Learning, Teaching, and Teachers - 1

Chapter 2
Learning, Teaching, and Teachers
By Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D.
Minnesota State University, Mankato
andrew.johnson@mnsu.edu

This is an excerpt from my book: Education Psychology: Theories of Learning and Human
Development (2014). National Science Press: www.nsspress.com

“Basically . . . the human animal is a learning animal; we like to learn; we need to

learn; we are good at it; we do not need to be shown how or made to do it. What kills the
processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it” (John Holt,
Mothering, Issue 19, Spring 1981).

LEARNING
A teacher’s prime directive is to help students learn. So what is learning? There are a
variety of definitions. Figure 2.1 contains 21 definitions of learning. Read through this list and
choose two to three with which you feel most comfortable. (Note: There is no “correct”
definition.)

Figure 2.1. Definitions of learning.

Learning is . . .
1. acquiring new knowledge and skills.
2. acquiring new information or understanding.
3. a change in behavior that occurs as a result of instruction or
experience.
5. being able to use new knowledge or skills to solve problems or
create products.
6. being able to use new knowledge or skills to earn rewards and avoid
punishment.
7. increasing one’s ability to use logic, reason, intuition, emotion
and creativity to solve problems, make decisions, and come to know
the world.
8. linking new knowledge to old to construct meaning.
9. a search for meaning.
10. enhancement in thinking processes that result in improved
performance and problem solving.
11. a change in the structure or content of knowledge stored in long
term memory.
12. new behaviors or changes in behaviors that are acquired as the
result of an individual’s response to stimuli.
13. developing new ways of thinking.
14. expanding consciousness.
15. the acquisition, organization, and storage of new knowledge.
16. a relatively permanent change in one’s skills, knowledge and/or
attitude.
17. developing one’s full potential.
18. improving one’s ability to solve problems in ways that nurture the
self, others, and the environment.
19. improving one’s ability to become attuned to and utilize the
multiple dimensions of self.

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20. a long term change in one’s mental framework due to instruction or

experience.
21. being able to use new knowledge and skills.

Your definition of learning is most likely related to your educational philosophy. As

stated in Chapter 1, your philosophy, whether defined or not, is the basis of all things. Different
philosophical orientations will lead to different definitions of learning.
Learning and Humans
Described here are four general observations about learning and humans. These provide
a context for the information that follows.
• Learning is something humans do from the moment of birth to their last days
(Patterson, 1973; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994). Babies learn to associate certain stimuli with
pleasurable experiences and other stimuli with less pleasurable experiences. Throughout our
lives we are constantly interacting with stimuli from the environment, our accumulated
knowledge and experiences, and internal stimuli in the form of emotions, intuition, and our own
creative and logical thinking. These many and varied stimuli help us form associations, add
knowledge to the file cabinets in our heads, strengthen neural pathways, develop new insights,
generate new and novel ideas, and to grow and change.
• Humans are naturally inclined to learn (Brown & Dryden, 2004; DeCarvalho, 1991;
Holt, 1983; Rogers, 1961). We want to find out about the world around us. Our big human
brains are naturally hardwired to acquire knowledge. We are curious creatures who try to make
sense of the world that confronts us. Put a human in a room with a box and sooner or later that
human will look into the box in order to see what is there. This natural inclination has helped
our species evolve from early times.
• All humans will learn if the learning material is interesting or presented in
interesting ways (DeCarvalho, 1991; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994). Material to be learned can be
made interesting by linking new information to learner’s needs or personal interests or by
presenting the learning material in a way that is compelling or amusing (like a story). Lessons
that are perceived to be too abstract, irrelevant, or meaningless are much harder to learn.
• Human learning is cyclical not linear (Bruner, 1977). Humans learn things by
revisiting them many times at successively higher levels. Humans do not learn like computers.
With a computer, you input the information once and it is learned as fully and completely as your
input. With humans you can not present information just once and expect them to have learned
it. Humans need to revisit skills and concepts several times and in different circumstances.
With each visit we learn at increasingly higher levels.
As an example, Mr. Alan Jeffries teaches second grade. When he teaches a skill such as
a short-a vowel sound he does not expect that his students will master it from his initial lesson.
Instead, he provides a short bit of explicit instruction, repeated exposure and review, and lots of
authentic reading and writing. He knows that over time his 2nd grade students will master this
vowel sound. And because 2nd grade students are also not standardized products, there will
naturally be wide variation in the degree and rate of mastery of this skill.

