FLCT Module 7 - Lecture notes 7 PDF

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FACILITATING LEARNERCENTERED TEACHING

Cognitive Process MODULE 7

Activity Read the question below: “Teaching is not about filling up the pail;

It is about lighting a fire.” What concepts/ideas/images came to your mind when you read “Teaching as filling up the pail”? Elaborate. 

It is like students are passive, just acquiring knowledge but not active digest the knowledge given. They just receive information as is.

What concepts/ideas/images came to your mind when you read “Teaching is about lighting a fire”? Elaborate. 

It is about providing them a brighter future. I can relate the fire from the light since it’s somewhat a light source on dark times. To let them explore more about learning, to not just receive knowledge but to actively acquire them in a way that they’ll be able to understand the concepts and apply it to the real world.

Analysis What do you think the quotation meant? What two kinds of teaching are being referred to? 

“Filling up the pail” is more linked to rote learning and behaviorism. It connotes that teaching is dominated by the teacher and the learners are passive receivers of knowledge. “Lighting the fire” is related to the cognitive perspective and constructivism. It signifies that teaching involves giving opportunities for learners to explore and discover. Learners construct their own meaning. Learners generate insights and are “enlightened.”

Research Connection Read a research or study related to knowledge construction or concept learning. Fill out the matrix below. Title: Jones, J. I., and Hilaire, Robert S. Concept Learning in the Undergraduate Classroom: A Case Study in Religious Studies. (2014) Vol.7, No.2. International Journal of Instruction. e-ISSN: 1308-1470 www.e-iji.net p-ISSN: 1694-609X Problem: As a step toward remedying both of the above deficiencies, then, this study will explore the application of the Concept Attainment Model in an undergraduate religion course in a small private University in Western

New York. In addition to offering some muchneeded data regarding the use of this model on the post-secondary level, it will also exhibit one way in which it was successfully applied in a humanities course and thus implicitly serve as a possible model for future applications in similar courses. In this case study, the guiding research question was as follows: “Under what conditions and in what capacity can the Concept Attainment Model be used in the undergraduate religion course?” As will be explained, the most significant finding was that the success of this model had everything to do with the work the instructor did in scaffolding and guiding the class discussion. Methodology: In order to broaden some of the typical assumptions about the manners and conditions in which it can be effectively employed in the undergraduate classroom, this qualitative research study offers an example of the Concept Attainment Model in action in the teaching of traditional just war theory in an undergraduate religion class. Data was collected and analysed according to Spradley’s qualitative research methodologies (Spradley, 1980). Among the most important findings of this study is that in a religion or similar humanities course, the Concept Attainment Model is most likely to find success when highly scaffolded by the instructor. Findings: This case study implicitly serves as an important illustration of the Concept Attainment Model successfully put in action in a humanities course. First, it is important to note that the above example of this model is a highly scaffolded and structured strategy. A common critique of this model (and others highly constructivist in nature) is that they lack direct instruction and that students are largely left unguided to invent their own conceptual understanding (Tobias & Duffy, 2009). However, as was made clear, the instructor played a critical role in establishing not only the examples for students to consider but also in providing specific, concrete, and actionable feedback so that students leave with a conceptual understanding that is in tandem with accepted understandings. Consider the examples from this case study. These were authentic because they mirrored real-life current events but were also modified in order to foster non-partisan discussions among students. Scaffolding played an important part in the concept-attainment process and was obviously a major component of the planning that preceded the use of this strategy. Conclusion/Recommendations: These findings are consistent with previous research in the elementary and secondary school setting where application of Bruner’s Concept Attainment Model provided educational benefit to diverse student populations (Kennedy, Fisher & Ennis, 1991; Sternberg, 1986; Oxman & Weinstein, 1993; Paul 1993; Lipman, 1988). While beyond the scope of this paper, in other settings this concept attainment model has been found to be more effective in raising the achievement of pupils than that of the control group (Basapur, 2012). This may be a worthwhile area for further research and discussion related to the Concept Attainment Model in higher education settings. Based on the data collected for this case study, at least two recommendations to other professors looking to implement the Concept Attainment Model,

particularly in a religion or other humanities course, can be made. First, like other constructivist approaches, teacher-scaffolding and feedback is key. Students cannot develop a true and meaningful conceptual understanding without carefully selected examples, opportunities to explain the quality of those examples with others, and feedback about their thinking. Second, an evaluative component of the Concept Attainment Model lesson is also important as it force learners to think critically about the concept they are exploring in a higher level. By asking questions that force learners to engage in higherorder thinking and place judgments on the concepts they are learning, greater conceptual understanding will occur.

Synapse Strengtheners 1. Having studied about constructivism and the application in teaching, give at least five characteristics of a constructivist teacher. You may express your answer by writing a poem or a drawing or a clip art/photo essay.  Class in-depth discussion that enables student to think carefully, to explore and have that concept of learning through exploration.  Teacher who’s very passionate of reaching out to his students concern. Application 1. Think of a topic related to your field of specialization. 8 Parts of Speech 2. Indicate how you can apply constructivism for your students to construct their own understanding of the topic. The first one is partially done for you. Constructivist Implication - Have few key ideas.

