LEARNING THEORIES IN FORM TEACHING PRACTICES IMPLICATIONS FOR CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION
Compiled to fulfill the task of Teaching Principles and Methods course Lecturer : Mr. Abdur Rofik.,S.S.,M.Hum.
COMPILED BY
Fatimah Zanita Zanuba (2020120021) Nurhaliza Anggraini (2020120015)
Class : SASING 7
SAINS AL QUR’AN UNIVERSITY WONOSOBO DEPARTEMEN OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDY PROGRAM 2023
PREFACE
First of all, we would like to thank Allah SWT because with Allah help, we were able to finish writing a paper entitled “How Learning Theories in Form Teaching Practices Implications for Classroom Instruction”. The purpose of writing this paper is to fulfill the task given by Mr. Abdur Rofik.,S.S.,M.Hum as a lecturer in Teaching Principles and Methods lecture.
In the preparation on this paper, we did encounter many challenges and obstacles but with the help of many individuals these obstacles can be overcame. We also realize that there are still many mistakes in the process of writing this paper.
Therefore, we would like to thanks all those who helped in the process of writing this paper. May Allah reward you all for helping and blessing you all. The author realize that criticism from readers can hel the author in improfing her next paper. Finally, I hope this paper can help readers to increase the knowledge about applied linguistic course.
Wonosobo, 11 Oct 2023
Compiler
TABLE OF CONTENT
PREFACE ...i
TABLE OF CONTANT ...ii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ...1
A. Background of The Study...1
B. Paper Formulations ...2
C. Paper Objectives ...2
CHAPTER II DISCUSSION ...3
A. Learning Theories in Form Teaching Practices ...3
B. Learning Theories Implications for Classroom Instruction ...5
CHAPER III CLOSING ...7
A. Conclusion ...7
REFERENCES ...8
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of The Study
Learning theories are indispensable for effective and pedagogically meaningful instructional practices. A learning theory provides “clarity, direction and focus throughout the instructional design process.” Hence, an effective instructional framework is supposed to take into account the theoretical bases in which it is grounded (McLeod 2003).
Likewise, an educator is expected to understand the educational theory or theories behind a given instructional framework to gain success in reform efforts (Fosnot 1996). Among many different labels, learning theories can be categorized in three main areas:
behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. The purpose of this article is to clarify the conceptual underpinnings of constructivism along with its variations and its implications for classroom instruction.
Fosnot (1996) suggests that several general principles of the constructivist view of learning can be applied to educational practices:
Learning is not the result of development; learning is development. It requires invention and self-organization on the learner’s part. Teachers should thus allow learners to raise their own questions, generate their own hypotheses and models as possibilities, and test them for viability.
Disequilibrium facilitates learning. “Errors” should be perceived as a result of learners’ conceptions and therefore not minimized or avoided. Challenging, open- ended investigations in realistic, meaningful contexts will allow learners to explore and generate many possibilities, whether affirming or contradictory.
Contradictions, in particular, need to be illuminated, explored, and discussed.
Reflective abstraction is the driving force of learning. As meaning-makers, humans seek to organize and generalize across experiences in representational form.
Reflection through journals, representation in multisymbolic form, or connections made across experiences or strategies may facilitate reflective abstraction.
Dialogue within a community engenders further thinking. The classroom should be a “community of discourse engaged in activity, reflection, and conversation.”
Learners (rather than teachers) are responsible for defending, proving, justifying, and communicating their ideas to the classroom community. Ideas are accepted as
truth only as they make sense to the community and thus rise to the level of “taken- as-shared.”
Learning proceeds toward developing structures. As learners struggle to make meanings, they undertake progressive structural shifts in perspectives—in a sense,
“big ideas.” These learner-constructed, central-organizing ideas can be generalized across experiences, and they often require undoing or reorganizing earlier conceptions. This process continues throughout development.1
B. Paper Formulations
1. How learning theories in form teaching practices?
2. How learning theories implications for classroom instruction?
C. Paper Objectives
1. To know how learning theories in form teaching practices
2. To know how learning theories implications for classroom instruction
1 Yilmaz, “Constructivism: Its Theoretical Underpinnings, Variations, and Implications for Classroom Instruction,” 3.
CHAPTER II DISCUSSION
A. Learning Theories in Form Teaching Practices
Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained. Behaviorists look at learning as an aspect of conditioning and advocate a system of rewards and targets in education. Educators who embrace cognitive theory believe that the definition of learning as a change in behaviour is too narrow, and study the learner rather than their environment—and in particular the complexities of human memory. Those who advocate constructivism believe that a learner's ability to learn relies largely on what they already know and understand, and the acquisition of knowledge should be an individually tailored process of construction.