LEARNING AND THE BRAIN

The brain is our learning organ. There are three parts of the human brain: the brain stem,
the cerebellum, and the cerebrum. The brain stem, sometimes called the reptilian brain or the
lower brain, is the oldest most primitive part of the human brain. It regulates our life support
systems and things within our body that do not take conscious thought.

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The cerebellum is a small part of the brain that plays an important role in motor control.
It takes input from other parts of the brain, the spinal cord, and sensory receptors, to coordinate
the movements of the muscles and skeleton.
The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain that is covered by a thin layer called the
cerebral cortex (Figure 2.2). This is responsible for the higher cognitive functions such as
thinking, reasoning, imagination, decision-making, and problem solving. The cerebral cortex is
divided into four sections called lobes. Each lobe is associated with certain types of thinking:
• The frontal lobe – reasoning, decision making, emotions, problem solving, and parts of
speech.
• Parietal lobe – movement, perception of stimuli, taste, recognition, and orientation.
• Occipital lobe – visual processing.
• Temporal lobe – memory, speech, and perception and recognition of auditory stimuli.

Figure 2.2. The brain.

An Integrated Whole
There are two halves or hemispheres to the brain that are connected by the corpus
callosum. Each side of the brain has some specialization; however, the brain works holistically.
That is, the two sides work as an integrated whole communicating back and forth. Thus, while
people may be better able to process certain types of data, there are no such things as left-brained
or right-brained people. In the same way, while there are certain areas of the brain that seem to
specialize in certain types of tasks, there are not specific parts that are totally responsible for any
one function. Instead, thinking is distributed across many areas of the brain.
Creating Neural Networks
Most of what we call thinking and learning occurs in the cerebrum, specifically the
cerebral cortex where there are billions of brain cells called neurons (Figure 2.3). Each neuron is
like a mini-computer that transmits and receives electrochemical signals in the form of nerve
impulses. Each neuron can send up to 50,000 messages per minute. Multiply this by the 100 to
200 billion neurons in our brains and you begin to understand the power of this human-brain-
computing-device.

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Figure 2.3. Neural network.

From a purely neurological perspective, learning of any kind is a matter creating neural
networks and strengthening neural pathways. When stimuli in the external world are perceived,
relevant sense organs send signals to various part of our brain were neurons are stimulated.
(Neurons can also be stimulated by other neurons as well. For example, the very act of thinking
stimulates neurons and related neurons.) Once stimulated, a signal in the form of an electrical
impulse is sent down a long fiber of the individual neuron called an axon (Figure 2.4). At the
end of the axon there is a gap that separates the neurons called a synapse. Here the electrical
impulse triggers a chemical release (neurotransmitter) that crosses the gap. The
neurotransmitters are picked up on the other side of the gap by neuroreceptors found at the end
of a shorter, branching fiber called a dendrite. The dendrite brings the signal up to the neuron.
The signal then continues its journey down the axon to the next neuron and beyond.

Figure 2.4. Neuron.

Stimulated neurons automatically send and receive messages to and from all the
surrounding or related neurons. As new neurons become linked up, neural pathways are created,
existing pathways are strengthened, and more sophistical webs or neural networks are formed
(Figure 2.5) These neural networks facilitate the processing of new and related information. In
other words, new learning and experiences create new and more expansive neural networks,
making it easier to make connections with other new and related information and experiences.
These neural networks represent the information in the head that is used to make sense of the
information on the page during the process of reading. Thus, learning begets more learning. The
more we learn, the easier it becomes to learn more.

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Figure 2.5. Neural network.

