and Learning Theories

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The principles, applications and communication of teaching and learning theories In teaching cycle there are many different factors contribute to the final outcome, one of the factor is student learning which contributes the most to our teaching strategies. To get the best outcome, we have to apply the teaching strategies that suits our group profile the best, and in order to do that we need to know how student learn. Educational psychology is one of the principle foundations for our preparation. It provides an insight into the relationships between us and the students by defining how students learn. The educational psychology can be broken down into four theorists: behaviourism, social and situational, cognitivist, and humanism. Sometimes we have to use combination of two or more theories in our practice to get the best outcome and other times use of one theory would give us the satisfactory outcome. Behaviourism learning that occurs through the reinforcement of desired responses from learners, the principle from behavioural learning theory has been dominating the educational thinking since Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with animals. This theory focuses on objectively observable behaviours that define learning as nothing more than gaining new behaviour. The system is based on rewards and punishments and believes if the rewards or positive reinforcement provided by teacher whenever learners perform a desired behaviour, then learners will learn to perform the behaviour on their own and the same applies to punishments. The good example of behaviourism that we used in our practice and most of the times are very successful, is when the students are using their mobile phone during the lesson that they are not allowed to, because of the distraction it can cause to their process of learning, we set punishment to take their mobile phone away from them if they get find out using it or awarding them with extra free time, if they get above certain percentage in their mock exam. In behaviourism learning, teacher is the dominate person in the classroom and takes complete control, also decides what is right or wrong, the problem with that is: students do not have any opportunity for reflection in their learning process, as the focus is on their external changes in behaviour, not interested in the internal processes of learning and has no place for emotions involved in the process, therefore this could lead to surface learning instead of deep learning. “Learning should not be viewed as simply the transmission of abstract and decontextualized knowledge from one individual to another, but a social process whereby knowledge is co-constructed; they suggest that such learning is situated in a specific context and embedded within a particular social and physical environment.” Lave and Wenger (1991). The perfect example of this is group works that allows our students to learn by the combination of socialization, visualization and imitation. Our students begin learning by exploring real life situations to find solutions when trying to solve problems and by sharing ideas, the less knowledgeable student in the group will benefit and learn from the knowledge of those who are more knowledgeable in the group and they are compelled to learn in these real life situations, the only thing we have to consider when assigning them in different groups is to have balance in each group and between the groups. "The pedagogy of the lifelong-learning era is evolving toward reliance on interaction. Sometimes this involves interacting with a rich technological environment such as a computer tutor or a game on the web and sometimes with other people by means of a computer network. The pedagogy of computer tutors echoes the apprenticeship model in setting individualized tasks for learners and offering guidance and feedback as they work." Halverson, A. C. (2009). In the past when student learned about any particular subject, it was done individually in an active...
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