Syllabus Review 24/11/15 12:34 PM PERSPECTIVES ON LEARNING 1. Behaviorist applications to learning a. Underlying theory i. classical conditioning ii. operant conditioning b. applications such as programmed learning and behavior c. modification techniques (controlling disruptive behavior) 2. humanistic applications to learning a. Underlying theory (Rogers, 1951) b. applications such as co-operative learning c. learning circles and the open classroom d. Summerhill School. 3. cognitive applications to learning a. Underlying theory (e.g. Piaget) b. applications such as discovery learning (Bruner) c. expository teaching/reception learning (Ausubel) d. zone of proximal development (Vygotsky).
Transcript
Syllabus Review 24/11/15 12:34 PM
PERSPECTIVES ON LEARNING 1. Behaviorist applications to learning
a. Underlying theory i. classical conditioning ii. operant conditioning
b. applications such as programmed learning and behavior c. modification techniques (controlling disruptive behavior)
2. humanistic applications to learning a. Underlying theory (Rogers, 1951)b. applications such as co-operative learningc. learning circles and the open classroomd. Summerhill School.
3. cognitive applications to learning a. Underlying theory (e.g. Piaget)b. applications such as discovery learning (Bruner)c. expository teaching/reception learning (Ausubel)d. zone of proximal development (Vygotsky).
Behaviorist Applications to Learning 24/11/15 12:38PM
Underlying theoryBehaviorism is the idea that all behavior is the result of our environmental surroundings. On other words, the things that happened in the environment leading up to the behavior are what caused it. The environment provides a stimulus, and our behavior is a response to that stimulus.
A simple example might be picking up a hot pan, and then dropping it immediately. The heat of the pan is the stimulus, and dropping it was the response.
There are two ways in which a stimulus could lead to a response, and these are the two types of learning in behaviorism:
Classical Conditioning Classical Conditioning involves the association of a certain stimulus to a certain response. Pavlov's dogs are a famous example of classical conditioning.
Operant conditioning Operant Conditioning says that the consequences of an action (whether it is rewarded or punished) affect whether the action is repeated or changed. This allows the formation of new behaviors. The 'Skinner Box' (named after famous Behaviorist B. F. Skinner) is a good example.
Bandura's Social Learning Theory is a development of operant conditioning, which states that as well as learning through our own punishments and reinforcements, we can also learn through observing other people's behavior (and the outcomes of it).
Evaluation of the Behaviorist Approach: Reductionist
Psychology should be seen as a science. Watson stated that “psychology as a behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is … prediction and control”.
Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion. Observable (i.e. external) behavior can be objectively and scientifically measured. Internal events, such as thinking should be explained through behavioral terms (or eliminated altogether).
When born our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate). Everything that we know we have learned from the environment.
There is little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and that in other animals. Therefore research can be carried out on animals as well as humans.
Behavior is the result of stimulus – response (i.e. all behavior, no matter how complex, can be reduced to a simple stimulus – response association). Watson described the purpose of psychology as: “To predict, given the stimulus, what reaction will take place; or, given the reaction, state what the situation or stimulus is that has caused the reaction”
Operant conditioning principles were discovered using animal experiments. Will these results from pigeons and rats in a lab generalize so well to students in a complex environment such as a school?
A major criticism of behaviorist theories of that they ignore other approaches, such as the cognitive approach. By ignoring the idea that our thought processes can influence our behavior (for which there is a lot of experimental evidence), behaviorism seems to only provide a partial explanation of human behavior.
Determinist People have no free will – a person’s environment determines
their behavior This is also a deterministic theory - students would have no
choice about whether their behavior was changed or not using these methods. This creates a slightly depressing view of humans as creatures that simply mechanistically respond to stimuli.
Nurture When born our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate). Everything
that we know we have learned from the environment. All behavior is learnt from the environment. We learn new
behavior through classical or operant conditioning. Usefulness and Application
Operant conditioning has many useful applications to schools, which are easy to implement and easy for students and teachers to understand. For example merits, stickers, certificates and awards, honors boards, detentions, exclusions and suspensions, letters to parents etc. These are strategies that are employed by almost every school in the world, so it is hard to deny that behaviorism has had a huge impact on education worldwide!
This is a scientific method of analyzing behavior, emphasizing the use of objective measuring techniques and measurable outcomes. This means that, in theory, it should be able to be applied to large numbers of children in an unbiased way.
