TEACHING – LEARNING PROCESS II (THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK )

 TEACHING – LEARNING PROCESS II

 Theories of Learning: The Major Learning Theorists

There are three main groups:

1. Behaviourists

2. Cognitive theorists

3. Humanistic/Social Psychologists

The following is a brief description of the contributions of these educational theorists.

Behaviourists

B. F. Skinner

Skinner’s theory suggests that learning will occur and behaviour will be shaped in the direction the teacher wants if the behaviour is rewarded. In order to maintain the strength of that learning behaviour, reinforcement or continued rewards are necessary.

To be effective, the reinforcement must be immediate and positive. Successive steps in the learning should be as small as possible, each successful act being followed by a reward.

Comment: Skinner’s research was based on the behaviour of rats and pigeons. Application of his theory has been with young children; it is not very successful with adult learners. Programmed learning was based on this theory.

Other behaviourists of the 1920s

Thorndike proposed that learning is more meaningful when the outcome (objective) is made clear. Pavlov dealt with conditioned reflexes, punishment and reinforcement. Watson recommended active participation/learning by practice.

R. M. Gagne Gagne categorized learning into different domains so that the different conditions for learning in each category can be identified. In this way, teaching and assessment can be planned accordingly. The domains identified by Gagne are motor skills, verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies and attit udes.

Comment: Gagne’s approach is a useful one in planning effective learning experiences, e.g. skills cannot be learned unless students are given opportunities to practise under supervision and given feedback on their performance.

Cognitive Theorists

B. S. Bloom

Bloom proposed three domains: Affective (attitudes), Cognitive (knowledge) and Psychomotor skills. Within each domain it is proposed that there is a hierarchy of learning objectives: from the more basic types of learning to the more complex types of learning.

Comment: Bloom’s contribution serves as a reminder that learning objectives should be set as high up the hierarchy as is appropriate for a given students group. This is particularly true at the tertiary level where it is hoped that students will learn higher level skills rather than just remembering facts.

N.B. There is an overlap in the domains proposed by both Gagne and Bloom. Many learning tasks will consist of knowledge and skills or attitudes e.g. most skills involve a certain amount of knowledge and appropriate attitudes for their proper performance.

D.P. Ausubel

Ausubel dealt with learning within the knowledge domain. He proposed that details of a discipline are learned onl y when they can be filled into a framework consisting of a stable and appropriate body of general concepts and principles.

New information should fit into existing information rather like a key fitting into a lock.He suggests that teachers begin by introducing material at a fairly general level and making explicit the relevance of that material to the task to be learned.

Comment: The theory is the basis for the practice of beginning with the learner’s existing knowledge and building on to it.

Example: In teaching about the knee joint one could begin by saying that the knee joint resembles a hinge and asking the class to recall the features of a hinge joint.

J. Bruner

Bruner takes the learner as the focus for his theories and as an active participant in learning. The learner actively selects and transforms information. Students should be encouraged to work out things for themselves.

He believes, as does Ausubel, that the student constructs knowledge by relating new information to a previously acquired psychological frame of reference which gives meaning to the new information.

Comment: Bruner is largely responsible for the trend towards discover y learning in schools. Discovery learning provides students with goals and resources and allows them to work out answers to problems through their own efforts and the use of appropriate resources.

In this setting, the teacher becomes a manager of resources rather than an instructor. Innovative medical school curricula have followed this approach.

Humanistic and Social Psychologists

Carl Rogers

Rogers provided a learner-centred view of learning. His main propositions are that:

• All humans have a natural potential and desire to learn.

• Learning occurs when the student perceives relevance related to his/her own purposes.

• Learning is more effective when external threats are eliminated.

• Significant learning is acquired through doing.

• Learning is more effective when the learner is responsible for choosing his/her direction, discovering resources, formulating problems etc.

• Most learning is self-initiated and involves the whole person, including feelings as well as intellect.

• Self-evaluation is a basic skill and necessary for effective mature learning.

• Learners should retain a continuing openness to change.

Comments: Rogers’ approach c ntributed to adult learning principles. The use of small discussion gro ps where the teacher is a guide and friend rather than a leader has bec ome increasingly popular and is based on Rogers’ philosophy.

Abraham Maslow

Traditional teaching and learning concentrated on force-feeding and prescribed knowledge which neglected the development of the student as a person with a role in society. Maslow says that education should help students to look within themselves and from this self-knowledge to develop a set of values which will guide them in life.

