Slide 1 Introduction Welcome to Methods of Teaching in Adult Education. In this lesson, we will discuss Theories of Teaching.
Next slide. Slide 2 Topics The following topics will be covered in this lesson:
Principles of teaching from theories of learning;
Teaching concepts derived from learning theories about animals and children;
Concepts of teaching derived from theories of teaching;
Teaching through inquiry;
Teaching through modeling;
Perspective transformation / critical reflectivity; and
Change theory.
Next slide. Slide 3 Principles of Teaching from Theories of Learning According to Gage, theories of learning and theories of teaching are different- theories of learning deal with the way people learn, while theories of teaching deal with ways in which one person influences other people to learn. Learning theory subscribed to by a teacher informs his teaching theory.
Hilgard identified twenty principles of learning derived from three different learning theories namely, Stimulus- Response theory, cognitive theory, and motivation and personality theory. He made an assumption these principles would be acceptable to all learning theorists. Here, we will look at a few examples of principles that are emphasized in each theory.
Principles emphasized in S-R Theory include:
A learner should be an active participant rather than a passive listener or observer; Repeating as many times as possible is important in acquiring skills and for retention through overlearning; Reinforcement is important and correct responses should be rewarded; and Conflicts and frustrations that result in the process of learning difficult discriminations must be accommodated or resolved.
Principles emphasized in Cognitive Theory include:
Teachers should organize knowledge so that the direction is from simple to complex and is not from arbitrary, meaningless parts to meaningful wholes, but instead from simplified wholes to complex wholes.; Culture has an influence of the way people learn; and Goal-setting by the learner is important because motivation for learning and personal success and failures determine how individuals set future goals.
Principles emphasized in motivation and personality theory are the learners abilities are important and motivation and provisions have to be made for slower and more rapid learner. The same applies to those with specialized abilities. Culture affects learning. Learners should understand in terms of influences that have shaped her development.
Next slide. Slide 4 Learning Theories about Animals and Children There a number of theories about the nature of teaching and the role of the teacher. Here, we will look at a few of them. These include Thorndike, Guthrie, Skinner, Hull, Tolman, and Gagne.
Thorndike saw teaching as the control of learning by the management of rewards. Among other things, this teaching needs a learner that is interested, problem- oriented, and attentive. The teacher must manipulate the situation so that the learner accepts the problem posed because of the rewards involved. The rewards are the ones that strengthen the desired responses.
Guthrie offers two suggestions for teaching. In order to encourage a certain behavior and discourage the other, it is important to know the cues leading to the behavior. There must be skillful use of rewards and punishments. Use as many stimulus supports for desired behavior as possible. The presence of more stimulus associated with the desired behavior decreases the chances of distracting stimuli and competing behavior upsetting the desired behavior.
Skinner looks at teaching as the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement. Skinner indicates that it is the responsibility of institutions of learning to impart an accumulation of skills, knowledge, and social and ethical practices to its new members.
Hulls work was mainly concerned with the development of a systematic behavior theory that would improve the laboratory study of learning. However, Kingsley and Garry have concluded that a class modeled after Hulls theory would be characterized by systematic order and arrangement. The development of habits and skills would proceed from simple to complex.
Tolman was primarily concerned with the laboratory study of learning. He incorporated the concepts of Gestalt psychology in his work. The Gestalt psychologists see the role of a teacher as that of providing stimulating situations. This can be done through a number of teaching activities such as verbal explanations, showing pictures or presenting reading matter.
Gagne argues that learning cannot be explained by simple theories. Gagne believes that there are eight types of learning, each with its own set of required conditions. These types of learning are:
Signal learning; Stimulus-Response; Chaining; Verbal Association; Multiple Discrimination; Concept Learning; Principle Learning; and Principle Solving.
Each form of learning is distinguished from another by its prerequisites, because the types of learning are in hierarchical order. Gagne has also described eight functions of the ways in which the learners environment acts on the individual. The teacher has to manage these functions. Some of these functions are:
Presenting the stimulus; Every learning requires a stimulus outside the learner directing attention and other learner activities; Components in the environment can act on the learner by directing attention of a learner to certain stimuli; Inducing transfer of knowledge; and Transferring learned concepts and principles to unfamiliar situations
Next slide. Slide 5 Concepts of Teaching Derived from Theories of Teaching John Dewey put forward a system of ideas about effective teaching that have had the greatest impact in education during the first part of the twentieth century.
