Learning Principles That Help Teachers to Develop Children as Learners - Essay Example

Ashok kaul Essay dt. 28th.Nov.2008 Learning principals that help teachers to develop children as learners Introduction Children in current learning environment are better equipped to learn faster with a superior quality of learning. There are several reasons to believe this However; we would like to throw some light on the two important reasons, which come to our mind, Firstly, as per theory of human evolution, children, as they belong to a new generation are more intelligent than their parents.. Secondly, the technological revolution and advancement, particularly in the internet based information and learning techniques that are available today have given far more exposure to the children to learn fast beginning with very early age. Various methods and helpful tools are available to make a young child understand through the process of exploration and discovery, which involves self-assessment as well. As all of us know, every child has a hidden talent and it takes time to hone that particular skill in the child. However, the current learning techniques have made it possible to bring this special talent to the surface at an early age of the child. We will now discuss the learning principals that help the teacher to develop the child as a learner. All learners can expand their knowledge and deepen their understanding The child starts communicating, understanding the surrounding world, immediately after the birth. Certainly, a month old baby responds to our communication by giving facial and other expressions. Such communication is very satisfying and is the indicative harbinger of the conversation to come in the following months, while the child grows. Studies indicate that the child at the time of birth itself starts to become aware of the fact that he or she is a member of the human society. Children start gradually understanding the art of social interaction from that stage onwards. We have evidence from studies that show that children at a very young age come to know of the fact that we are all different and each one of us is thinking in a different manner. There have been experiments conducted with children of 3 to 4 years age, that revealed the sense of the child being aware of her intellectual functioning and about the same attribute, she may find in some other children. Every child who enters the school for the first time tries to pick up the three R’s as fast as possible. However, not all the children are having the similar capabilities to do so. In view of this and other factors, many educationists have found a way of schooling, which is called “The Constructive View of Schooling, or Discovery Learning”. Under this environment of learning process, the student develops higher-level skills to understand major concepts in depth. The discovery learning can be said to have five main basics, which are: Case based learning Incidental learning Learning by conversation or by exploration Simulation based learning Learning by reflection All of the above basics are derived from the theories that have been described by John Dewey (1916/1997), Jean Piaget (1954) and Lev Vygotsky (Rice & Wilson 1998). In addition, the technological advancement of 21st. century has demanded the implementation of these theories more vigorously as the deep understanding of the major concepts is required from the early childhood levels, so that the child as an adult goes to face the competitive world in a better and more confident manner. Discovery learning is one method of constructive teaching which matches with the current demand of business and other scenario that need the problem solvers at the decision making levels. However, the current curriculum to teach and assess the students because of classroom and exam scores goes against this concept. In addition, the availability of professionally trained and competent teachers is still a concern and this hinders the adoption of the method of discovery learning. There is a need to train teachers who are able to work with young children, so that the discovery learning is adopted effectively to reap its maximum benefits. It is felt that the current demand of 21st. century is to go for the adoption of similar theories like discovery learning and self-exploration from the early childhood itself. The society wants such changes to happen faster as more children are given extra learning experience by their parents, as they enroll their wards in various outside school activities like foreign languages, dance, art and gymnastics. However, It is yet to be assessed, whether the discovery learning is the answer for bringing a revolution in the education system, for making the child a better adult, well prepared for the 21st. century competition. .Research is needed to find out effectiveness using various concepts such as Web Quests that tap into the good skills of discovery learning of the child while studying at a traditional school. Interaction of the following three elements is the basics of any school learning process: Students engagement, prior knowledge and style Learning environment Teacher competence, commitment and style The personalized instruction and learning process which takes into account the needs and characteristics of individual student from the early childhood is required. In addition to this, the flexible instructional practices help in better organization of the learning environment. Therefore, teachers who are committed to personalized teaching concepts and instructions do help their students in developing personal learning plans, while finding their style characteristics and their strength as well as weaknesses. These methods also help the teacher to adapt the learning environment and instructions that are suited best to the learner needs and interests. This results in a healthy and authentic learning experience for their students. While, schools are currently redesigning to meet the 21st. century environment of business and other competition, the school curriculum and environment has to address the issue with such evaluative strategies that can support and encourage the concept of personalized learning in schools. While the school environment has changed from traditional to transitional one, there is a need to further reform this environment as in both cases the communication has been one way only. We have been witness to the classroom teaching in such environments, where the only the teacher talks and student does nothing but has to listen only. In line with the refining of the learning and teaching process, we have now the concept called “Interactive Environment” The interactive environment term is used to describe the school environment that is characterized by the authentic assessment under reflective and thematic curricular organization. While, some schools have been