Synthesis of Units I-IV
The nature of the learning has been studied by psychologists and physiologists. The science of psychology is of significance for the light that it throws upon the nature of the learning process and upon the conditions most favorable to learning. Many other sciences have contributed a great deal to an understanding of the nature of the learning process and to the principal issues involved in the education of boys and girls. In order to understand the teaching process, the students or the teachers must first know something about the learning process concerns the teacher no less than the pupils. Although the teacher cannot do the actual learning for the pupil/student, he/she can facilitate learning through effective teaching. Effective teaching and learning demand mutual understanding between teacher and learner. Therefore, the nature of the learning process must be clearly understood by the teachers so that the instructional activities may proceed in accordance with the basic factors of normal learning. If the teachers do not know how learning takes place they will not be able to accomplish in directing and guiding the learning activities of the pupils/students. Teachers should also know how activities of the pupils/students are sufficiently and effectively directed to bring about the desired growth and development of the learners.
Learning from the viewpoint of the connectionist’s theory refers to the famous stimulus-response or S-R bond theory advanced by Thorndike. This point of view is based on the concepts that bonds or connections are formed between situations and responses. Thorndike advocates the idea that learning results from strengthening and weakening of bonds or connections between situations and responses. The basis of learning is association between sense impression and impulses to action. This point of view, learning occurs through a change in the connection between a particular stimulus and a response, thus this theory regards a connection as the key to the understanding of the learning process.
Learning from the behaviorist’s point of view, refers to the building up of conditioned reflexes or habit formation resulting from conditioning. Conditioning consists of setting up within the individual certain inner adjustments that will affect over action. Behaviorism assumes that all human learning should be studied in terms of observable behavior, without any reference to consciousness. To them, practically all behavior is learned. Conditioning provides the model for explaining this process. To the behaviorists, learning is any change in the behavior of an organism. Such change may range from acquisition of knowledge, simple skill, specific attitude, and opinions. A change, when considered in terms of learning, is essentially a modification of behavior. To the behaviorist, human behavior has come to mean all observable behavior and learning as modification and re-modification of that behavior in all its aspects. To them, education is fundamentally a matter of conditioning.
Learning from the viewpoint of the Gestaltists implies that a set of stimulating circumstances takes place according to the reactive value of various stimuli acting at the same time. This point of view recognizes that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, or that the whole gets its meaning from the parts. It can be seen that the parts can be understood only in relation to one another and that this relationship is determined by the nature of the whole. The central theme of this theory is that the conception of experience at any given moment is determined by totality of its related phases which constitute an integrated pattern of configuration. Gestalt put emphasis upon immediate experience, interaction, and the whole child. It suggests that the body responds to stimuli as body rather than as mere brain and nervous system. Learning from this point of view is not complete until the new reactions have been thoroughly related and worked into individual’s former experience so that his total experience, old and new, bearing on situations, will function as a unit in meeting similar situations later. This point of view regards learning as essentially experiencing, reacting, doing, and understanding, not as mere matter of stimulus and responses, conditioned reflexes, and habit formation. Learning is an integrated response wherein the situation is perceived as a meaningful whole, with the various parts of independent.
Synthesis of Units V11-X11
UNIT VII Theory of Transfer of Training
The term ‘transfer of training’ is explicitly differentiated from the expression ‘transfer of learning’. The latter has its origin in an educational context (Cree and Macaulay 2000). Educationalists speak of ‘positive transfer’ when previous learning supports new learning, and of ‘negative transfer’ when it is rather a hindrance. This may under a certain perspective be relevant for training processes but is not referred to by the notion of ‘transfer of training’ (Gordon 1989).
Foxon (1993) outlines five stages of transfer, each of which is a prerequisite for the following stage. In the first transfer stage the trainee is motivated to apply the training on the job (“transfer intention”); in the second stage, there are attempts to apply the newly learnt skills (“transfer initiation”); some of the skills are inconsistently or sporadically applied in the third stage (“partial transfer”); in the fourth stage, the transfer is maintained, first consciously with some effort, then unconsciously as a daily part of the job performance (“transfer maintenance”); and, finally, there may be “transfer failure” when the learnt skills are not integrated into the repertoire of work behaviors. Transfer failure, of course, can occur at any stage of the transfer continuum.
UNIT VIII Theories of Individual Differences
That people differ from each other is obvious. How and why they differ is less clear and is the subject of the study of Individual differences (IDs). Although to study individual differences seems to be to study variance, how are people different, it is also to study central tendency, how well can a person be described in terms of an overall within-person average. Indeed, perhaps the most important question of individual differences is whether people are more similar to themselves over time and across situations than they are to others, and whether the variation within a single person across time and situation is less than the variation between people. A related question is that of similarity, for people differ in their similarities to each other. Questions of whether particular groups (e.g., groupings by sex, culture, age, or ethnicity) are more similar within than between groups are also questions of individual differences.
Personality psychology addresses the questions of shared human nature, dimensions of individual differences and unique patterns of individuals. Research in IDs ranges from analyses of genetic codes to the study of sexual, social, ethnic, and cultural differences and includes research on cognitive abilities, interpersonal styles, and emotional reactivity. Methods range from laboratory experiments to longitudinal field studies and include data reduction techniques such as Factor Analysis and Principal Components Analysis, as well as Structural Modeling and Multi-Level Modeling procedures. Measurement issues of most importance are those of reliability and stability of Individual Differences.