We Create our Own Reality

At birth billions of neurons exist in our brain like a gigantic dot-to-dot picture (Figure
2.5); but for the most part the dots are not connected and there are no preconceived pictures. As
we begin receiving various stimuli from the physical environment, neurons fire and become
connected with other neurons to form intercommunicating neural networks. The dots begin to
connect and form our ever-evolving picture of reality. As stated above, these neural networks
help us to perceive and process new information from the world around us. Thus, how we
interpret and perceive reality is determined by our past experiences. Since each person’s neural
networks are unique to that person and his or her experiences, each person has a slightly different
picture of reality. This means that there can be no such thing as a totally objective view of
reality since even the most objective accounts of data are still subjected to a very subjective
interpretation.

Figure 2.5. A giant dot-to-dot picture

As we act upon the world, the world in turn acts upon us in the form of new neural
pathways and neural networks. And as you can see, learning actually changes the physical
structure of the brain as new neural networks are formed. The term for this is neural plasticity.
It refers to the brain’s ability to organize and reorganize itself by forming new neural
connections throughout one’s life.

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Right now you are reading about the human brain. You most likely have had some
exposure to information related to this. These related neural networks are sending mild
electrochemical impulses back and forth. As you pick up new bits of information from this
chapter, these networks connect with other neurons and expand. The dot-to-dot picture grows
with more lines connecting to more dots. And as you see how one thing is associated with
another, connections between other neural networks are formed. And as you continue to visit
this network with new and related bits of information, the pathways between neurons become
wider as more neurons are connected. As you are striving to make sense of this chapter and
connecting new information to known information and your own experiences, your brain is
changing. This change will make comprehending a little bit easier the next time you read
something about learning and the brain.
Two-Way Flow
As data is taken in from the eyes and ears, it moves to the relay station in the brain called
the thalamus. The thalamus receives and initially processes sense data before they moves to the
cortex. The cortex is the part of the brain responsible for higher thinking and memory.

But wait, information does not flow just one way from the page up to the cortex (bottom-
up). Brain imaging research shows that as we process data taken in by the various senses,
information flows from the cortex down to the thalamus as well as from the thalamus up to the
cortex (Hawkins, 2004). As a matter of fact, there is almost 10 times more information flowing
down from that cortex to the thalamus than up from the thalamus to the cortex (Figure 1.7). But
what does this means?
In essence we perceive all of reality in terms of stored information, images, and patterns
stored in our cortex. Our brain is essentially a memory machine. These various forms of data
are used to reach out and make predictions about what we are about to perceive, experience, or
encounter. Sense data is then used to confirm, revise, or deconstruct these predictions and
construct our current reality. For example, if you are about to enter a restaurant your brain has
already made predictions as to what this restaurant will look like based on the all restaurants you
have experienced in your life. This restaurant data is called a schema (plural is schemata).
Schemata are the file folders in your head related to specific concepts and experiences. You use
schemata to help you understand what you are experiencing, but also to predict what you are
about to experience. (This will be explained further in Chapter 13).

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Figure 2.1, Two-way flow of information.

cortex – meaning - memory

thalamus

input data – sense data

LEARNING TO TEACH
One does not become a master teacher after two years of undergraduate education.
Learning to teach and to teach well occurs over time and involves four components: knowing,
planning, doing, and reflecting.

Teaching = knowing + planning + doing + reflecting

• Knowing. Teachers need to have an organized body of knowledge related to teaching

and learning (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Sternberg & Williams, 2002). This organized body of
knowledge will enable you to align the approaches and strategies you use with a body of research
and to make decisions that are more likely to enhance your students’ learning. As stated in
Chapter 1, research should inform your teaching practice. There are four areas of knowledge
that are necessary to become an expert teacher (Bruer, 1999; Eggen & Kauchak, 2007): (a)
content knowledge, (b) pedagogical knowledge, (c) pedagogical content, and (d) knowledge of
learners and the learning process. Each of these is described below.
• Planning. Good teaching does not happen by accident (lesson plan design will be
addressed in Chapter 20). Effective teachers plan their learning experiences (Hay/McBer, 2000).
They decide exactly what they want students to learn, the teaching strategies they will use, the
questions they may ask students, and related activities and assignments. In your future
classrooms, planning will enable you to create more purposeful and effective instruction and
results in fewer behavior management issues.
• Doing. This third element is where you actually teach the lesson. Here you present the
material to be learned using a variety of research-based methodologies and teaching strategies
(see pedagogy below). However, the first two elements need to be addressed before you can
function well here
• Reflecting. What separates good teachers from poor teachers is the propensity to reflect
(Sternberg & Williams, 2002; Zeichner & Liston, 1996). Being an effective teacher does not
mean that you do not make mistakes or have bad lessons. (If you never make mistakes it
probably means that you have not experimented or tried enough new things.) The difference is