Group Therapy Ethics
Some behaviorist strategies, such as aversion therapy for classical conditioning or the use of punishment in operant conditioning, create ethical issues such as protection from harm.
This is also a deterministic theory - students would have no choice about whether their behavior was changed or not using these methods. This creates a slightly depressing view of humans as creatures that simply mechanistically respond to stimuli, as well as raising ethical questions of consent.
Applications such as Programmed Learning and Behavior
Skinner's application of the ideas of operant conditioning to education lead to the development of programmed learning. This presents information in a series of very small 'frames' (e.g. single facts at a time), followed by a memory test.
With a correct answer, positive feedback is given and the student can move on to the next frame. A wrong answer means that the frame is repeated.
Excitingly for Skinner (and probably for many students), this method suggested that teachers could be entirely replaced by 'teaching computers'.
Modification Techniques (Controlling Disruptive Behavior)Behaviour modification is the term given to attempts to use operant conditioning in order increase or decrease the frequency of certain behaviours.
We will meet behaviour modification, or it's more modern version of 'Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)' at a couple of places on this course, most notably in the treatment of autism spectrum disorder and in strategies for the treatment of disruptive behaviour.
Humanistic Applications to Learning 24/11/15 12:38PM
Underlying Theory (Rogers, 1951)Carl Rogers looked out over the landscape of late 1940s Psychology and didn't like what he saw. Freudians and behaviorists were battling for supremacy, but whoever won the outlook was bleak for us. Either we were animals helplessly driven by internal and unconscious urges, often sexual in nature, or we were animals mindlessly responding to stimuli!
Rogers didn't recognize those descriptions in most human beings. He wanted to create a "third way" of looking at Psychology and human behavior, one that 1. emphasized people's goodness, 2. freedom to choose and 3. desire to be better people. He called it humanistic psychology.
Evaluation of the Humanistic ApproachFree Will
We have free will. Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free will. Personal agency means that we are free to make our own choices and choose our own path in life.
Gives us free will, so we are in control of our own actions and can take responsibility for them.
Reductionist Ignores other approaches and tend to focus on a select few
assumptions People are basically good. The approach is optimistic about our
ability to be caring, creative and kind. We all want to improve (or grow) as people. Becoming the best
person you can be is called self-actualization, and we'll come back to this in the Motivation section.
The person knows what is best for them. Because we all have our own way of looking at the world, only we know the right decision for us to make (compare this to behaviorism’s treatment of everyone as being the same).
Holistic Treats students like individuals, as it believes that each person is
unique. A holistic approach. Collects qualitative data that can tell us about students' feelings
Scientific approaches that are experimental and reductionist (e.g. behaviorist and cognitive approaches) are dehumanizing, reducing human beings to just a set of data. The human is more than that. Therefore the approach rejects experiments and uses qualitative research methods such as unstructured interviews and questionnaires with open questions. Unscientific approach, so it does not do experiments to support its theories and so lacks any scientific support.
Usefulness and Application Low- Co-operative learning can be effective, but this is highly
dependent on the skill of the teacher. Treating people as individuals can be very time consuming and
difficult. Staff may need to produce multiple lessons to cater for all individual tastes. Is this realistic? Compared to this, other approaches, such as behaviorism and cognitivism, have large amount of supporting data to back up their theories.
Reliability
Low: Unscientific measure, difficult to replicate
Applications such as Co-operative LearningThe title gives it away really! Here students (usually 4-6 in a group) are forced to co-operate with each other if they are to achieve their own personal academic goals.
There are many ways that co-operative learning can be achieved in a classroom. One way is through learning circles. Another is the jigsaw technique, where students leave their groups to find out about a specific individual topic, before reporting back and teaching the rest of their group on their topic.
Advantages of Cooperate Learning All members of the group have a responsibility for sharing, co-
operating and learning. Goals and rewards depend on the performance and contribution
of all group members. This should improve interpersonal and teamwork skills
(discussing, working together, taking turns etc) When done well in an organized fashion, co-operative learning
techniques can be very effective for student's learning
Disadvantages of Cooperate Learning
Low- Co-operative learning can be effective, but this is highly dependent on the skill of the teacher.
It is debatable whether this is due to the techniques themselves or just the fact that the techniques require a lot of planning and organization.
Learning Circles and the Open ClassroomLearning Circles :Learning circles are an example of a co-operative learning technique.
