The Learning of A Complex Subject Matter Is Most Effective When It Is Intentional Process of Constructing Meaning From Information and Experience
The Learning of A Complex Subject Matter Is Most Effective When It Is Intentional Process of Constructing Meaning From Information and Experience
The Learning of A Complex Subject Matter Is Most Effective When It Is Intentional Process of Constructing Meaning From Information and Experience
The Learner- Centered Psychological Principles were put together by the American
Psychological Associations. The following 14 psychological principles pertain to the learning
process. The 14 principles have the following aspects:
They focus on psychological factors that are primarily internal to and under the control
of the learner rather than conditioned habits or psychological factors. However, the
principles also attempt to acknowledge external environment or contextual factors that
interact with these internal factors.
The principles are intended to deal holistically with learners in the context of real- world
learning situations. Thus, they are best understood as an organized set of principles; no
principle should be viewed in isolation.
The 14 principles are divided into those referring to (1) cognitive and metacognitive,
(2) motivational and affective, (3) developmental and social, and (4) individual
differences factors influencing learners and learning.
Finally, the principles are intended to apply to all learners - from children, to teachers, to
administrations, to parents and to community members involved in our educational
system.
3. Construction of Knowledge
The successful learners can link new information with existing knowledge
in meaningful ways.
Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to build links between new
information and experiences and their existing knowledge base. The nature of
this links can take a variety of forms, such as adding to, modifying, or recognizing
existing knowledge or skills. How these links are made or develop may vary in
different subject areas, and among students with varying talents, in and abilities.
However, unless new knowledge becomes integrated with the learner’s prior
knowledge and understanding, this new knowledge remains isolated, cannot be
used most effectively in new task, and does not transfer readily to new situations.
Educators can assist learners in acquiring and integrating knowledge by a
number of strategies that have been shown to be effective with learners of
varying abilities, such as concept mapping and thematic organization or
categorizing.
4. Strategic thinking
The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of thinking and
reasoning strategies to achieve complex learning goals.
Successful learners can reflect and how they think and learn, set reasonable
learning or performance goal, select potentially appropriate learning strategies or
methods, and monitor their progress towards these goals.
In addition, successful learners know what to do if a problem occurs o if they are
not making sufficient or timely progress toward a goal. They can generate
alternative methods to reach their goal (or reassess the appropriateness and utility
of the goal).
Instructional methods that focus on helping learners develop higher order
(metacognitive) strategies can enhance student learning and personal
responsibility for learning.
6. Context of learning
Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture, technology
and instructional practices.
Learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers play a major interactive role with
both the learner and the learning environment.
Cultural or group influences on students can impact many educationally relevant
variables, such as motivation, orientation toward learning and ways of thinking.
Technologies and instructional practices must be appropriate for learners’ level of
prior knowledge, cognitive abilities and their learning and thinking strategies.
The classroom environment, particularly the degree to which it is nurturing or not,
can also have significant impacts on student learning.
The rich internal world of thoughts, belief, goals and expectations for success or failure
can enhance or interfere with the learner’s quality of thinking and information
processing.
Student’s belief about themselves as learners and the nature of learning have a marked
influence on motivation. Motivational and emotional factors also influence both the
quality of thinking and information processing as well as an individual’s motivation to
learn.
Positive emotions, such as curiosity, generally enhance motivations and facilitate
learning and performance. Mild anxiety can also enhance learning and performance
task by focusing the learner’s attention on a particular task. However, intense negative
emotions (e.g., anxiety, panic, rage, insecurity) and related thoughts (e.g., worrying
about competence, ruminating about failure, fearing punishments, ridicule, or
stigmatizing labels) generally detract from motivations, interfere with learning, and
contribute to low performance.
8. Intrinsic motivations to learn
The leaner’s creativity higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute
of motivations to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks of optimal novelty
and difficulty, relevant to personal interests, and providing for personal choice and
control.
