The Principles, Applications and Communication of Teaching and Learning Theories

The principles, applications and communication of teaching and learning theories
In teaching cycle there are many different factors contribute to the final outcome, one of the factor is student learning which contributes the most to our teaching strategies. To get the best outcome, we have to apply the teaching strategies that suits our group profile the best, and in order to do that we need to know how student learn. Educational psychology is one of the principle foundations for our preparation. It provides an insight into the relationships between us and the students by defining how students learn.
The educational psychology can be broken down into four theorists: behaviourism, social and situational, cognitivist, and humanism. Sometimes we have to use combination of two or more theories in our practice to get the best outcome and other times use of one theory would give us the satisfactory outcome.
Behaviourism learning that occurs through the reinforcement of desired responses from learners, the principle from behavioural learning theory has been dominating the educational thinking since Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with animals. This theory focuses on objectively observable behaviours that define learning as nothing more than gaining new behaviour. The system is based on rewards and punishments and believes if the rewards or positive reinforcement provided by teacher whenever learners perform a desired behaviour, then learners will learn to perform the behaviour on their own and the same applies to punishments. The good example of behaviourism that we used in our practice and most of the times are very successful, is when the students are using their mobile phone during the lesson that they are not allowed to, because of the distraction it can cause to their process of learning, we set punishment to take their mobile phone away from them if they get find out using it or awarding them with extra free time, if they get above certain percentage in their mock

References: 1. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) Situated Learning. Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press 2. Halverson, A. C. (2009). Rethinking education in the age of technology. New York: Teachers College Press. I would like to refer to appendix 1 to reflect on use of different teaching strategy and theory into my teaching practice, the aim of the lesson was to teach the features of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Paint and Corel Draw software packages in create and edit graphic images and limitations / disadvantages of using this software packages. The lesson was aimed at a group of 18 young students aged between 16 and 21. I choose the social and situational theory as my teaching strategy. Reflective Log What went really well in this session? Did learning take place? How? Some of the students are very knowledgeable and advanced and some are less knowledgeable, when I assigned them in to three groups, I took that in consideration and made sure the groups were well balanced. In order to achieve the aim, I had to break the task down in to three objectives and assigned each objective in to one group. Each group had to produce their result of discussion on a flip chart and give feedback to the rest of the class, and as I would choose any member of the group at random for the feedback, all paid attention and contributed to each task and also this played a good part in managing students in their groups and the class. For the feedback each group came to the smart board and write their final result on the board, for the rest of class to see. I used informal question and answer method of assessment directed at them to check if the learning took place and I was very pleased with the outcome. As each group had different task to do and needed all the information from the whole tasks to complete their final assignment, they all had to pay attention to all the feedback, and also each task had a 5 minutes time limit so they did not get bored, this went very well in this lesson. I was observing them and making sure that they all contribute to the group activity while they were doing the group work. Once they finished their group work and feedback, I asked them to log in to their pc and identifying all the group work result individually on their pc and have a print screen from related areas, I was going around at this time and made sure each of the students understood the subject and know what they were doing, and if they had any difficulty, by helping them on the one to one basis made sure that they overcome the difficulties. | What did not go so well? What were the reasons for this?The students could not complete their final task by the end of their lesson because I called them back into their group for extra feedback, and this took good few minutes of their time. | How was learning assessed? Was it effective? (If yes, why? If no, why not?)The learning was assessed with two different methods, first was the informal formative assessment that was done by question and answer directed at the students, and also by the exercise they did after their group activity, this exercise was designed to help the student meeting the objectives and making sure learning took place in the lesson. Finally formal summative assessment that students would have to complete a task specially designed to test their ability and understanding of the subject, and hand in a print which will be marked and graded. The grade will be added to their final grade and also they would get individual feedback with the result as well, there will be a dead line for the completion, this would be very effective because it would test different ability of the student regarding the subject, and would provide us with sufficient information about the success of the teaching and learning for the subject. | How did learners respond? Was any feedback given? Any ‘in-action’?The students responded positively as they were asking many different questions regarding the subject, excited to take part in the group activity and completed their exercise. They were eager to learn as participated in activities and giving me positive feedback at the end of the lesson. | What do I need to do differently? ‘on-action’I decided not to disturb their working time in the next lesson unnecessary, so they can concentrate and finish their task in time; and also decided to designee a worm up activity to use at the beginning of the lesson, such as multiple answer questions or one minute essay from previous lesson for recap and diagnostic of the subject. | Date you intend to apply new practice: 14/07/2012 |