A learning circle could be used for:
Learning together - students must work together to complete a worksheet, without any competition between the groups. The teacher praises them for co-operating and finishing successfully. Group competitions. Each team has a mix of abilities, sexes, backgrounds etc. After presentation of the information, students are given exercises/worksheets to complete in their groups. Again, the teacher praises them for co-operating and finishing successfully. At the end of the material, quizzes/tests are given out. The tests are taken individually, but team scores are calculated.
Slavin (1983) said that using this method... 'Students see learning activities as social instead of isolated, fun instead of boring, under their own control instead of the teacher's'
Hopeful outcomes of learning circles: Students help each other more, do not make fun of those with learning difficulties.
Open Classrooms:The open classroom is an arrangement where large groups of mixed ability and mixed age children work together in a single large room where there may be multiple projects being undertaken at once. Look at this amazing modern take on open classrooms at a school in Stockholm!
Students learn to be independent and to think for themselves. They should learn how to learn, rather than just what to learn.
The student, rather than the teacher, is placed at the center of the educational process.
Children can progress at their own pace and in topics that they find interesting.
Advantages of Open Classroom Should reduce student stress as the atmosphere will be more
relaxed. Students often more creative and co-operative than in normal
classrooms.
Disadvantages of Open Classroom It is difficult to tell the difference between order and chaos!
Where should a teacher draw the line between children expressing themselves and being rebellious?
Tends to lead to lower academic achievement in standard tests, compared to normal schools.
Summerhill School. "Imagine a school where kids have the freedom to be themselves. Where success is not defined by academic achievement but by the child's own definition of success."
So begins the website of 'Summerhill School', one of the first and most famous libertarian schools in the world. Summerhill puts into place many of the humanistic principles envisaged by Carl Rogers. The school is run as a democracy in which all members of the school community have an equal vote in the outcomes. These meeting decide the rules of the school and the ways that the school functions. Students therefore have a say in what they learn, how they learn it and how they judge the success of their actions. The founder, A.S. Neill used the maxim "Freedom not Licence" to describe the basic philosophy of the school. This is the principle that you can do as you please, so long as it doesn't cause harm to others. Hence, you are free to swear as much as you like, within the school grounds, but calling someone else an offensive name is license, as so would be prohibited.
Advantage Encourages creativity and independence. A large number of students find artistic careers.
Disadvantage Exam results tend to be worse than those of more traditional schools.
Cognitive Applications to Learning 24/11/15 12:38 PM
Underlying theory...Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes. It states that human behavior can only be understood by analyzing the information processing that takes place in the brain, in other words our thought processes. These processes are called meditational processes, and they include language, perception, problem solving, memory, attention and others. All of these are area that are studies by cognitive psychologists.
The theories, concepts and research methods of cognitive psychology have been readily applied to educational psychology. For example, in child development, how a child comes to know about and understand the world around them has been extensively investigated by psychologists such as Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. They have studied this by looking at both exceptional child development and learning difficulties such as dyslexia.
Evaluation of the Cognitive ApproachUsefulness and Application
The cognitive approach has useful applications to education, e.g. schools now try to develop mental processing and encourage children to reflect of their own mental processing to enable the development of 'metacognition'.
Validity Research by the approach tends to use rigorous methods and
systematic hypothesis testing, making it scientific and valid. This is in contrast to the humanistic approach, for example.
Reductionist The approach is reductionist as it focuses largely on the cognitive
aspects of development, and ignores the impact that biological factors can have on development
The behaviorist approach would criticize the cognitive approach's use of models and focus on unobservable though processes, rather than behavior. Behaviorists would say that thought processes could not be measured objectively.
Jean Piaget and schemas - background
Although he might look a bit like an extra from Lord of the Rings, Jean Piaget was a brilliant and visionary scientist. Piaget was one of the first researchers to see that children thought differently to adults. Previously it had been thought that children simply displayed less developed (i.e. stupider) versions of adult thought, but Piaget showed that they thought in entirely different ways to adults, as well as showing how interesting this difference was in helping us to understand both children and adults.
One of Piaget's main ideas, which is very relevant to Educational Psychology, is schemas. Piaget studied how schemas formed, and the process by which they changed. These processes are excellently summarized on Saul McLeod's site here. In particular, use the very clear interactive graphic halfway down the page to watch how schemas could develop and change, through processes such as accommodation and assimilation. When our schemas work to accurately describe the world we live in, we are said to be in a state of equilibrium, but if they don't then we are in disequilibrium, and must respond by making adjustments to our schemas in some way.
Another key Piaget idea is that we develop in stages. This is very relevant to primary education, but less so for secondary education (which we are more focused on in this unit).