What I will do to teach the topic I will emphasize the following key ideas. Defining the terms means linking ideas to another idea, with that they’ll be able to understand concepts.

- Give varied examples.

With each concept, providing examples is a must. It will help them to understand and with that I can elaborate the concept more. Let students provide varied examples applying knowledge they received from the discussions. With that they can formulate sentences applying the concepts. Constructing a game where students can actively learn from that activity, use of the environment as a basis. Using placards or aids that enhances child’s learning Let students apply their understanding of the concepts in a form activities, for instance constructing sentences and applying concepts of the lesson Relating concepts to real life scenarios. For

- Provide opportunities for experimentation.

- Provide lots of opportunities for quality instruction.

- Have lots of hands-on activities.

- Relate your topic to real life

situations.

- Do not depend on the explanation method all the time.

examples, I will give examples identifying the concept from each parts of speech, where students learn from understanding varied examples. It is important that students do not just learn by listening, ask them as well for their insights, or opinion based on their understanding. Active involvement of students for such watching video lesson for easier understanding.

Assessment Tasks 1. Describe the role of constructivism in facilitating learning.  It aims to let students learn from exploring or actively participating in the context of learning. It aims to let learners learn not just by depending on the teacher’s discretion but also let them look for knowledge from other reliable references. In the context of constructivism there is an active involvement of both learners and the educators. 2. Describe strategies to promote knowledge construction  Through active participation of one individual particularly the learner, knowledge construction is meet when the learner involve his self in the context of learning. It signifies that learning is effective when shared to other people. With that they’ll be able to create a more concrete understanding of concepts. 3. Describe strategies to facilitate concept learning.  Concept learning mostly took place in the learners’ mind. The strategies help students to attain and learn if there is a concrete and well-organized set of concepts. Aim to make clear those concepts that are still vague for them, and to pave the way for them to overcome misconceptions. It is important that educators acquire skills on how to facilitate concept formation and development. 5-minute non-stop writing Your 5-minute non-stop writing begins NOW! From the Module on Constructivism: Knowledge Construction/Concept Learning, I realized that, learners should be guided in order to learn. Learning isn’t based on knowing all the terminologies, concepts but rather students learn through to some series of guidance, exploration and application of the knowledge acquired to the real world. It also indicates that child learn through continuous interface with his environment. That through various interaction a child will be able to learn because of the construction of knowledge based on the conceptions that is shared to create a more concrete and complex type of learning. It also made me known the following types of constructivism, its implication on learning and etc. From the time I’m reminded I believe I’m more of constructivist than behaviorist. Activity Discuss this:

- Will a skilled typist find it difficult to use the computer keyboard when he/she encodes?  Yes, although he or she is a typist, the medium being used is different from the usual instrument that one used. One must have proper training before mastery of the medium. Do this: - Let your teacher/a classmate, whose cellphone features differ from yours, use your cellphone. Was he/she able to use your cellphone without your help? Or did s/he need help?  I collaborated with my classmate, he had difficulties at first but he was able to understand the features of phone. Maybe one attribute is the modernity and the complexity of the muscles. Reflect on this: - a thesis writer once remarked: “Buti na lang, we were required to do action research in the undergraduate. It helped me a lot in my thesis.”  Learning isn’t about gaining knowledge on a particular thing but through learning occurs when you begin to apply it in real life scenarios. Learning is best known when applied similar to the idea of through application of your acquired knowledge you’ll begin to understand. Synapse Strengtheners 1. Read more about “mile-wide-inch-deep” curriculum. What are some advantages/ disadvantages of this? •Advantages are: you would 'cover a lot of ground' in terms of subject matter. The students would have a superficial awareness of a lot of topics. As you have a subject heavy curriculum it would be best to employ a formative assessment strategy - i.e. testing little and often throughout the course. •Students might have a terrific life in store for them in a field of which they have no or very little knowledge.

2. One disciplinary approach is Content-Based Instruction (CBI). Another is the thematic approach. Read about these and see how they can help the transfer of learning more effectively. (You may wish to refer to Corpuz. B. and Salandanan. G. (2207) Principles of Teaching 2). •It doesn’t include answer or reflection, but to give some idea, it gave me different realizations. It served me different approaches that would help me once I step my foot outside educational world.

Application 1. Choose a topic related to you field of specialization. Language (Grammar) 2. Extend the Table below by thinking of specific learning activities that would apply the principles of transfer. Implication Involve students in learning situations and tasks that are similar as possible to the situations where they would apply the tasks.

Specific Learning Activity/Strategy Let students have prior understanding of the task. Have them engage themselves to their environment for instance, an interactive activities that enhances the child’s understanding and application of the task.

