Chapter 1 Report
Chapter 1 Report
Kryo
Aicy
CHAPTER 1
LEARNER – CENTERED
THEORIES OF LEARNING
ICE BREAKER
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOME (ILO)
— The term "learning" and all other concepts related to it, expectedly form a major part of the
experiences for you who are studying to become teachers.
— The goal of education is to effect learning among students and the population at large.
— The process of education is a deliberate effort to ensure that as students go up the educational
ladder, developmental changes in their personality are effected.
THE NATURE
OF LEARNING
For a start, learning is generally defined as any change in the behavior of the
learner
• (Mayer, 2011; and Schunk, 2012 in Woolfolk, 2013) The change can be
deliberate or unintentional, for better or for worse, correct or incorrect and
conscious or unconscious.
• Woolfolk (2016) Asserts that "learning occurs when experience (including practice)
causes a relatively permanent change in an individual's knowledge, behavior or
potential for behavior.“
b) b) change takes place through practice or experience, (not changes due to growth
or maturation); and,
c) c) behavior change must be relatively permanent and last for a fairly long time.
a. Motor Learning.
- It is a form of learning for one to maintain and go through daily life activities as for example,
walking, running, driving, climbing, and the like. These activities involve motor coordination.
b. Verbal Learning.
- It involves the use of spoken language as well as the communication devices used. Signs,
pictures, symbols, words, figures, sounds are tools used in such activities.
c. Concept Learning.
- A form of learning which requires the use of higher-order mental processes like thinking,
reasoning, and analyzing. It involves two processes: abstraction and generalization.
d. Discrimination Learning.
- It is learning to differentiate between stimuli a responding appropriately to these stimuli. An example is
being able to distinguish the sound of horns of different vehicles like bus, car, and ambulance.
e. Learning of Principles.
- It is learning principles related to science, mathematics, grammar and the like. Principles show the
relationship between two or m concepts, some examples of which are formulas, laws, associations, correlations and
the like.
f. Problem Solving.
-This is a higher-order thinking process. This learning requires the use of cognitive abilities - such as
thinking, reasoning, observation, imagination heredity, experience and generalization.
g. Attitude Learning.
- Attitude is a predisposition which determines and predict behavior. Learned attitudes influence one's
behavior toward people, objects, things motivation, learning or ideas.
• This may be the reason why there is available wide range of theories of learning,
each propounding and focusing on a particular perspective or view to explain what
learning is.
• Learning theories try to explain how people learn and why they learn. These
theories especially guide teachers to have a better understanding of how learning
occurs and how learners learn.
("Educational Learning and Learning Theories," n. d.)
WHAT IS
LEARNER –
CENTERED?
- A learner-centered approach is also known as student-
centered learning.
2. Goals of the Learning Process — The successful learner, over time, with
support and guidance can create meaningful, coherent representations of
knowledge.
1. Problem-Based Learning
This strategy emphasizes real-life problem-solving. It exposes learners to authentic life problems that they meet
in their daily lives. The teacher guides and monitors the learners' problem solving efforts.
2. Essential Questions
Essential questions are asked of learners, which perplex them. This is followed by other questions, which
motivate the students to explore the questions and look for answers. The questions cause the students to think,
and provoke their curiosity.
3. Discovery Learning
This approach is in contrast to direct-instruction approach. Teachers create the situation where students explore
and figure out things for themselves. The guided discovery learning evolved from discovery learning, where
students still construct the own understanding but with the guidance of the teacher.
THEORIES OF
LEARNING
Behaviorism
- is a world view that assumes the learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental
stimuli. This perspective emerged in the early 1900s through the research efforts of Ivan Pavlov
and Edward Thorndike who made more objective studies about learning as opposed to the studies
on learning which relied heavily on introspection.
The learner starts off with a clean slate (i.e., tabula rasa) and behavior is learned or shaped through
positive reinforcement.
Behaviorism advances the idea that when a cue or stimulus in the environment is presented, the
individual makes a particular response to that stimulus.
All behavior can be explained without the need to consider the internal mental states or
consciousness.
FOLLOWING ARE THE BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF
BEHAVIORISM, WHICH MANY BEHAVIORISTS SHARE
(ORMROD, 2015, PP. 52-53).
Principles of learning should apply equally to different behaviors and to a variety animal species.
Learning processes can be studied most objectively when the focus of study is on the stimuli and
responses.
Internal processes tend to be excluded or minimized in theoretical explanations.
Learning involves a behavior change.
Organisms are born as blank slates.
Learning is largely the result of environmental events.
The most useful theories tend to be parsimonious (or concise).
COGNITIVISM OR COGNITIVE
CONSTRUCTIVISM
• The human mind is seen as a "black box" and it is necessary to open it for a better
understanding of how people learn.
• Mental processes such as memory, knowing, problem-solving, reasoning and other such
processes need to be explored.
• People are seen not as programmed beings that simply respond to environmental stimuli, as
is propounded in behaviorism.
• Cognitivism requires active participation in order to learn and actions are seen as a result of
thinking.
EXAMPLES AND APPLICATIONS OF THE COGNITIVE
LEARNING THEORY (KELLY, SEPTEMBER 2012).
- In the new view, cognition and learning are understood as interactions between the
individual and a situation; knowledge is considered as situated and is a product of the
activity, context, and culture in which it is formed and utilized.
- This gave way to the new metaphor, for learning as "participation and social
negotiation."
3. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
- Experiential learning theories build on social and constructivist theories of learning
but situate experience at the core of the learning process.
- The MI theory "requires" the teachers to come up with a variety of instructional materials
and strategies, to make sure that the needs of students with specific intelligences or abilities
are addressed.
5. SITUATED LEARNING THEORY
AND COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
- These concepts were developed by Jean Lave and Ettiene Wenger. Situated learning
recognizes that there is no learning that is not situated.
- It emphasizes the relational and negotiated character of knowledge and learning as well as
the engaged nature of learning activity for the individuals involved.
- The theory further asserts that it is within communities that learning occurs most effectively.
ACCORDING TO MCCARTHY (1981, 1987)
THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITIES OF
PRACTICE IS BASED ON THE FOLLOWING
ASSUMPTIONS:
a. Learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon.
b. Knowledge is integrated in the life of communities that share values, beliefs, language and ways of
doing things.
e. Empowerment or the ability to contribute to a community creates the potential for learning.
6. 21ST CENTURY LEARNING
SKILLS
- The study or exploration of 21st century learning or skills emerged from the concerns about
transforming the goals and daily practice of learning to meet the new demands of the 21st
century characterized as knowledge and technology-driven.
- These are skills necessary for students to master for them to experience school and life
success in an increasingly digital and connected age.
- Current discussions about 21st century skills lead classrooms and other environments to
encourage the development of core subject knowledge as well as media literacy, critical and
systems thinking.
“Learning is not attained by
chance; it must be sought for with
ardour and diligence.”
– Abigail Adams