There are a number of differences between Deweys principles and the principles of traditional education. While students in traditional education learn from texts and teachers, Dewey advocates learning from experience; traditional education promotes the acquisition of isolated skills and techniques by drill, Dewey looks at the acquisition of isolated skills and techniques as a means of attaining ends which make a direct vital appeal.
The central concept in Deweys system is experience. According to Dewey, every educational process begins with experience. He argues that the challenge of education is to select the kind of experiences that live successfully and creatively with succeeding experiences.
The second key concept of the Deweys system is democracy. Deweys believes that democratic social arrangements promote a better quality of human experience, one which is more widely accessible and enjoyable.
Continuity is another key concept of Deweys system. Continuity means that every experience both takes up something from the previous experience and modify it with the other experiences that come after. Physical, intellectual, and moral growth are examples of continuity. Educators must be aware of the environments that are conducive to having experiences that lead to growth.
The other key concept of Deweys system is interaction. There are two factors of experience- objective and internal conditions. Dewey argues that any experience is an interplay of objective and internal conditions. The educator is responsible for knowledge of individuals and for knowledge of subject matter. This enables the selection of activities in which all participate. It is important to note that development of experience comes through interaction. According to Dewey, education is a social process. A teacher is no longer an external boss but a leader of group activities.
Next slide. Slide 6 Teaching Through Inquiry A combination of Deweys ideas about teaching and those from cognitive theorists have produced a set of concepts about teaching, commonly referred to as the discovery method, the inquiry method, self-directed learning, and problem solving learning. Jerome Bruner is probably the best known proponent of inquiry teaching.
Bruner has proposed four criteria that a theory of instruction or inquiry teaching must meet. They are as follows:
Predisposition to learn: Specify the experiences that most effectively move the learner towards the desire to learn; Structure of knowledge: Specify the ways in which knowledge should be structured so that it can mostly easily be grasped by the learner; Effective sequencing: Specify the most effective sequences in which to present the material to the learner; and Rewards and punishment: Specify the nature of rewards and punishment in the process of learning and teaching.
Bruner bases his system on the will to learn, a trait he believes exists in all people. The will to learn is a problem in schools where the curriculum confines students and keeps their path is fixed.
Postman and Weingartner have listed behaviors that are observable in teachers using inquiry method. Some of those behaviors include the following
The teacher rarely tells the students what he thinks they ought to know; The teacher uses questioning with more emphasis on divergent questions rather than convergent questions; The teacher encourages student to student interaction as opposed to student to teacher interaction; and The teacher does not accept single statement answers.
Next slide. Slide 7 Teaching Through Modeling Albert Bandura has developed has established a system of thought called social learninga system of thought on imitation, identification, or modeling as concepts of teaching. Here, we will discuss what teaching by modeling entails.
Teaching by modeling involves the teacher behaving in ways that he or she wants the learner to imitate. Here the teacher is seen as the role model. There are three types of effects from exposing a learner to the a model:
-Modeling effect: A learner acquires new kinds of response patterns. -Inhibitory or disinhibitory effect: The learner increases or decreases the frequency, latency, or intensity of previously acquired responses. -Eliciting effect: A learner receives from the model a cue for releasing a response that is neither new nor inhibited.
Among the many teaching techniques teachers use, modeling is probably the one that all teachers use, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are a number of characteristics that influence the teachers effectiveness s as a model. These include age, sex, social economic status, social power, intellectual and vocational status.
Social learning has been used mainly to achieve behavior change through external management of reinforcement contingencies. However, in recent years the focus has moved to what is called self-control process in which individuals regulate their own behavior by arranging appropriate contingences by themselves. There are a number of strategies for self-control process. Bandura notes that the selection of objectives, both immediate and ultimate, is the important aspect of any self-directed program of change. Furthermore, it is important that the goals that the individuals choose by themselves are specified in sufficiently detailed behavioral terms to provide adequate guidance for the actions that must be taken daily to attain desired outcomes.
Next slide. Slide 8 Perspective Transformation / Critical Reflectivity New theories about the purpose of teaching/learning suggest that it is not enough for adult education programs to satisfy the identified needs of individuals, organizations, and society. Mezirow suggests that what is important is to help learners change their way of thinking about themselves and their world. This can be achieved by what Brookfield calls critical reflectivity.
Under critical reflectivity, significant personal learning will be the learning in which adults reflect on their self- images, self-concepts, question their previously internalized behavioral and moral norms. The learners are able to interpret their present and past behaviors from a different perspective. Facilitators have a role of prompting learners to think about alternative perspectives on their personal political, work, and social lives.