Transformative learning theory focuses on the often-necessary change required in a learner's preconceptions and worldview. Geographical learning theory focuses on the ways that contexts and environments shape the learning process.
According on the learning theories above, educators must have a way to apply these various learning theories in the classroom. These ways educators can implement various theories of learning are as follows:
1) Ways to Apply Behaviorism
Provide positive reinforcement, like rewards and recognition, to students who show outstanding improvement, effort, or performance.
Repeatedly use body language and nonverbal or physical cues to reinforce and manage behavior for instance, one educator suggests folding your arms and moving to a specific area of your classroom when your students are becoming disruptive to the learning environment.
2) Ways to Apply Cognitivism
Engage your students in group or class discussions.
Encourage your students to identify links between concepts or events.
3) Ways to Apply Humanism
Identify ways to provide your students with more control over the direction and pace of their learning.
Provide ample support, encouragement, and motivation to your students to help them build confidence and connect with the material.
4) Ways to Apply Connectivism
Bring more educational technology into the classroom.
Teach students how and where to find quality information and conduct solid research a critical skill that will aid them with tasks like writing and studying throughout their whole academic careers.2
Beside that, to help students process information effectively and efficiently, the teacher needs to employ the following strategies and principles when teaching their subjects:
1) Provide organized instruction. Make the structure and relations of the material evident to learners through concept maps or other graphic representations. In multimedia instruction, present animation and audio narration (and/or text descriptions) simultaneously rather than sequentially.
2) Use single, coherent representations. These allow the learner to focus attention rather than split attention between two places, for example, between a diagram and the text or even between a diagram with labels not located close to their referents.
3) Link new material with what is currently known. This provides a sort of mental
“scaffolding” for the new material.
4) Carefully analyze the attention demands of instruction. Count the number of elements in instructional messages. Make sure that the learner will not attend to too many different elements at the same time.
5) Recognize the limits of attention (sensory register). Help learners focus their attention through techniques such as identifying the most important points to be learned in advance of studying new material.
6) Recognize the limitations of short-term memory. Use the concept of chunking. Do not present 49 separate items. Make them 7 groups of 7. Use elaboration and multiple contexts.
7) Match encoding strategies with the material to be learned. For example, do not encourage the use of mnemonic techniques unless it is essential to memorize the material. If you want it to be processed more “deeply,” then find encoding strategies that are more inherently meaningful.
2 Pritchard, Ways of Learning : Learning Theories and Learning Styles in The Classroom, 5.
8) Provide opportunities for both verbal and imaginal encoding. Even though it is not clear whether these are actually two different systems, imaging does help students remember.
9) Arrange for a variety of practice opportunities. The goal is to help the learner generalize the concept, principle, or skill to be learned so that it can be applied outside of the original context in which it was taught. Provide for systematic problem-space exploration instead of conventional repeated practice. Provide worked examples as alternatives to conventional problem-based instruction.
10) Eliminate redundancy. Redundant information between text and diagram has been shown to decrease learning.
11) Help learners become “self-regulated.” Assist them in selecting and using appropriate learning strategies such as summarizing and questioning (Perry 2002;
Wilson 1995).
B. Learning Theories Implications for Classroom Instruction
Constructivism is a theory of learning, not a theory of teaching (Fosnot 1996;
Richardson 2003). For this reason, although there is an enormous body of literature on constructivism, the elements of effective constructivist teaching are not known (Richardson 2003). Constructivist teaching theory, built on constructivist learning theory, is a set of prescriptions that challenge the transmission or behaviorist paradigms advocated in many education programs. Experiential learning, self directed learning, discovery learning, inquiry training, problem-based learning, and reflective practice are examples of constructivist learning models (Gillani 2003; McLeod 2003; Slavin 2000).