Comment: Malsow has emphasized the importance of learning for self-enhancement rather simply for utility. This view is relevant to adult learners who decide to continue their education out of interest rather than in order to gain qualifications. Implicit in this approach is the importance of the individual in deciding what to learn and how to learn it.

It has already been noted that teaching is helping people learn. Some of the ways people learn have also been considered. If we consider again some of the conditions of learning in the section “Learning is the main activity”, we can see some of the ways the teacher can help learning. In this section, some ways a teacher can use to help students learn have been identified.

Teachers should:

1. consider students as individuals, each engaged in learning on their own. Try to make sure that each student gets what he/she needs.

2. motivate students to learn.

3. give feedback to students: tell them how they are doing; correct their mistakes, encourage them to continue. Also encourage students to provide their own feedback; check their work for mistakes, etc.

4. help students to make sense of what they are learning by showing how it is relevant to them.

5. provide plenty of practice and repetition of what they learn.

6. organize what is to be learned so that students find it easy and systematic.

7. help students see very clearly what they are learning.

All these suggest in general terms what the teacher can do. Let us sum up the roles of the teacher.

 What Makes a Good Teacher?

To teach is to help people to learn. Teaching is effective if it results in desirable learning. In teaching healthcare, the fundamental aim is to prepare students to provide effective and appropriate health care. So the question of how good the teaching has been can (in theory) be best answered by finding out how well the student provides health care after the course.

In practice, this approach is not always helpful to the individual teacher. Firstly, learning is not affected just by one teacher. Learning is influenced by many teachers and by conditions over which the individual teacher has little control.

Secondly, information about how graduates perform in practice often reaches the teacher too late. The teacher cannot use such information to help the students affected. Thirdly, information about the effect of teaching alone does not help to improve teaching because it does not tell us what went wrong and how teaching should change.

You may then want to ask – Why then are we teaching health education as a school subject? You should not have an impression that there is no means by which the teacher can influence positively the behaviour of the learners under his/her care in the class or in the school situation. One means by which the teacher can ensure effective teaching is by continuously engaging him/herself in self-evaluation.

Self-evaluation of teaching skills

To assess your own teaching we suggest that you follow a number of steps. The first step in self-evaluation is to recognize that improvement is possible for you. If you don’t believe that you can improve, this course may not be as useful to you as it should.

The second step is to become aware that teaching is a complex activity that has many parts. To study your own teaching you will need to become aware of the parts of the teaching process.

The third step is to decide what aspect of your teaching you are most interested in examining. You may choose aspects that you are simply interested in pursuing or that you feel need the most attention at this time. The point is th at we would like you to make a commitment to look at those aspects of your teaching that are of the greatest interest to you.

The final step involves using the materials provided in this course to look carefully at what you do as a teacher and the effect you have on your students.

The Six Tasks of a Teacher

Planning

• Decide what students should learn (prepare objectives/tasks).

• Put the content in a suitable sequence.

• Allocate amounts of time to different learning activities.

• Select learning activities and teaching methods.

• Choose assessment procedure (including methods and timing).

• Identify resources needed.

• Inform the students about the plan.

Communication

• Tell, explain, advise.

• Help students to exchange ideas.

• Provoke students’ thinking.

• Use varied teaching techniques.

• Check whether students understand what you are teaching.

Providing resources

• Prepare, select or adapt educational materials (audio visual, realia(real-objects), hardware, software, etc)

• Arrange learning experiences, especially opportunities to practise skills (field visits, attachm ents and projects).

• Involve health service personnel in teaching.

• Arrange access to materials (such as libraries, audio-visual programmes and microscopes).

Counselling

Show students that you care. Listen and show empathy.

• Help students to identify their options and to make their decisions.
• Provide advice and information that helps students.

Assessment

• Design an assessment that measures how much students have learnt.

• Use the assessment to guide students’ learning.

• Use the assessment to give feedback that modifies teaching.

• Use the assessment to decide whether students are competent to provide health care.

• Encourage students to use self-assessment and peer-assessment.

Continuing self-education

• Know the subject matter that is taught and where to find relevant information.

• Know the way in which health care is provided locally.

• Set an example as a continuous learner.

When you have looked at the six tasks of a teacher:- Go through the list again and consider whether you have done each of the tasks. Decide which aspects are of the greatest interest to you.

CONCLUSION

Many people learn many things on their own from books or from their friends, without actual teaching. But teaching that does not produce learning is just hot air, it may appear to be teaching from the outside but if there is no learning there cannot be real teaching. The real activity that we are concerned with is getting, helping or encouraging people to learn.

Source: School of Education, National Open University of Nigeria