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that effective teachers think about those mistakes and bad lessons so that they can figure out
what went wrong and how they might change the lesson. Poor teachers often blame the students,
the curriculum, the weather, the media, or parents when a lesson goes badly (see Reflective
Teaching below).
Reflective Teaching
Reflective teachers are effective teachers. Kenneth Zeichner, a professor from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, is strongly identified with the reflective teaching movement
(Zeichner & Liston,1996). After a lesson a reflective teacher asks two kinds of questions: The
first relates to lesson effectiveness. How did it go? Was I effective in getting ideas across? Did
learning taking place? Were students able to take away something of importance? Were
students able to construction new knowledge? Is there anything I could change or do better?
The second relates to the alignment of your practice with your teaching philosophy? Am I in
harmony with what I value? Am I practicing what I preach in regards to best teaching practice
and what I believe to be the purpose of education? Is what I am doing consistent with my
teacher philosophy? What does the professional literature say? Asking these kinds of questions
will ensure your continued growth as a teacher.
Teaching as a Science and a Art
So is teaching a science or is it an art? It is both.
• A science. It is a science in that there are strategies and practices that a body of
research has shown to be effective in enhancing learning. Just like doctors, teachers should use
research to inform their practice. On the individual level teaching is a science also in that
teachers are constantly collecting data by observing their students in order to see if learning’s
taking place and how they learn best. And, like scientists, teachers experiment with new
techniques or strategies to see how they work.
• An art. It is an art in that teachers must bring themselves fully into their teaching. As
a teacher you will need to find the methods and strategies that work best for you. Teachers are
not standardized products. What works for one teacher may not work for another. Thus, all the
teaching strategies that you learn should be adopted and adapted to fit your particular teaching
situation and your personal teaching style. To be an effective teacher you must carve out your
own teaching philosophy and discover your own unique talents and learn how to use them.
The Teaching Craft
Teaching might also be described as a craft. A craft is a skill or set of skills learned
through experience. This is exactly what teaching is. This means that you can not expect to
leave your college teacher preparation program a finished teaching product. Teaching is a
complex, multi-dimensional endeavor; not something that can be mastered in four semesters of
undergraduate instruction. Master teachers develop over time through experience and continued
study and reflection. This means that undergraduate and post-baccalaureate teacher preparation
programs will not teach you how to teach; instead, they will give you the basis upon which to
learn how to teach. Does this mean teacher education programs are of little value? Certainly
not. There is a fairly substantial body of research that indicates that teacher education programs
improve teachers’ performance and their students’ achievement (Wilscon, Flodenk, & Ferrini-
Mundy, 2001).

THE TEACHER
What do you suppose is the most significant variable in determining how much learning
goes on in a school or classroom? What do you think has the greatest effect on the quality of

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education students receive? It is the teacher. Teachers are the most significant variable in
determining the quality of education (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Darling-Hammond, Holtzman,
Gatlin, & Heilig, 2005; Darling-Hammond & Youngs, 2002; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock,
2001). So it stands to reason then that one of the most effective ways to improve education is to
attract intelligent, creative, innovative, caring, dedicated, hardworking people into the field and
to give them the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed. And this is where you come in.
Dispositions
Besides knowledge and skills, effective teachers are also said to have a certain set of
dispositions (Chicoine, 2004). A disposition is a state of mind that creates an inclination to think
or act in certain ways. While we can not observe a disposition, we can observe actions that seem
to reflect certain dispositions. So which dispositions are the one’s that teachers should have?
The dispositions in Figure 2.2 are those that some teachers might be considered to important;
however, a quick Internet search will show that there is a lot of different thinking on this issue.
Just like your definition of learning, the teacher dispositions you select as being important are
highly influenced by your personal teaching philosophy. And even though there may be people
who insist that you adopt their teaching philosophy or who tell you exactly what teaching
dispositions you must have, to be of any value you must ultimately develop, define, and
internalize your own.