Applying Piaget to educationPiaget's ideas have been hugely influential in education. As we will see, theorists such as Bruner and Ausubel would develop his ideas further. Here are a couple of key educational ideas to take away from Piaget's work:
The child has to create their own opinions - children have to make their own schemas (they have to make their own interpretations about the world). They will see and interpret the world differently to other people.
Teachers should work to develop their students' schemas. This means the curriculum needs to be organized to reveal and emphasize relationships between ideas.
Students should be taught to develop strategies for organizing and using knowledge
Applications such as Discovery Learning (Bruner)Bruner's discovery learningThink about the implications of Piaget's theory for education. How would you arrange a classroom and teach lessons to best make use of these ideas? Jerome Bruner thought about this question too. The result was a system called discovery learning. Bruner's thinking went as follows:
Children make their own versions of reality. Therefore the point of an education system should be to help them discover their own meanings. Schools should therefore encourage the discovery of relationships. The best thing for a teacher to do, therefore, is to present information, not in its final form, but in a form where the child is required to organize it themselves.
The bold text above is the definition of discovery learning. In other words the student is not provided with an exact answer but rather the materials in order to find the answer themselves.
Examples of discovery learning activities: Students are given a map and told that they need to establish a
settlement. Where would they do it? (This will require research about the ideal conditions for settlements, the conditions required etc).
Alia has a new car, but she doesn't understand how the engine works. Can you design a program to educate her?
Evaluation of discovery learning: Usefulness
If the teacher is also present to offer guidance, then this can be an effective strategy.
The theory has had useful applications, developing into common modern teaching methods such as problem-based learning.
Difficult balance between reduced teacher involvement and no teacher involvement! 'Minimal' teacher involvement is not effective - they still need to guide/facilitate the learning.
As the children are self-discovering, they could be doing so with errors or misconceptions that are not being corrected.
Some concepts, such as very abstract or theoretical concepts may not be suitable for discovery learning. More direct forms of instruction may be needed (see Ausubel).
Very time consuming!Freewill
Child is able to construct their own schemas and self-organize their knowledge about the world. This is therefore less deterministic than behaviorist theories.
Expository Teaching/Reception Learning (Ausubel)Ausubel would see Bruner's ideas as being too time-consuming to be used very often. Would you be happy to have to discovery learn all the material for your A-Levels? It might be useful for younger children, but by secondary school age we need to know complex, abstract information and we need to know it quickly. More often, Ausubel believed, children need to be given the material that they need to know. This is the basis for reception learning, which Ausubel classed as an alternative to discovery learning. In his own words, reception learning is where "the entire content of what is to be learned is presented to the learner in its final form".
Just like Bruner and Piaget, Ausubel believed that learning meant establishing a relationship between old and new material, it's just that he thought that the relationships should be made clear by the teacher. Ausubel, slightly irritatingly, called this type of learning subsumption, and he distinguished two types of it.
Derivative subsumption - deriving material from what you already know - adding things into pre-existing schemas (very similar to the Piagetian idea of assimilation).
Correlative subsumption - extending what you already know, changing your schemas (similar to Piaget's accommodation).
Again, the challenge for you is to be able to show how the theory can be applied to the classroom. So what is it that teachers should be doing, according to Ausubel?
1. Causing correlative subsumption. Correlative subsumption leads to more effective learning (as it causes schemas to be rearranged and updated). A teacher's job, therefore, is to cause children conflict, to force them to change the way they look st the world by presenting them with new information.
E.g. "There are no giant insects on the planet... but there used to be. Why?"
2. Using advance organizersAdvance organizers are general ideas that the students are presented with at the start of the lesson. They serve as a reminder to the students of what has been covered and help to place the new material in the context of the old. Students should be more able to see the relationship between the new and old material.
E.g. The diagram on the right is an example of a graphic advance
An example of a verbal advance organizer might be a teacher saying "Right, now remember what we did last time on the three different psychological approaches to education. At some point in this lesson I will be asking you to tell me three similarities and three differences between each approach. Make sure you are able to answer these questions."
Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky)
Lev Vygotsky's career is a great example of how science cannot escape political feuds and rivalries. Despite being born in the same year as Piaget, and doing much of his work at the same time as Piaget was publishing his ideas, his work remained little known (especially in the West) because it was banned by Stalin after Vygotsky’s death. Only with the gradual opening up of the Soviet Union in the 1970s was there greater dialogue between Western and Russian scientists, leading to Vygotsky’s work being translated into English.
