EDU 5 - FACILITATING LEARNER - CENTERED TEACHING

LEARNING
- It is a relatively permanent change in one’s behavior as a result of his interaction in the environment.

3 IMPORTANT CONCEPTS IN LEARNING

1. CHANGE
- Learning involves change in knowledge or behavior
- Example: If a rat is lost in a maze, it produces an array of attempts to look for its way out. For several
times, it does the same thing until it finally gets its way out.
- Nothing about the maze has changed for it remains the same. Everything else in the rat’s situation has
remained unchanged EXCEPT the RAT.

BEHAVIORAL THEORIST - Learning consists of changes in behavior

COGNITIVE THEORIST - Learning involves changes in knowledge
2. BEHAVIOR
- The changes brought about by learning are relatively permanent.
- However, changes in making responses can be produced by other factors aside from learning.
- Example changes brought about by drives, fatigues, disease and injury dissipate rapidly.
- Drugs can also produce changes in responding but can also dissipate when drugs wear off.
3. PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
- Learning results from previous experience. Therefore, learning involves experience.

METACOGNITION
- Coined by John Flavell
- Means “thinking about thinking” or learning how to learn”
- It involves higher order thinking which involves active awareness and control over the cognition processes
engaged in learning.

3 CATEGORIES OF METACOGNITION
1. Person Variables
- This includes how one views himself as a learner and thinker
- Refers to knowledge about how human beings learn and process information, as well as individual
knowledge of one’s own learning processes.
- Example: You may be aware that you study more effectively if you study very early in the morning than
late in the evening.
2. Task Variables
- Include knowledge about the nature of the task as well as the type of processing demands that it will
place upon the individual
- It is about knowing what exactly needs to be accomplished, gauging its difficulty and knowing the kind of
effort it will demand from you.
- Example: you may be aware that it takes more time for you to read and comprehend a book in
educational philosophy than it is for you to read and comprehend novel
- Knowledge about the nature of the task.
3. Strategy Variables
- Involve awareness of the strategy you are using to learn a topic and evaluating whether this strategy is
effective
- Meta-attention - the awareness of specific strategies so that you can keep your attention focused on the
topic or task.
- Meta-memory - awareness of memory strategies (e.g. songs, mnemonics)

BEHAVIORISM
Emphasizes conditioning behavior and altering the environment to elicit selected responses from the learner.
This dominated much of the 20th century psychology

I. CONNECTIONISM - EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE (Founder of Behavior Psychology)

- Defined teaching as arranging the classroom to enhance desirable connections and associations
- Focused on testing the relationship between a stimulus and response (classical conditioning)
- Defined learning as habit formation
 II. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
Also known as respondent conditioning refers to a form of learning that occurs through the repeated association
of 2 or more different stimuli.

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

- Russian psychologist
- Nobel prize winner 1904 for work on digestion
- First to study classical conditioning in his famous experiments with dogs, he showed that a desired
response can be elicited when paired repeatedly with a stimulus

There are 4 key elements that are used to describe the process of classical conditioning:
1. Unconditioned Stimulus
2. Unconditioned Response
3. Conditioned Stimulus
4. Conditioned Response

Unconditioned Stimulus
- The unconditioned response (UCR) is any stimulus that consistently produces a particular, naturally occurring,
automatic response.
- In Pavlov’s experiment ,the UCS was the food (meat powder)
Unconditioned Response
- The unconditioned response (UCR) is the occurs automatically when the UCS is presented.
- A UCR is a reflexive involuntary response that is predictably caused by a UCS.
- In Pavlov’s experiments the UCR was the salivation.
Conditioned Stimulus
- The conditioned stimulus (CS) is the stimulus that is neutral at the start of the conditioning process and does not
normally produce the UCR.
Conditioned Response
- The conditioned response (CR0 is the learned response that is produced by the CS.
- The CR occurs after the CS has been associated with the UCS.

Key process in classical conditioning

Pavlov distinguished several key processes that are involved in classical conditioning.
These are known as:
1. Acquisition
2. Extinction
3. Stimulus generalization
4. Stimulus Discrimination
5. Spontaneous recovery

Acquisition - is the overall process during which the organism learns to associate to events

Extinction - is the gradual decrease in the strength or rate of a CR that occurs when the UCS is no longer presented.

Spontaneous Recovery - In CC, spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of a CR when the CS is presented, following a
rest period after the CR appears to have been extinguished.

