Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of research into how students learn and the implications for teaching.

Standard 1.2

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Rationale:
I have chosen to include a paper that I presented to my colleagues. I chose this piece because it demonstrated my knowledge of research into how students best learn. I incorporated practical classroom scenarios in order to demonstrate that I am able to apply what I know to the classroom.

Artifact 1:

Cognitive Views of Learning

Assumption

  1. People are selective about what they process and learn.
  2. Meaning is constructed by the learner, rather than being derived directly from the environment.
  3. Prior knowledge and beliefs play a major role in the meanings that people construct.
  4. Maturational changes in the brain enable increasingly sophisticated cognitive processes with age.
  5. People are actively involved in their own learning.
Educational Implication

  1. Help students identify the most important things for them to learn. Also help them understand why these things are important.
  2. Provide experiences that will help students make sense of the topics they are studying.
  3. Relate new ideas to things students already know and believe about the world.
  4. Consider strengths and limitations in students' cognitive processing capabilities at different age levels.
  5. Plan classroom activities that get students actively thinking about and using classroom subject matter.
In the Classroom

  1. Give students questions they should try to answer as they read texts. Include questions that ask them to apply what they read to their own lives.
  2. When reading fictional texts, have small groups of students discuss possible reasons for a character behaving in a particular way.
  3. When teaching Receptions basic counting skills, accommodate their short attention spans by keeping verbal explanations short and engaging the children in a variety of hands-on counting activities.
  4. To help older students understand latitude and longitude, ask them to track the path of a hurricane using a series of latitude-longitude coordinates found on the Internet.

Behaviourist Views of Learning

Assumption

  1. Influence of the environment.
  2. Learning can be described in terms of associations among observable events - i.e., stimulus and response.
  3. Learning involves a behaviour change.
  4. Learning is most likely to take place when stimuli and response occur close together in time.
  5. Many species of animals, including human beings, learn in similar ways.
Educational Implication

  1. Create a classroom environment that fosters desirable student behaviours.
  2. Identify specific stimuli that may be influencing students' behaviour.
  3. Conclude that learning has occured only when students exhibit a change in classroom performance.
  4. If you want students to associate two events make sure those events occur close together in time.
  5. Remember that research with nonhuman species often has relevance for classroom practice.
In the Classroom

  1. When a student has trouble working independently, praise her every time she completes an assignment without having to be prompted.
  2. If a student frequently engages in disruptive classroom behaviour, consider whether you might be encouraging such behaviour by giving him attention every time he misbehaves.
  3. Regularly assess students' learning, and look for ongoing progress in what they know and can do.
  4. Include enjoyable yet educational activities in each days' schedule as a way of helping students associate school subject matter with pleasurable feelings.
  5. Reinforce a hyperactive student for sitting quietly for successively longer periods of time - a shaping process based on early research studies with rats and pigeons.



Social Cognitive Views of Learning

Assumption

  1. People can learn by observing others.
  2. Learning is an internal process that may or may not lead to behaviour change.
  3. People and their environments mutually influence each other.
  4. Behaviour is directed toward particular goals.
  5. Behaviour becomes increasingly self-regulated.
Educational Implication

  1. Help students acquire new behaviours by modeling those behaviours yourself.
  2. New learning does not always reveal itself immediately but may instead be reflected in students' behaviour s at a later time.
  3. Encourage students to make choices that will lead to beneficial learning experiences.
  4. Encourage students to set productive goals for themselves, especially goals that are challenging yet achievable.
  5. Teach students strategies for helping themselves behave appropriately and learn effectively.
In the Classroom

  1. Demonstrate appropriate ways to deal with and resolve interpersonal conflicts. Then ask students to role-play conflict resolution in small groups, and compliment those who use prosocial strategies.
  2. When one student engages in disruptive classroom behaviour, take appropriate steps to discourage it. Otherwise, classmates who have witnessed the misbehaviour may be similarly disruptive in the future.
  3. Describe the benefits of staying on task, not only as a means of getting their work done but also as a way of discovering new information.
  4. Record personal best scores on a weekly maths quizz.
  5. Give students concrete suggestions about how they can remind themselves to bring their diaries and homework to school each day.



Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

Vygotsky (1930-1935/1978) believed that children's learning takes place with the zone of proximal development - a range of tasks too difficult for the child to do alone but possible with the help of adults and more skilled peers.

A Vygotskian classroom accepts individual differences and provides opportunities for children's active participation. A Vygotskian classroom goes beyond independent discovery - it promotes assisted discovery. Teachers guide children's learning, tailoring their interventions to each child's zone of proximal development. Assisted discovery is also fostered by peer collaboration. Children with varying abilities work in groups, teaching and helping one another.

Two Vygotsky-based innovations include reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning. In reciprocal teaching, a teacher and two to four students form a collaborative group and take turns leading dialogues on the content of a text passage. Within the dialogues, group members apply four cognitive strategies: questioning, summarising, clarifying, and predicting. In cooperative learning, small groups work toward common goals. Group members resolve differences of opinion, share responsiblity, and provide one another with sufficiently elaborate explanations to correct misunderstandings.


Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory

Piaget's constructivist approach assumes that children construct knowledge of their world by acting on the environment, moving through four universal stages - the sensorimotor stage; the preoperational stage; the concrete operational stage; and the formal operational stage.
A Piagetian classroom promotes discovery learning, sensitivity to children's readiness to learn, and acceptance of individual difference.