Remember to provide opportunities for learners to link new material to what they learned in the past. To ensure transfer, teach a few topics in depth rather than many topics tackled in a shallow manner.

Illustrate new concepts and principles with a variety of examples. Plan activities that allow your learners to practice their newly learned skills Relate a topic in one subject to topics in other subjects or disciplines. Relate it also to real life situations.

Zero in on principles related to each topic together with strategies based on those principles. Encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning, and to reflect on what they learned.

Having an activity where new knowledge can be link to the existing knowledge. For instance the use of reflections and assessments. In depth explanations of concepts and topics should be applied in teaching, one must understand the topics thoroughly rather than that of numerous topics are being tackled yet having a less acquirement of knowledge is useless. The use of visual-aids is important just as the relay of knowledge. Use of aids will help you to illustrate your topics well, where learners can engage themselves prior to the acquiring of knowledge. Use of examples that learners can relate to will create a thoughtful acquirement of knowledge. The use of their daily encounters will enable the learners to engage themselves and create an additional schema prior to the existing knowledge. Application of organized pattern when it comes to learning is as effective and efficient. It’ll benefit not just the teacher but most especially the learners. Learners must acknowledge their engagement to every aspect of learning. Having said that learning is effective and efficient in terms to the context of learning.

Research Connection Read a research or study related to Transfer of Learning. Fill out the matrix below. Title: Lightner, Robin., Benander, Ruth., and Kramer, Eugene F. Faculty and Student Attitudes about Transfer of Learning. Vol. 3. 2008. Problem: Clearly, the research indicates that while faculty expect transfer, there are many barriers to such transfer. The work done in attitudinal factors suggests that students’ attitudes towards learning exert a powerful force on the strategies they choose to use. Thus, if we want to promote transfer of learning, students and faculty need to share an expectation of transfer as a foundation for promoting it. A group of faculty at our college created a faculty learning community to investigate why it is apparently difficult for students to transfer information they learned in past courses to present courses. We began our investigation with the basic assumption of faculty that transfer of learning is inherent to the learning process. We wanted to know if this was also the students’ perceptions of transfer. Methodology: To further explore the relationship of student and faculty attitudes concerning transfer of learning, we surveyed students and faculty from the same institution to find out how similar their expectations of transfer and perceptions of the barriers to transfer might be. Both groups completed a survey about learning attitudes and provided

examples of transfer. The researchers hypothesized that faculty’s attitudes would include higher expectations for transfer than students’, which may underlie faculty’s perception that there are problems with transfer. Furthermore, the survey explored their attitudes about barriers to transfer to find out if students perceived barriers that faculty were not aware of. Findings: Many students provided examples of transfer in open-ended questions in this study. They reported making spontaneous transfers that were not explicitly part of a given course. These results are encouraging. In contrast, some common classroom practices may not facilitate transfer. Alexander and Murphy (1999) suggest that learning environments are often specifically structured against the practice of transfer, including the instructor not modeling, rewarding, encouraging, or giving opportunities to express transfer. Alternatively, faculty might assume it is the student’s responsibility to transfer knowledge, and leave it entirely up to the student to make the necessary connections. Therefore, students are left on their own to understand, for example, that their citation skills can be used in other courses or that their critical thinking skills will help them in any course. Engle (2006) found that when instructors framed multiple contexts for applying student learning among elementary school students, the students were able to explain phenomena better in different situations. This framing could be equally useful, in albeit more complex circumstances, at the college level; there, faculty could make more explicit interdisciplinary connections during instruction, or create assignments that involved students in a variety of applications of course content. When instructors explicitly design classroom assignments with transfer in mind, then transfer is more likely to happen. Conclusion/Recommendations: Suggestions from these survey results, the transfer literature, and our experiences with transfer include rewarding the student who brings examples from other contexts into classroom discussions. For example, a biology instructor might ask students to include in presentations what current research is being done on the topic they have chosen to present. Also, encouraging and modeling transfer can help students understand that transfer is not only possible but useful. For example, history courses could include literary works from the time period under study, chemistry courses could include social implications of chemical technologies, or literature courses could include visual art representing the aesthetics of the literary period of study. In this way, teachers can ask students to generate possible applications or uses of the material in a forwardlooking practice (Halpern & Hakel, 2003); or, teachers can include references to how other disciplines view or work with the concepts that are being discussed in a particular class. It may also be helpful to decontextualize information to get students to see the bigger picture and be able to recognize ideas in other settings (Salomon & Perkins, 1989). For example, in a psychology course, students might be asked to think about how historians’ work is affected by the hindsight bias, or in a math

course, students could study how advances in mathematical thought have changed perceptions of the universe over time. Assessment Tasks 1. In your own words, explain how transfer of learning occurs. Transfer of learning happens when learning in one context or with one set of materials affects performance in another context or with other related materials. Simply put, it is applying to another situation what was previously learned. 2. Identify the factors that affect transfer of learning.  Similarity between two learning situati...