Stimulus Generalization - this is known as stimulus generalization which is the tendency for another stimulus to produce
a response that is similar to the CR .The greater the similarity between the stimuli, the greater the possibility that a
generalization will occur.

Stimulus Discrimination - stimulus discrimination occurs when a person or animal responds to the CS only,but not to any
other stimulus that similar to the CS

III. OPERANT CONDITIONING -B.F Skinner (1904-1990)

- the term “operant conditioning “originated by the behaviorist B.F Skinner ,who believed that one should
focus on the external ,observable causes of behavior (rather than try to unpack the internal thoughts and
motivations)
 - all we need to know in order to describe and explain behavior is this: actions followed by good outcomes are
likely to recur and actions followed by bad outcomes are less likely to recur’ (Skinner, 1953)

Reinforcement comes in two forms: Positive and Negative Reinforcement

Positive Reinforcers
- Are favorable events or outcomes that are given to the individual after the desired behavior which may
come in the form of praise rewards, etc.

Positive Reinforcers
- Typically are characterized by the removal of an undesired or unpleasant outcome after the desired
behavior .Response is strengthened as something considered negative is removed

The goal in both of these cases of reinforcement is for the behavior to increases

IV. ALBERT BANDURA: SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

- Human beings have specific abilities related to learning that sets them apart from other species.
- Social cognitive theory states that there are three characteristics that are unique to humans:
- Vicarious Consequences (Model and Imitate others)
- Self-efficacy (self-reflection)
- Performance standards and moral conduct (Ability to regulate one’s own behavior)

4 Phases of Observational Learning

1. Attention
- Mere exposure does not ensure acquisition of behavior.
- Observer must attend to recognize the distinctive features of the model’s response

2. Retention
- Reproduction of the desired behavior implies that student symbolically retains that observed behavior

3. Motor Reproduction
- After observation, physical skills and coordination are needed for reproduction of the behavior learned

4. Motivational Process
- Although observer acquires and retains ability to perform the model behavior, there will be no overt
performance unless conditions are favorable

 He believes that people acquire behaviors through the observation of others, then imitate what they have
observed. Several studies involving television commercials and videos containing violent scenes have supported
this theory of modeling.
 Albert Bandura believed television was the source of behavior modeling.

MODELS ARE CLASSIFIED AS:

1. Real Life - exemplified by teachers, parents and significant others

2. Symbolic - presented through oral or written symbols
3. Representational - presented through audio-visual measures

PURPOSIVE BEHAVIORISM

Edward Tolman
- He was a Neobehaviorist.
- A TRANSITION group who bridged the gap between behaviorism and cognitivism
BEHAVIORISM
- Focused on EXTERNAL ELEMENTS in learning

COGNITIVISM
- Focused on INTERNAL ELEMENTS in learning

PURPOSIVE BEHAVIORISM
- Also referred to as the SIGN Learning Theory
- This was founded on 2 psychological views: Gestalt psychologist and John Watson, the behaviorist

Tolman’s Key Concepts

1. Learning is always purposive and goal-directed

a. An organism acted responded for some adaptive PURPOSE.
b. Individuals do MORE THAN merely respond to stimuli; they ACT on BELIEFS, ATTITUDES, CHANGING
CONDITIONS and they strive towards GOAL.
2. Cognitive maps in rats
a. The group that had the food in THE SAME LOCATION performed MUCH BETTER than the other group,
supposedly demonstrating that they had learned the location rather than a specific sequence of turns.
b. This tendency to “learn location” signified that rats somehow formed cognitive maps that help them
perform well on the maze.
c. He also found out that organisms will select the shortest or easier path to achieve a goal.

3. Latent Learning
a. A kind of learning that remains or stays with the individual until needed.
b. It is NOT OUTWARDLY MANIFESTED at once.
4. The concept of intervening variable
a. Intervening variables are variables that are not readily seen BUT SERVE as DETERMINANTS OF
BEHAVIOR
b. Tolman believed that learning is mediated or is influenced by expectations, perceptions,
representations, needs and other internal or environmental variables.
c. Example: In his rat experiment, HUNGER was an intervening variable.
5. Reinforcement is NOT essential for learning
a. Tolman concluded that reinforcement is NOT ESSENTIAL for learning, although it provides INCENTIVE
for performance.
b. In his studies, he observed that a rat was able to acquire knowledge of the way through a maze (by
developing cognitive map) even in the absence of reinforcement.