Vygotsky's main idea is that many theories (including Piaget's and Bruner's) underestimated the idea of culture and thesocial environment on what a child learns. Think of Bruner's ideas of learning, with the child self-discovering and finding their own way of interpreting the world. They are pretty much on their own in this process, in fact Piaget used the phrase "lone scientist" to describe how children learned.
Vygotsky disagreed. For him a child was not a lone scientist, but a "little apprentice", someone who learnt not from discovering the answers for themselves but from watching and being coached by other people, and from relying on other people to help us learn new things.
In order to explain how the people around us could help us to learn new things, Vygotsky created the idea of a zone of proximal development (ZPD).
The ZPD
An important principle of Vygotsky’s work if the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD can be defined as the difference between what a child can achieve on their own in problem solving and what can be achieved with the help of an adult or peer (Butterworth & Harris 1994).
For example, a child could not solve a jigsaw puzzle by itself and would have taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following interaction with an adult. The adults or peers who are more knowledgeable or experienced than the student (the ones who can give them guidance) are known as more knowledgeable others, or MKOs.
The support provided by MKOs for the student is known as scaffolding, a term also used by Bruner. The idea that guidance in the form of scaffolding improves cognitive development – supported by Conner, Knight and Cross (1997)who demonstrated that in follow-up sessions, children who had received good scaffolding performed better than children who had received poor scaffolding.
Applying Vygotsky to educationVygotsky's ideas have a number of implications for classroom practice:
Because communication between learners and MKOs is so important, it is not surprising that Vygotsky thought language was crucial to development. Classroom activities should encourage children to talk as much as possible.Teachers are MKOs! They should actively assist students, by modelling correct strategies, asking questions which simplify the problem, encouraging correct ideas and so on...Students should work in groups wherever possible (mixed ability groups would allow more advanced students to be MKOs to the others, for example). This contrasts with the Piaget/Bruner idea of the child as a 'lone scientist'
Evaluation of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Usefulness and Application
Research has shown clearly that children learn successfully in environments where adults and peers can effectively provide scaffolding
The idea of scaffolding has provided teachers with a way of intervening actively in children’s learning without resorting to 'traditional' teaching
The effectiveness of co-operative group work has been supported, providing that the teacher is very organized in designing it (see the co-operative learning points)..
There are practical problems with the use of co-operative group work. There are more opportunities for children to be off-task in group work, and there are ‘free-riders’ who do not contribute to the work of the group
Description Answer 24/11/15 12:34 PM
Describe what psychologists have learnt about perspectives on learning. [8m]There are many different ways in which humans and animals learn skills and behaviors. These include three main perspectives/approaches: The behaviorist, humanistic and cognitive approaches. The Behaviorist perspective is about observing the observable and how we learn things through our environment and the organisms within it. One application of the behaviorist perspective is programmed learning. This is based on operant conditioning, which is learning based on reward and punishment. Programmed learning is based around reinforcement. It is a computerized way of learning. The student is given a question and asked to respond. If the student is correct, reward is given and the student moves on to the next question, but If the student is incorrect, they have to study the material again until they get the question tight. There are two types of programmed learning; linear and branched. In linear, the student only finds out if they are correct or incorrect. However, in branched, students are given in-depth feedback on their performance. It is based upon concept building over time. While this caters to individual differences, programmed learning isn’t applicable to all abstract subjects. Unlike the behaviorist perspective, the basics of the humanistic perspective centers on the uniqueness of every individual. Therefore, there are no general laws that apply to all individuals. The idea of the humanistic perspective stems from the theories of Carl Rogers, who says that we have all had different life experiences, and this makes us all different. An application of the humanistic perspective is the Open Classroom. An open classroom has to do with the way the school system is designed. There is no set syllabus. Typically, there are students of all ages and skill sets working in the same room. There is a low student-teacher ratio, with very little control or competition. Children are independent, given responsibility and progress at their own pace. An example of a school that is based on the open classroom is the Summerhill School in England (since 1927). While this is more holistic than the behaviorist perspective, it is difficult to measure progress or success.
