Chapter- 4: Learning Process After reading this chapter, you should be able to: • Appreciate learning process • The basic concept of learning • Know principles and doctrines of learning • Theories of learning • Learning curve and virtuous learning circle Introduction Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavioural potentiality that occurs as a result of reinforced practice. Learning is indexed by a change in behaviour which must be translated into observable behaviour. After learning, learners are capable of performing something which they could not do earlier. It is neither transitory nor fixed. The change in behaviour need not occur immediately following the learning experience.
Constructivism is against the banking of knowledge in which children are banks where coins of knowledge are put in and expected to be returned the same way. This leads to rote learning and surface level understanding of a concept. Constructivism trains children to find solutions to problems that act as an impediment to achieving a goal. Children need to develop the ability to absorb information from multiple sources and then use reasoning to come to their own conclusions. This is called intellectual
INTRODUCTION Learning is an everyday activity for every human being regardless of their age. Knowingly or unknowingly everybody do learn every day. Learning then can be classified into everyday life and educational learning. Educational learning is also now available to almost everyone. This includes learning by going to school or any other place and also learning something educational in any other way too.
This type of work can be problem solving or investigational work which can be carried out by students individually or can be carried out collaboratively (Kyriacou, 2007). Active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing *REF PRINCE*. Active learning is often contrasted to the traditional lessons, often referred to by teachers as ‘chalk and talk’ where students passively receive information from the teacher. A study was carried out by Benware & Deci (1984), to test whether students who learned through active learning would be more motivated than those who learned through passive learning. Results of this study showed that… .
7) Active learning is "a method of learning in which students are actively or experientially involved in the learning process and where there are different levels of active learning, depending on student involvement. "(Weltman, p. 8) It is a model of instruction that focuses the responsibility of learning on learners. It was popularized in the 1990s by its appearance on the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) report (Bonwell & Eison 1991). In this report they discuss a variety of methodologies for promoting "active learning". They cite literature that indicates that to learn, students must do more than just listen: They must read, write, discuss, or be engaged in solving problems.
Active learning benefits all children as they can participate in their own learning, internalising what is explored. They can transfer learnings into their everyday lives. Active learning can engage children at different levels and it places children at the centre of learning. The challenges with active learning are the specified curriculum, assessment and relationships in the classroom. The constructivist theory is the main one in the classroom and is the best for the teacher to assume the role of facilitator –expand.
The teacher should not hesitate to use innovative teaching aids to improve one’s teaching. Learning will become effective if a socio-constructiveness approach is adopted in class. Furthermore, one way to encourage interaction among students and to motivate them is the use of class activities. One should try to come with challenging and innovation activities to motivate learners. Below we will look at the few different activities that can be adopted in a class: • Group activities – students will be more motivated to participate in class when they are in groups.
It is not necessary that the learning objective can be achieved only by one activity or learning experience. For this purpose innovative and creative skill of a teacher is required in planning activities. Example: If we want students to learn and observe the different shapes of the objects than this activity can be done in the classroom where teacher can provide objects of different shapes to students and students learn from them. Students can also perform this observation and learning activity outside of the classroom environment and even at home. They can easily observe different objects of different shapes around them.
As children are being engaged in conversations, they are developing their verbal communication skill in the social context. They learn how to communicate with other people effectively. The socio-dramatic scripting in the play also contribute in the developing of communication skill as children are participating in the conversation carried out by their role (Gronna, Serna, Kennedy, & Prater, 1999). Metacommunicative skills which occurs when stepping in and out of the play also helps in children’s social learning (Wood, 2013). Children then can develop into effective communicators which allows them to make friends (DET, 2016).
According to Prince (2004), and Bonwell and Eison (1991) the key elements of the active learning includes (i) student involvement beyond mere listening, (ii) students involvement in learning activities such as reading, discussing, writing, (iii) more emphasis on the development of skills and less on transmittal of information, (iv) students involvement in higher order thinking skills, and (v) an emphasis on students’ exploration of values and attitudes. The students are given opportunity to discuss, interact, share ideas, guide and hand on activity thereby helping the students who struggles during the process of learning. Thus, the students are provided with safe environment in which they can interact without fear of embarrassment (Steven,