redesigned on these concepts, English & Hill (1992) describe this environment as the “restructured School”. Here are a few of the features assigned by them to this pattern; It is a “theory Z “, wherein the concept is that, the school is an overall learning organization. The organization participates in every aspect of the concept with leading or design team linked to the teaching team. There is a two-way communication, for policy as well as consultation. Decisions are made collectively and implementation is at the proper level making feedback available to all concerned. Teaching is not just limited to three R’s, but it means guiding, coaching, interacting, intervening and showing, with personalized contact with the student.. .Learning develops through enquiry, exploration, discovery and critical reflection While discussing on the subject, let us first understand the concept of “Dialogic Teaching”. In order to think and express children need to know the language in its written and spoken form. As these are called the curriculum basics, the straight conversation or talking is the most important part of learning process. This is the the dialogic teaching. In the process, it was discovered that we need the following: While promoting learning, teachers changed their views on the role of written work. The challenging job for the teachers was to compose written work for the students, keeping in view the needs of these young learners. Students were encouraged to be interactive, as part of their learning while finishing their written work. Under the “Meta-Cognition and the Capacity to Learn” theory expressed by Paul Black in his “assessment for learning and Learning How to Learn”; It is essential for the learners to know the following: What is their present stage or level of learning Which stage of learning they are heading for. How they will reach that stage. It is the self-assessment, which help the learners to Understand and work based on the above concept. Under this program, The students need to understand the criteria for doing the self-assessment. Learners need to become independent learners by self-assessing their progress. Hence, the teachers need to teach the learners in such a reflective manner. Self-assessment develops the student as a learner in a way, which is unique for every learner. Further, the teacher is expected to do the following: While using the language of the pupils, the language of discipline is to b spoken Involving all the learners, while teaching them to be honest and challenging to each other. Observing the pupils to find where they want to enjoy spending their time, while training the pupils to work and interact in groups. Formative use of summative assessment Under this program of learning, in which the children participate actively, The students need to Be engaged by having a reflective view of their work, so that they can independently revise it. Set their own questions and mark the answers themselves, to help them understand in a better manner the assessment process, with a focus on further self-improvement. Rework their emanation answers, themselves, while in the class, to help them understand the improvement criteria and self-assessment methods. Under the cognitive learning principals, the following is essential: Involve the child actively in the learning process The child must understand the criteria of quality of achievement, the purpose of the same and using selfasessment tool towards the achievement of this goal. On the top of it, learning through discussion at all levels is very much needed. There are two types of theory of learning concerning the above. One is to give rewards as feedback to the student for hiss good work. This gives a sense of comparison of the learner with others and may enhance the learner’s ego in the process. The other is to give comments and compliments only to see that the child improves further. While the former is called “ego-involvement”, the later is said to be superior and is called “task involvement’ (please see Butler 1987). With task involvement, the learners believe that they can take new challenges, while improving by their own efforts and learning from their failures ( Please see “Self Theories” by Carol Dweck, 2000.). In addition, it is the teachers’ responsibility to involve more often the learners in the thinking process. This is possible by making the learning process more transparent to the children and let them take further responsibility for their own learning, while making the whole learning process more participative. Simply asking the pupils to accept and memories the teachings of the teacher, without knowing its meaning will loose the purpose of learning itself. As the learner sees himself at par with the teacher on a moral platform, he feels that he should fully understand the meaning of lesson. The teacher has to be convincing while giving his reasoning to this meaning, as the learner has every right to accept of argue the reasoning, itself. Hence the participative or collaborative learning is required which involves the learner with task involvement programs. As today’s child shall be a responsible decision maker in the adult world of next generation, the leaner needs to explore the learning process with reflective analysis through exploration and self discovery./assessment. The sense of discovery in the young age itself imparts a knowledge base in the child’s thinking process. This helps the child to make decisions on topics like self-improvement and self-discovery. The child starts to discover the good and bad versions of the same situation and the concept of application of tools that improve the learning performance of the child. As the exploration and discovery are the tools to optimize the benefits of the learning process, the child starts exploring the immediate surrounding environment after the birth itself. By the time the child is in the speaking age, the learner in the child has grown faster to observe the behavior of others and to discover the environment in an exploring manner. Hence, every child that goes to school as a beginner has some or the other skill base already formed due to this exploration and discovery process. Learners progress best in a safe, inclusive yet challenging learning environment The challenges are the part of our life. This is more so, when we are witnessing huge technological advances during this century. Therefore, the child has to learn the meaning of challenges from the early childhood itself. Hence, the learning environment has to be challenging all through. The challenges for a 21st. century child, when he is a responsible adult after say 25 years will be: What the child needs to know, understand and be capable of doing now to make him or her successful in this world? What kind of schooling is required to make the child fully prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow? How