Unlike the humanistic, the cognitive perspective is the scientific study of mental processes. This approach to education is based around the way students think and process information in order to learn. Piaget extensively investigated the cognitive perspective. Piaget studied child development in stages that are linked to the child’s age. He says that schemas (mental formulae/thought process) are the building blocks of all thought. An application of the cognitive perspective is Bruner’s Discovery Learning. Bruner believed that children shouldn’t be taught step by step as that would be robbing them of developing their own schemas. He said that instead, children should be given a rough guideline for a task, so that they learn through trial and error and create schemas for both, failure and success. This means that children should be taught to develop strategies for organizing and using knowledge by discovering the relationship between different things, to develop schemas. While this would produce long lasting schemas, as well as, innovation and creativity, discovery learning can be very time consuming. Ausubel did not agree with Bruner’s discovery learning and so came up with expository teaching/reception learning. This approach is the exact opposite of Bruner’s and encourages step-by-step direction in the style of traditional teaching. Ausubel came up with advance organizers, which are general ideas that students are presented with at the start of the lesson, which are then broken down into smaller parts, so that it is easier for children to learn new information and form schemas. This way, it is more organized and schemas are not lost in the process of trial and error. While it is easier to build schemas this way, it can get monotonous. In conclusion, psychologists have learnt much about the different perspectives on learning, including, programmed learning, the open classroom, Bruner’s discovery learning and Ausubel’s expository teaching/reception learning.
Evaluation Answer 24/11/15 12:34 PM
SECTION BOCTOBER 2012/31(a) Describe what psychologists have found out about perspectives on learning. [8](b) We have theory and we have the real world. Evaluate what psychologists have found out about different perspectives on learning and include a discussion of applications to education. [12]
MAY 2013/31(a) Describe what psychologists have found out about perspectives on learning. [8](b) “A unique individual? No. Everyone behaves in the same way.” Evaluate what psychologists have found out about different perspectives on learning, and contrast two perspectives as part of your evaluation. [12]
MAY 2015/32(a) Describe what psychologists have discovered about perspectives on learning. [8](b) Evaluate what psychologists have discovered about perspectives on learning and include a discussion of the usefulness of different perspectives. [12]
When writing evaluative essays (question 2B in the exam), the best answers will understand that there is a grey area between two different theories. For example, just because there are problems with one part of a theory does not mean that all of its ideas are worthless, or that the competing explanation is completely right!
FOR EXAMPLE:There are many criticisms of humanistic ideas in education, and it seems fairly clear that schools run entirely along humanistic lines (e.g. Summerhill) do not achieve the exam results of 'normal' schools... but this doesn't mean that they are all bad! There may be some types of children (creative, artistic etc) who benefit greatly from such an environment. Also, just because 'libertarian schools' such as Summerhill don't do as well in exams, that doesn't mean that there aren't any humanistic ideas which can be valuable to education. Co-operative learning can be an effective learning tool in the hands of a good and organized teacher. Also, some other humanistic ideas, such as non-grading (not putting grades on regular school work or reports, just focusing on learning targets) is increasingly supported by evidence showing that it can have positive effects (e.g. Gutierrez & Slavin, 1992).
The key is that you can understand the nuance of the arguments - that there might be value in both theories that you are discussing. Good teachers will use a range of methods from a number of different theoretical viewpoints, depending on the specific requirements of each lesson.
b)“A unique individual? No. Everyone behaves in the same way.” Evaluate what psychologists have found out about different perspectives on learning, and contrast two perspectives as part of your evaluation.
Section C 24/11/15 12:38 PM
SECTION CMAY 2012/32You are meeting your friend Eric for the first time in several years. You know he believes in thehumanistic approach to education and you are looking forward to hearing all about it. (a) Outline the main features of the humanistic approach to education. [6](b) Suggest how Eric can use the humanistic approach to prepare students for examinations. [8]
MAY 2013/33You want to devise a set of revision exercises for your psychology examination that can be done on a computer. You decide that it will be based on what behaviourists call ‘programmed learning’.(a) Suggest what features your programmed revision exercises would include. [8](b) Describe the behaviourist theory of learning on which your suggestion is based. [6]
OCTOBER 2013/31According to Vygotsky the role of the teacher is to provide support that is just beyond the level a child can achieve alone.(a) Use Vygotsky’s theory to suggest how a teacher could improve the teaching of science to young children. [8](b) Describe the psychology on which your suggestion is based. [6]
OCTOBER 2014/31There are a number of co-operative learning techniques that children can use in a classroom.(a) Suggest how you would investigate which co-operative learning technique was most effective for teaching. [8](b) Describe the main features of co-operative learning. [6]
OCTOBER 2015/33As a teacher you are planning a science class for 10-year-old children using discovery learning.(a) Suggest what features your discovery learning plan for a science class would include. [8](b) Describe the cognitive theory of education on which your plan is based. [6]
