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Teachers Training Session 1 West Herts College is a 10 minute drive from Stanmore Centre. The name of the course tutor was Carol Kennedy - she regularly directs teacher training courses and is also a tutor for the BBC's Open University. What is Learning and when do people learn best Session Summary 1. What is Learning? 2. What might disrupt a student's learning? 3. How do people learn best. 1. What is Learning ? Learning is to do with change in an individual’s knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. When learning takes place there are usually three steps involved: Acquisition - One must be able to apply concentration to acquire the knowledge Storage - To store the information, the student must understand what is being taught Recall - To recall the information one can use associations Next there was a brief review of the learning process cycle and several theories on children’s learning were presented. The research of a Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was discussed as below: - Development as adaptation to the environment – Basically, children learn by what’s around them (i.e. picking up things and experimenting)
- Object permanence – Baby as centre of its own world and objects only exist while perceived
- Centration – Ability to only deal mentally with a single aspect of a situation. Dominance of own perspective
- Egocentricism – Children are doing things without being aware of what is around them. Centering on their own perception or action with complete absence of conscious awareness of separate existence of those of others.
Next the ideas of the American behavioral psychologist, B F Skinner (1904 - 1990) were discussed as below: - Students should be set easy targets which when achieved should be incremented to more challenging goals (Hence take learning step by step).
- Skinner also believed that ‘intermittent rewards’ should be awarded – and that the rewards should come frequently but not always. (The success of lotteries and 'roulette' exploits this human trait).
2. What might disrupt a student's learning? Next we were alerted to the possibilities that there may be students in the classroom who, for various reasons, are not learning. Some of these reasons, which the teacher should be vigilant about are: - Distraction from other students
- Relationship with teacher
- Lack of understanding – must check at regular intervals whether learning is taking place
- Lack of interest
- Language barrier
- Illness (Special needs)
- Fatigue
- Lack of encouragement from home
- Anxiety
- Low concentration span (especially amongst younger children)
- Fear of failure
- Shyness
- Lack of confidence – this can be overcome by setting simple tasks and rewarding pupils for successfully achieving the goal
3. How do people learn best. A brief introduction into aids to help learning. The following ideas were noted: - Use of pictures
- Use of acronyms & mnemonics
- Use of the OHP, computer technology (such as the internet)
- Role plays
- Relation of personal experience (real life examples)
- Lots of activity work and interaction
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