WEEK 7: Learning Theories as Frameworks for Teaching


       The topic of this week is Learning Theories as Frameworks for Teaching. 

      In The Process of Education: Chapter 3 Readiness for Learning, Brunner have examined three general ideas of the nature of  curriculum, that is, intellectual development of children, the act of learning, and the notion of the “spiral curriculum”.
1)    Intellectual development. According to Piaget and others, the author divided the intellectual development of child into three stages roughly, including  preoperational stage, concrete operational stage and operational stage. I think it is important for a teacher to take the characteristics of the children’s feature into consideration. For example, I have watched a video about the Piagetian tasks of conversation of number, length, liquid and mass on one child age in 5 to 6 before. I still remember the experiment of stick, even the child saw two same sticks lined up parallel before the teacher moving the one of it, they would the moved one is longer that the other because it “stands out”. It suggest that this age group may just focus one perspective of the object. The curriculum needs to tailor to their intelligence. Another example, this age group have trouble in make connection between an order of number, they just regard each number as an independent part. So when teaching them number, teacher may use the concrete things help them to know this knowledge, or maybe create number song to encourage them to memorizing in an interesting way.
On the other, there no saying the one age must fit into the specific stage. it is normal that some children exceed or lag that the theorist stage. Therefore, the educator have to adapt to the reality flexibly rather than slavishly. As mentioned in the article, “it is worth the effort to provide the growing child with problems that tempt him into next stage of development.”(p39) This just recall me that the zone of proximal development theory. Combining these two, the task for teacher is help students to develop the learning skills and strategies during this zone. 
2)    The act of learning. This is a simultaneous process which including acquisition, transformation and evaluation. During this learning episode, without denying that teacher plays an important role in help student to evaluation. Besides that, it is also necessary to trigger students’ learning machine and make the machine keep going. This require the external and internal rewards. We have to balance these two. “Students should know what it feels like to be completely absorb in a problem”(p50). This will encourage them to keep learning.
3)    The “spiral curriculum”. Accoding this notion, it is crucial to give students the revision. When they revison, their will generate the know ideas towards the same thing. Also, it will help them learn the new knowledge base on their previous knowledge.
     
      According to The Myth of Learning Styles, everyone has their own learning style. As for me, I was unable to memorize things in rote way. It would be better if I can create a story to memorize. For example, when I memorize the new English vocabulary, it is easier for me to memorize it by combing it into the real context. Also, there is a useful strategy for visual learner. For instance, when teaching them writing, you can use a picture to encourage them use their creativity to write something related to this one. So, Which is your preferring learning style? Which learning style is useful according to your experience? Do you have different learning style when comes to different subjects?

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2019 at 4:44 PM

    Thank you for sharing.
    I have been a student for over twenty years, but it seems that I seldom think about my own learning style. So I think the questions you asked about learning style are quite interesting and it triggered me a lot of thinking.
    I’m more like the visual learner that you talked about. I like to create and I prefer to learn in a flexible environment rather than follow what the teacher says all the time. So most of the time I expect my teacher to give me the space to explore in my own interests.
    In addition, we must admit that every student has his or her own characteristics and personalities. Students have specific areas they like and are good at, and their learning styles are different. I think, as educators, we should try to divide our attention to every student and use our teaching methods flexibly. We should make effort to understand each student and their learning style so that they will be more comfortable to be with us and they will be more willing to learn.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2019 at 6:06 PM

    I enjoyed reading the chapter in the "Process of Education" this week. It was heavily psychology based, and I feel that knowing how a youth learns is a good way to frame our teaching to different age groups in different stages of learning. I appreciated reading the "Myth of Learning Styles," and the different cases the author provided to support their hypothesis that Visual, Auditory, Reading and Kinesthetic sensory methods of learning (VARK) is a myth perpetuated by a society that wants to award children for anything effort. Although I did not end up agreeing with the author on the myths of learning, I did take away something from the reading. I think learning styles are beneficial for the learners themselves to actively learn information in class or in life. By knowing which method they prefer, the learning can decide whether they want to spend time taking lengthy notes, record lectures, or gather images/models to retain information. I think the classroom environment naturally forces each learner to engage in learning styles outside of their preference either way, but it is my opinion that the learning methods are a resource for the learners themselves. Thank you for sharing!

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  3. Amanda MartinMarch 5, 2019 at 6:53 PM

    Learning styles is something that we talk about a lot within education but particularly special education. For example, the IEP prompts us to explain what the students preferred learning style is for each subject. I always struggle with this portion because I truly feel and have data to show that my students have some preferences that resemble all different learning styles. For example, a learner may be considered a "visual learner" but have some auditory preferences in reading. We all learn in various ways and I do no believe that people fall solely into one style of learning. This is why it is extremely important that within curriculum and instruction we embed opportunities for learners to be taught and to show what they know in different formats.

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