Learning perspectives and teaching issues

Who says teachers don't have to study?? We have to learn more every time we deal with a new class...And we often find it difficult teaching a big class consisting of pupils with varying calibre and

genius...we collide with challenges pertaining to the "problem children"... So to tackle this issue, we we must have a know how of the basic psychological principles of teaching...

I have found some guidelines (of course useful for me too) for all the teachers out there.. with the hope that it will help you.. :)

A classroom full of students actually bears many diverse personalities in it. Each child has a different way of perceiving what is being delivered to him during the lecture. Many learning perspectives have been presented by educationists; I shall discuss three of them i.e. behavioral, cognitivist and constructivist perspectives. Their details are given below.

The Behaviorist perspective focuses on the child’s behavioral development through positive or negative reinforcers. They deem that the child learns by virtue of the stimulus-response (rewards or punishments) associations within the educational environment. Thus, learning is “the formation, strengthening, and adjustment of these associations” (Greeno, Collins and Resnick, 1996, p.21). For instance, a teacher may reward a student for a correct response or morality. This may make him repeat his positive actions or may teach him the lesson which the teacher wanted to deliver. But being habitual of the immediate incentives, when unrewarded, the child may get disappointment, and shun hard work. Secondly, if the child gives a correct response through a wild guess, he may get instant appreciation, but the lesson will not reside in his mind in the long run. Moreover, some children even turn rebellion to negative reinforcers.

The Cognitivist perspective states that a child’s learning is mainly due to his thinking capability and the “whole” human experience (Yount, 1996). They believe that the memory structures control how and what the student receives, perceives, reconstructs and forgets. Thus depends on the teacher that whatever he teaches should be retained in his pupils’ minds. Researches show that all the audio/visual techniques used in the teaching process help in the retention of the delivered knowledge for longer period; proving the worth of the cognitive theory. For instance, a teacher may use the technique of mnemonics to make the students remember an important historical incident. The child will never forget that; which if taught dully, may be forgotten.

The Constructivist perspective states that knowledge is gained through a combination of various learning processes. Though it seems similar to the Cognitivist perspective, yet it differs from it in a way that it does not only involve mental process. Instead, constructivism also emphasizes on each individual’s mental process, his society, previous knowledge, experience, and on the socio-culturalfactors of the learning process.

This means that a student learns through the construction of a “building” of his preceding and present knowledge, his societal norms, influence of his elders upon him and his thinking calibre.In a classroom, all these theories work differently. The behavioral theory may be applied by the teacher through the positive and negative reinforcers. Keeping in mind the mental level of the students and the effectiveness of the motivational factor, the rewards must be set. For the students of lower classes, the teacher may keep candies or a certain toy for the best student. He may give them stars and stickers for making good attempts or improving. As a negative reinforcer, standing in the class, being scolded or not allowed to go out for recession may work for younger students, which may reduce negative behavior (Myers, 2008). For higher classes, teachers may give a compliment or present the best student as an example to others in the class; and he may rebuke or prevent a mischievous student from attending certain fun activities at the institution.

The cognitive theory is applied through the use of various technological and intrinsic gadgets in the classroom. A teacher may decorate the room, altering its settings monthly, so that the student may not get bored of his surroundings. 

Colorful and innovative posters, multimedia, audio/visual aids, mnemonics and activities may be utilized during the lecture so that the knowledge gained by the student is retained as well. Short oral quizzes, presentations and documentaries related to the topic under study are very helpful in this regard. The use of rhymes for younger children and competitions for the older ones, are the examples of cognitivism in the classroom.

As far as the application of constructivism in the classroom is concerned, a teacher needs to be quite tactful. He should teach in such a way that it does not demolish the child’s previous correct concepts. A teacher has to be very careful while teaching new aspects because the student retains and relates previous ones with them. Thus, the pupil should not, at any moment, feel his social beliefs or principles being trodden or mishandled, which may otherwise result in a retaliating child. In order to maintain the apprentices’ interest in a lecture, the teacher may involve the students by knowing their previous experiences about the topic under consideration. Every child is keen to share his/her awareness pertaining to a certain feature. By being involved, a firmer teacher-pupil relation and better psychological understanding may also be attained. Student’s free exploration should be encouraged too (Devries, 2003).

 The above mentioned theories need to be installed in the teachers’ lesson plans, for the best outcome from a class. For behavioral learning, the plan may include group activities like providing a cultural theme to each group and asking them to represent it by dresses, speeches and cultural acts. The students abiding by the teacher’s orders and showing exceptional performance may be given solid or metaphysical incentives. Similarly, negative reinforcers like punishments; fine penalties; poor-performance representation on the class notice board or detention during recess time may be implied for the shirkers. For cognitive learning, the lesson plan may include inter-class quizzes and intra-class competitions. Mental math activities, creative writing and once-a-week documentarian movie should also be a part of the plan. For constructive learning, the children must be encouraged to write or make a presentation of their experiences about a matter.

The goal of presenting different learning theories is to help find out some methods which can keep the students interested in the studies. Using these strategies, the teachers may succeed in creaming out the finest part of each pupil, making learning more exciting and intriguing than ever...