can the child maximize the learning benefits during the student days and thereafter? As our world has changed dramatically, during the last one or two odd centuries, we need to look beyond the 3Rs as the learning process for our children .The current 21st. century demands that we have more advanced skills in teaching to match with the current requirements. Such new skills will need to involve the latest development in technology, particularly the internet, to make our children well-informed citizens who are able to participate positively in the decision-making bodies of tomorrow. In this context, learning environment is the most important aspect, which one needs to look at. The setting, the people involved or the surrounding environment itself has an impending result on the learning process for the child. We find an increase in the learning process, memory and knowledge retention of the child, if the environment is safe and authentic, reflecting the normal life environment. When both knowledge gained and the knowledge to be applied later on remains in the same context, we can say that the learning environment is safe and authentic. While constructive mental models help the child to understand the world, the researchers have found that sometimes the models need to be refined to suit the computer simulations and other technological advances that we are going through. Caring is another important part of the safe environment requirement for the successful learning process. Emotional involvement of the child and teacher in the safe environment has a big impact on the outcome of the learning experiences. For better retention of knowledge and creating, a depth in understanding along with the increase in the level of concentration can be achieved by the motivation, which is intrinsic. Hence, Self-motivation is the force, which can prove the driving engine for the child throughout the life can make all types of learners achieve the newer peaks in their career. The competence was earlier described as a tool that measures the classroom skill sets that were mostly memory based or logic-oriented. However, it has now been found in the advanced researches on the subject that our IQ cannot be limited to these parameters only, as it can be expressed in a variety of expressions and behaviors. Hence, the need is to teach each child in unique way In the process there is need to create a multidimensional model of learning experiences that can be adopted and customized to the individual needs. The teaching tools and methods have to be designed keeping in view that they reach the minds of all kinds of children and everyone gets the feeling of getting an individual attention. The learning theory also lays great emphasis on the “community learning”. Children from the diverse background come together to share the knowledge of one another..Hence, the participative model of learning emerges. The thinking process of the young children coming from different professional backgrounds, when shared together, results in a newer and higher learning experience. Therefore, we can say that every child needs to learn the following skills, values and level of understanding to emerge as a successful and responsible citizen of the 21st. century: Have continuous self-assessment, while learning in a caring and inclusive environment. The assessment achieved in this process should lead to the self-motivation and not the self-condemnation. With emotional caring and support from the teacher, the child is required to learn high competency areas that will see the child through in the coming decades, like Math, Science, Engineering and Technology. The child must learn critical thinking and authentic problem solving concepts. The use of various physical and virtual models, taking the help of computers, related to the real world challenges always helps. The child must be aught the ability to share and participate in a team to learn about the others’ point of view and expertise. Teachers need to teach the child to communicate freely and in an objective manner, under the diverse conditions, with the divergence of even complicated information to a mixed and diverse audience. The children need to be taught to handle the complex challenges with creativity and ease. The challenging environment of learning, from the early years will prove very beneficial in this direction. Child has to go through the challenging environment of learning on a daily basis with emphasis on self-learning and assessment form the past mistakes and success. The continuous self-improvement on a daily basis under such challenging environment of learning will certainly help the child to come out as a successful adult to face the challenges of coming decades. Conclusion Although the technological tools available with us along with the ocean of information available over the internet makes it easier for the teacher to pass on the knowledge to the child learner, the digestion of same by the learner is under doubt. Technology alone cannot guarantee the success of the learning too as such. The most important part of pioneering any concept of learning is to put the use of the technology available to us in a proper and organized manner, so that the system delivers a learning concept that prepares a child for becoming successful in the coming decades of the current century. Therefore, some of the traditional approach to learning may have to be replaced by formulating new learning tools required to accept the challenges of the present world. Similarly, apart from the learning tools, learning methods, circulla material and assessment tools have to be refined for meeting this challenge The child in the present scenario needs to be taught, looking beyond the classroom environment. The hidden talent and skill of the child can only be observe if the child is given an equal opportunity to participate, observe and digest the environment surrounding the child. This can be done by giving the child freedom to explore, and self assess the knowledge that the child may get through the learning process. However, the most important factor is to make the process a two-way communicative one. The child needs to share and participate in a group to have the insight about the other children knowledge base Continuous dialogue with the other learners as well as the teacher should form the backbone of such reformative learning... , Sources reffered. “Personalized Instruction” By James W. Keefe, John M. Jenkins “Assessment for learning and learning How to Learn” By Paul Black NASA 21st Century learning Mission... White Paper Discovery Learning for the 21st Century: What is it and how does it compare to traditional learning in effectiveness in the 21st Century? Joyce A. Castronova Learning through the eyes of a child Idaho Department of Education “Learning in the Early Year” By Jeni Riley Read More