UNIT IX Observational Learning ot Social Cognitive Learning Theory
The social learning theory proposed by Albert Bandura has become perhaps the most influential theory of learning and development. While rooted in many of the basic concepts of traditional learning theory, Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning. His theory added a social element, arguing that people can learn new information and behaviors by watching other people. Known as observational learning (or modeling), this type of learning can be used to explain a wide variety of behaviors. In his famous "Bobo doll" studies, Bandura demonstrated that children learn and imitate behaviors they have observed in other people. The children in Bandura’s studies observed an adult acting violently toward a Bobo doll. When the children were later allowed to play in a room with the Bobo doll, they began to imitate the aggressive actions they had previously observed. Bandura identified three basic models of observational learning: A live model, which involves an actual individual demonstrating or acting out a behavior, a verbal instructional model, which involves descriptions and explanations of a behavior and a symbolic model, which involves real or fictional characters displaying behaviors in books, films, television programs, or online media. Bandura noted that external, environmental reinforcement was not the only factor to influence learning and behavior. He described intrinsic reinforcement as a form of internal reward, such as pride, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment. This emphasis on internal thoughts and cognitions helps connect learning theories to cognitive developmental theories. While many textbooks place social learning theory with behavioral theories, Bandura himself describes his approach as a 'social cognitive theory.' While behaviorists believed that learning led to a permanent change in behavior, observational learning demonstrates that people can learn new information without demonstrating new behaviors.
UNIT X Constructivist or Cognitive Development Learning Theory
Cognitive development refers to the changes that occur in an individual’s cognitive structures, abilities, and processes. Marcy Driscoll defines cognitive development as the transformation of the child’s undifferentiated, unspecialized cognitive abilities into the adult’s conceptual competence and problem-solving skill (Driscoll, 1994). However, what exactly changes with development? Piaget believed children’s schemes, or logical mental structures, change with age and are initially action-based (sensorimotor) and later move to a mental (operational) level. (Driscoll, 1994). Further, Piaget believed the cognitive performance in children is directly associated with the cognitive development stage they are in. So, if a child were in the preoperational stage (age 2 to 6/7), he would not successfully be able to master tasks of a concrete operational stage (ages 6/7 to 11/12) child.Piaget proposed this theory of childhood cognitive development in 1969. Since that time, there have been many criticisms of Piaget’s theory. Most notably, developmental psychologists debate whether children actually go through these four stages in the way that Piaget proposed, and further that not all children reach the formal operation stage. Despite this criticism, Piaget has had a major influence on all modern developmental psychologists. In addition to his proposed idea that children’s cognitive performance is directly related to the stage they are in, he proposed four major stages of development.
UNIT XI. The Theory of Personality and its Effects in Teaching
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) developed his ideas about psychoanalytic theory from work with mental patients. He was a medical doctor who specialized in neurology. He spent most of his years in Vienna, though he moved to London near the end of his career because of the Nazis’ anti-Semitism. Freud believed that personality has three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the Freudian structure of personality that consists of instincts, which are an individual’s reservoir of psychic energy. In Freud’s view, the id is totally unconscious; it has no contact with reality. As children experience the demands and constraints of reality, a new structure of personality emerges- the ego, the Freudian structure of personality that deals with the demands of reality. The ego is called the executive branch of personality because it uses reasoning to make decisions. The id and the ego have no morality. They do not take into account whether something is right or wrong. The superego is the Freudian structure of personality that is the moral branch of personality. The superego takes into account whether something is right or wrong. Think of the superego as what we often refer to as our “conscience.” You probably are beginning to sense that both the id and the superego make life rough for the ego. Your ego might say, “I will have sex only occasionally and be sure to take the proper precautions because I don’t want the intrusion of a child in the development of my career.” However, your id is saying, “I want to be satisfied; sex is pleasurable.” Your superego is at work, too: “I feel guilty about having sex before I’m married.” Remember that Freud considered personality to be like an iceberg; most of personality exists below our level of awareness, just as the massive part of an iceberg is beneath the surface of the water. Freud believed that most of the important personality processes occur below the level of conscious awareness. In examining people’s conscious thoughts about their behaviors, we can see some reflections of the ego and the superego. Whereas the ego and superego are partly conscious and partly unconscious, the primitive id is the unconscious, the totally submerged part of the iceberg. How does the ego resolve the conflict among its demands for reality, the wishes of the id, and constraints of the superego? Through defense mechanisms, the psychoanalytic term for unconscious methods the ego uses to distort reality, thereby protecting it from anxiety. In Freud’s view, the conflicting demands of the personality structures produce anxiety. For example, when the ego blocks the pleasurable pursuits of the id, inner anxiety is felt. This diffuse, distressed state develops when the ego senses that the id is going to cause harm to the individual. The anxiety alerts the ego to resolve the conflict by means of defense mechanisms.
Unit XII Theory of Motivation and Its Effect in Teaching
Motivation is typically defined as the forces that account for the arousal, selection, direction, and continuation of behavior. Nevertheless, many teachers have at least two major misconceptions about motivation that prevent them from using this concept with maximum effectiveness. One misconception is that some students are unmotivated. Strictly speaking, that is not an accurate statement. As long as a student chooses goals and expends a certain amount of effort to achieve them, he is, by definition, motivated. What teachers really mean is that students are not motivated to behave in the way teachers would like them to behave. The second misconception is that one person can directly motivate another. This view is inaccurate because motivation comes from within a person. What you can do, with the help of the various motivation theories discussed in this chapter, is create the circumstances that influence students to do what you want them to do.Many factors determine whether the students in your classes will be motivated or not motivated to learn. You should not be surprised to discover that no single theoretical interpretation of motivation explains all aspects of student interest or lack of it. Different theoretical interpretations do, however, shed light on why some students in a given learning situation are more likely to want to learn than others. Furthermore, each theoretical interpretation can serve as the basis for the development of techniques for motivating students in the classroom. Several theoretical interpretations of motivation -- some of which are derived from discussions of learning presented earlier -- will now be summarized.