Figure 2.2. Dispositions for teachers.

dispositions definition
compassion To empathize and seek to understand. To display unconditional
positive regard for students and faculty; and to try to
understand the motivations and environmental circumstances of
students, parents, and faculty.
kindness To interact with students and faculty in a positive,
benevolent manner; to be friendly; to seek the highest good of
others; and to nurture self, others, and the environment.

courage To stand up for the rights of students, self, faculty,

schools, and the academic integrity of programs.
right effort To fully engage and apply oneself in the act of knowing,
planning, teaching, and reflection.

reflection To think about one’s actions as a teacher and a person for the
intention of personal and professional growth. To define a
philosophy and act based on that philosophy.
positive To think and speak in a manner that affirms, edifies, and
attitude nurtures self, students, faculty and the environment.
honesty and To speak the truth and to seek to act in the best interests of
integrity students, parents, faculty, and the school or environment.
professional To celebrate differences of opinion and philosophies, to
respect communicate and compromise to find common goals, and to seek
the common good.

Other Traits of Effective Teachers

So to be an effective teacher you need a certain body of knowledge, set of skills
(pedagogy), and set of dispositions (Morris, 1978). What are some other traits of effective
teachers? Grant and Gillette (2006) identify the following:
• Understanding and accepting one’s self.
• Being able to acceptance criticism and willingness to change.

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• Open-mindedness or freedom from prejudice.

• The desire to learn new things.
• A well-construction philosophy of education that is used as the basis of their teaching.
• A multicultural view of learning and human development.
• Knowledge of and connect with the community in which one is teaching.
This list is by no means meant to be exhaustive or exclusive; rather, it is used here to
simply start the conversation. As you do an Internet search using the words “effective- teacher-
dispositions”, you will notice that there is quite a wide variety of traits that various research
studies have found to be important. See if you notice some common themes.
Becoming an Expert Teacher
Besides the traits and dispositions described above, what separates the expert teacher
from one with “growth potential” is the possession of four types of knowledge (Bruer, 1999;
Darling-Hammond, 1999; Eggen & Kauchak, 2007):
• Knowledge of content. The expert teacher has a body of knowledge related to the
content or subject matter that is to be taught. The math teacher knows a lot about math, the
social studies teacher knows a lot about social studies, etc. This body of knowledge guides the
expert teacher in deciding what is taught and in what order. What about the elementary teacher
or the special education teacher?
• Pedagogical knowledge. Pedagogy is the art and science of teaching. Expert teachers
know a variety of skills, strategies, techniques, and methods to impart knowledge or enhance
learning. Effective teachers have a toolbox filled with a variety of pedagogical skills they can
use with a variety of students in a variety of situations. Educational Psychology for Teachers
Book II: Advanced Pedagogy and Classroom Practices contains a wealth of specific pedagogical
skills and strategies.
• Pedagogical content knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge is an understand of
how to teach specific content or skills. For example, you know the best strategies for teaching
reading, science, math, or writing. Also, you understand how to convert your knowledge into
information that students can understand. You can break things into manageable parts, use kid
language to make things clear and simple, and design activities that help students understand.
• Knowledge of learners and learning. You understand the learning process, you know
how students best learn, and you recognize link between what you do and student learning. Here
you understand human development, theories of learning. That is, how human beings learn.
This text is designed to help increase your understanding of this type of knowledge.
Summary of Key Ideas
• There are many definitions of learning; however, the one you eventually adopt will
most likely be related to your teaching philosophy.
• Learning is something humans are naturally inclined to do.
• Effective teaching involves knowing, planning, doing, and reflecting
• Teaching is both an art and a science
• We learn the craft of teaching over time.
• The classroom teacher is the most significant variable in determining the quality of
education students receive.
• Effective teachers have a certain body of knowledge, set of skills, and set of
dispositions.

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© Andrew Johnson, Ph.D.