Constructivism is explained in terms of its relation to teaching. According to Fosnot (1996), teaching based on constructivism discounts the idea that symbols or concepts can be taken apart as discrete entities and taught out of context. Rather, constructivist teaching affords learners meaningful, concrete experiences in which they can look for patterns, construct their own questions, and structure their own models, concepts, and strategies. The classroom becomes a micro-society in which learners jointly engage in activity, discourse, and reflection. Teachers facilitate and guide rather than dictate autocratically. Autonomy, mutual reciprocity of social relations, and empowerment characterize a constructively conducted classroom (Fosnot 1996, pp. ix–x). Students can develop in-depth understandings of the instructional materials, understand the nature of
knowledge construction, and construct complex cognitive maps to connect bodies of knowledge and understandings (Richardson 2003).
Because meaning, knowledge, and conceptual structures are constructed differently by each individual, teachers should be cognizant that students may view curricula, textbooks, didactic props, and microworlds differently than they do. Accordingly, teachers should not attempt to transfer conceptual knowledge to students through words (Glasersfeld 1995); instead, they should be concerned with how learners understand the process of knowing and how they justify their beliefs (McLeod 2003). Constructivist teachers challenge students to justify and defend their positions so that they can change their conceptual frameworks (e.g., beliefs, assumptions, and conceptions). In the constructivist classroom, learning emphasizes the process, not the product. How one arrives at a particular answer is what matters. The teacher also recognizes the pivotal importance of discourse.
Richardson (2003) identifies several principles as the premises of the constructivist pedagogy. These principles suggest that the teacher first recognize and respect students’
backgrounds, beliefs, assumptions, and prior knowledge; provide abundant opportunities for group dialogue aimed at fostering shared understanding of the topic under study;
establish a learning environment that encourages students to examine, change, and even challenge their existing beliefs and understandings through meaningful, stimulating, interesting, and relevant instructional tasks; help students develop meta-awareness of their own understandings and learning processes; and introduce the formal domain of knowledge or subject matter into the conversation through a sort of loosely structured instruction and the use of technological tools such as Web sites.
Other educators have also attempted to elaborate on the characteristics of constructivist teaching and learning. Brooks and Brooks (1993) describe both the pillars of constructivist pedagogy and the characteristics of constructivist teaching practices in In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms, which remains one of the most-cited books on the constructivist approach to teaching. The authors enumerate five pillars on which constructivist classrooms are based:
1) Posing problems of emerging relevance to learners 2) Structuring learning around primary concepts 3) Seeking and valuing students’ points of view
4) Adapting curricula to address students’ suppositions
5) Assessing student learning in the context of teaching.
Translating these principles into instructional practices, these authors argue that teachers in a constructively planned and conducted classroom environment should have students engage in raw data or primary sources, aiming to develop students’ cognitive and higher-order thinking skills. Taking into account students’ concepts, misconceptions, modes of thinking, and responses, these teachers accordingly shift their teaching methods or content when needed. By asking thoughtful and open-ended questions, constructivist teachers also encourage students to elaborate on their initial responses through such interactive methods as discussion, debate, and Socratic dialogue.3
3 Yilmaz, “The Cognitive Perspective on Learning: Its Theoretical Underpinnings and Implications for Classroom Practices,” 4.
CHAPTER III CLOSING
A. Conclusion
Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained. Behaviorists look at learning as an aspect of conditioning and advocate a system of rewards and targets in education. Educators who embrace cognitive theory believe that the definition of learning as a change in behaviour is too narrow, and study the learner rather than their environment—and in particular the complexities of human memory. Those who advocate constructivism believe that a learner's ability to learn relies largely on what they already know and understand, and the acquisition of knowledge should be an individually tailored process of construction.
Transformative learning theory focuses on the often-necessary change required in a learner's preconceptions and worldview. Geographical learning theory focuses on the ways that contexts and environments shape the learning process.
REFERENCES
Pritchard, Alan. Ways of Learning : Learning Theories and Learning Styles in The Classroom. Routledge, New York, 2009.
Yilmaz, Kaya. “Constructivism: Its Theoretical Underpinnings, Variations, and
Implications for Classroom Instruction.” Educational HORIZONS, Spring 2008.
———. “The Cognitive Perspective on Learning: Its Theoretical Underpinnings and Implications for Classroom Practices.” Routledge 84 (n.d.).