Curiosity, flexible and insightful thinking, and creativity are major indicators of the
learner’s intrinsic motivation to learn, which is in large part of a functions of meeting
basic needs to be competent, and which they believe they can succeed.
Intrinsic motivation is facilitated on tasks that leaners perceive as interesting and
personally relevant and meaningful, appropriate in complexity and difficulty to the
learner’s abilities, and on which they believe they can succeed.
Intrinsic motivations is also facilitated on tasks that are comparable to real-word
situations and meet needs for choice and control.
Educators can encourage and support learners’ natural curiosity and motivation to learn
by attending to individual differences in learners’ perception of optimal novelty and
difficulty, relevance, and personal choice and control.
9. Effects of motivation on effort
Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and
guided practice. Without learners’ motivations to learn, the willingness to exert this
effort is unlikely without coercion.
Individual learn best when material is appropriate to their development level and is
presented in an enjoyable and interesting way.
Because individual development varies across intellectual, social, emotional and
physical domains, achievement in different instructional domains may also vary.
Overemphasis on one type of development readiness- such as reading readiness- may
preclude learners from demonstrating that they are more capable in other areas of
performance.
The cognitive, emotional and social development of individual learners and how they
interpret life experiences are affected by prior schooling, home, culture and community
factors.
Early and continuing parental involvement in schooling, and the quality of language
interactions and two-way communications between adults and children can influence
these developments areas.
Awareness and understanding of development differences among children with and
without emotional, physical or intellectual disabilities, can facilitate the creation of
optimal learning contexts.
Individuals are born with and develop their own capabilities and talents.
In addition, through learning and social acculturation, they have acquired their own preferences
for how they like a learn and the pace at which they learn. However, these preferences are not
always useful in helping learners reach their learning goals.
Educators need to help students examine their learning preferences and expand and modify
them, if necessary.
The interaction between learner differences and curricular and environmental conditions is
another key factor affecting learning outcomes.
Educators need to be sensitive to individual differences, in general. They also need to attend to
learner perceptions of the degree to which these differences are accepted and adapted to by
varying instructional methods and materials.
The same basic principles of learning, motivations and effective instruction apply to all learners.
However, language, ethnicity, race, beliefs and socioeconomic status all can influences
learning. Careful attention to these factors in the instructional setting enhances the possibilities
for designing and implemented appropriate learning environments.
When learners perceive that their individual differences in abilities, backgrounds, cultures and
experiences are valued, respected and accommodated in learning tasks and contexts, levels of
motivations and achievements are enhanced.
Assessment provides important information to both the learners and teacher at all stages of the
learning process.
Effective learning takes place when leaners feel challenged to work towards appropriately high
goals; therefore, appraisal of the learner’s cognitive strength and weaknesses, as well as
current knowledge and skills, is important for the selection of instructional material of an optimal
degree difficulty.
Ongoing assessment of the learner’s understanding of the curricular material can provide
valuable feedback to both learners and teachers about progress toward the learning goals.
Standardized assessment of learner progress and outcomes assessment provides one type of
information about achievement levels both within and across individuals that can inform various
types of programmatic decisions.
Performance assessment can provide others sources of information about attainments of
learning outcomes.
Self-assessment of learning progress can also improve student’s self-appraisal skills and
enhanced motivation and self-directed learning.
Alexander and Murphy gave a summary of the 14 principles and distilled them into five
areas.
1. The knowledge base. One’s existing knowledge serve as the foundation of all future learning.
The learner’s previous knowledge will influence new learning specifically on how he represents
new information, makes associations and filters new experiences.
2. Strategic processing and control. Learners can develop skills to reflect and regulate their
thoughts and behaviors in order to learn more effectively (metacognition).
3. Motivations and affect. Factors such as intrinsic motivation (from within), reasons for wanting
to learn, personal goals and enjoyment of learning tasks all have a crucial role in the learning
process.
4. Development and Individual Differences. Learning is a unique journey for each person
because each learner has his own unique combinations of genetic and environmental factors
that influence him.
IV. How will you comply with the requirements of the lecture?
V. Resources