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LEARNING BEST: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

Josh Bollinger

EDUC 200

Dr. Martin

11/6/15

Learning Best: The Student Perspective

Looking back on my educational career, I can clearly see how much I have grown and

developed, and maturation of why I learn. I started out learning because that is what you do in

elementary school, and I did it to please my parents. Then my later education I was doing it all

for the grade, and the competitiveness that I felt I needed to do well and get into college. I see

my learning now as more learning for its own sake. My own educational journey is interesting,

but I also am only one person. I now take time to delve into the development of someone other

than me, who has had a different experience as a student than me. I interviewed a 12th grade

female student whom we shall name Jane. For a little background information on Jane, she goes

to a small rural school where the vast majority of students are white, and she is also in many of

the honors classes. Jane shared with me her experience as a student, and what her studying and

school experiences are now to compare with what some of the educational psychology literature

has to say. The stages of development, need for cognition, and changes in motivation will all be

discussed.

According to research by Piaget (1958), the last stage of development called the formal

operational stage which occurs after 11 years old, and results in the ability to manipulate ideas

and have abstract thinking. When discussing her classes, Jane would mention the fun mental

exercises that caused her to think about subjects in a new way. In this way she matches the ideas

formed by Piaget, but that is to be expected seeing as she is now 18 years old. However, as an
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LEARNING BEST: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

honors student taking several classes, Jane shared that some of her classes are really easy, and

therefore she doesnt put a lot of effort or time into them. Instead, her hard classes make her

work much harder, but she shared that she enjoyed the challenge. This aligns with the idea of the

need for cognition, where there is a physical need for a challenge for the brain (Cohen, 1959). It

has been observed that humans love a good challenge, whether physical or cognitive, and that

can be seen in Janes enjoyment of a difficult class. In order to tackle difficult subjects, there

must be effort put into the work to make it happen, which is where getting the motivation to

engage and try to do well comes into play.

There are two distinct types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation,

according to Ormrod (2015), is motivation resulting from personal characteristics or inherent in

the task being performed whereas extrinsic is motivation resulting from factors external to the

individual and unrelated to the task being performed (p. 193). Jane shared with me that

throughout most of her school career, she has mostly been powered by extrinsic factors such as

getting good grades, wanting to look good for colleges, and wanting to do as good/better than her

peers. Since going through high school, and now being in her senior year, she feels all these

same pressures and motivating factors, but also shared that she also has had fun learning in some

of her classes. Her intrinsic motivation came from having fun learning about material that she

found interesting. In fact, when the extrinsic motivation in the form of grades went away for

some assignments, she really enjoyed them and participated fully. Hearing from Jane reinforces

these concepts learned in class concerning motivation, and values. In chemistry, there is the

concept of activation energy, which is defined by Tro (2014) as an energy barrier or hump that

must be surmounted for the reactants to be transformed into products (p. 616), where the

reactant is a students inaction and the product is student involvement and engagement. In order
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LEARNING BEST: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

to get students to participate in school and actively learn, they must possess enough motivation to

get past the activation energy level. This may require extra hands on activities like Jane

described for her psychology class where they created motions along with a tune to teach the

different parts of the brain. As an exceptional student, Jane may require additional teaching

strategies such as individual instruction, or outside resources to maintain interest (Ormrod, 2015,

p. 171). These strategies help a student to get motivated and overcome the energy hump and get

involved.

Jane has learned how to get motivated, and has gone through the cognitive stages of

development to where she can now observe her own study habits. This self-awareness and self-

evaluation relates to the idea of metacognition which is defined as knowledge and beliefs about

ones own cognitive processes, as well as conscious attempts to engage in behaviors and thought

processes that increase learning and memory (Ormrod, 2015, p. 106). Jane has noticed several

things about her study habits, and her classroom enjoyment. In regard to studying, Jane said that

she studied best when she went over material over and over again, and heard it verbally when

studying. This seems to refute the idea that rote memorization is not as effective in memory

retention (Reynolds 2003). However, Jane did not describe what repetition method she used, but

did explain that she learned by explain through everything verbally several times. This matches

with some of the comments by Schunk (Reynolds 2003) when describing how rote memorization

was only effective when other methods such as elaboration and summarization were employed.

It sounded like Jane may have been creating verbal summaries of the ideas and concepts when

she went over the material. In addition to her learning of the material, Jane shared how her

enjoyment and effort in a given class were based on several factors, including the relevance to

her interests, as well as the environment and teacher. The relevance of information can be linked
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LEARNING BEST: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

to learning as effective with theories like meaningful learning with advance organizers (Ausubel

1960). However, focusing on the second part of the statement concerning the teacher brings up

some interesting and relevant ideas. The idea that the teachers involvement and energy towards

caring for students really makes a difference. Teachers who care about not only what they are

teaching, but each individual student and show effort into helping are more effective as teachers

according to Jane. This to me describes how we as teachers or future teachers need to slow down

from the blur of information to really care, or as Leo Buscaglia (BrainyQuote.com) is quoted,

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an

honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life

around.

Hearing from Jane about how she has developed and changed as a learner has provided

an opportunity to match theories and educational applications to many of the concepts being

presented in the EDUC 200 class. Each individual student can learn best through different

methods, but parallels begin to form, and similarities emerge, and discussing motivation, study

habits, and stages of development all help relate back to the goal of establishing a concrete

understanding of the ideas that can be applied in the classroom. Tapping in to a students

intrinsic drive, providing the energy to overcome the activation energy of effort, and providing a

setting in which learners can obtain the care and individual treatment needed are all ways that

Jane has shared help her to learn best.

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LEARNING BEST: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

References

Ausubel, D. (1960). The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful

verbal material. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51(5), 267-272.

Cohen, A., Stotland, E., & Wolfe, D. (1954). An experimental investigation of need for

cognition. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51(2), 291-294.

Leo Buscaglia. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved November 5, 2015, from BrainyQuote.com.

Retrieved from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/leobuscagl106299.html

Memory and Information Processes. (2003). In W. Reynolds & G. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of

psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 62-63). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.

Ormrod, J. E., & Jones, B. D. (2015). Learning in context. In Essentials of educational

psychology: Big ideas to guide effective teaching (4th ed., p. 60). Upper Saddle River,

New Jersey: Pearson.

Piaget, J. (1952). When Thinking Begins. In The origins of intelligence in children. New York,

New York: International Universities Press.

Tro, N. (2014). Chemical Kinetics. In Chemistry: A molecular approach (3rd ed., p. 616). Upper

Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.