In the process of facilitation, the learners previously held beliefs, behaviors, and values will be put to a test against new ones, which they may not want to consider. Confronting peoples beliefs, values or behaviors may be discomforting to some people. However, it should be made known to the students that this is a normal component of learning.
Next slide. Slide 9 Change Theory Change theory is another system of thought whose concepts and strategies are drawn from field theory, systems theory, organizational development and consultation theories, and ecological psychology. This theory deals with influencing the educative quality environments. Knowles has interpretation of some of the applications of change theory for human development. Here, we will explore these applications.
Organizations must be seen also as social systems because they have a human purpose. Though organizations need to get things done, their other function is to act as an instrumentality that helps people to meet their human needs and achieve human goals. Using adult education, organizations can advance both purposes. Organizations can use adult education to ensure that their personnel obtain the competencies needed to advance the goals of the organizations. On the human purpose, organizations will use adult education to help their personnel develop competencies that will enable them to meet their needs and achieve their goals.
Organizations provide an environment for adult learning. This environment can either facilitate or inhibit learning. Modern adult education theorists call for the need to increase the emphasis on the importance of building educative environments. Educative environments have certain characteristics such as:
Respect of personality; Participation in decision making; Freedom of expression and availability of information; and Mutuality of responsibility in defining goals, planning, and conducting activities, and evaluating.
In a democratic culture, an educative environment practices a democratic philosophy. In adult education, democratic philosophy among other things implies that learning activities will be based on the needs and interests of the participants, and a group that is representative of all participants is responsible for determining the policies.
Next slide. Slide 10 Check Your Understanding
Slide 11 Summary We have reached the end of this lesson. Lets take a look at what weve covered.
We started our discussion by examining theories of teaching. Here, we learnt that there is a difference between theories of learning and theories of teaching. We examined Hilgards twenty principles of learning derived from three different learning theories namely, stimulus, response theory, cognitive theory, and motivation and personality theory. He made an assumption these principles would be acceptable to all learning theorists.
We then examined teaching concepts derived from learning theories about animals and children. Here, we learnt about number of theories about the nature of teaching and the role of the teacher. These theories include those of Thorndike, Guthrie, Skinner, Hull, Tolman, and Gagne. Thorndike saw teaching as the control of learning by the management of rewards. Guthrie offers two suggestions for teaching. In order to encourage a certain behavior and discourage the other, it is important to know the cues leading to the behavior and use as many stimulus supports for desired behavior as possible. Skinner looks at teaching as the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement. Hulls work was mainly concerned with the development of a systematic behavior theory that would improve the laboratory study of learning. Tolman was primarily concerned with the laboratory study of learning. He incorporated the concepts of Gestalt psychology in his work. Gagne argues that learning cannot be explained by simple theories. He believes that there are eight types of learning, each with its own set of required conditions.
Next, we examined concepts of teaching derived from theories of teaching. Here, we learned about John Deweys system of ideas about effective teaching. We observed that there are a number of differences between Deweys principles and the principles of traditional education, such as while students in traditional education learn from texts and teachers, Dewey advocates learning from experience. We also learned that there are a number of key concepts to Deweys principles, such as experience, democracy, continuity, and interaction.
We then discussed teaching through inquiry. Here, we learned that according to Bruner, there are four criteria that a theory of instruction or inquiry must meet. These are:
Predisposition to learn; Structure of knowledge; Effective sequencing; and Rewards and punishment.
Next, we examined teaching through modeling. Here, we learned that teaching by modeling involves the teacher behaving in ways that he or she wants the learner to imitate. We also learned that there are three types of effects from exposing the learner to a model:
Modeling effect; Inhibitory or disinhibitory effect; and Eliciting effect.
Next, we examined perspective transformation /critical reflection. Here we learned that the new theories about the purpose of teaching suggest apart from satisfying the identified needs of individuals, organizations, and society; adult education programs should help learners change their way of thinking about themselves and their world. This can be achieved by what Brookfield calls critical reflectivity. Facilitators have a role of prompting learners to think about alternative perspectives on their personal political, work, and social lives.
Finally, we examined Change theory. We learned that Change theory is another system of thought whose concepts and strategies are drawn from field theory, systems theory, organizational development and consultation theories, and ecological psychology. This theory deals with influencing the educative quality environments. Using Knowles interpretation of some of the applications of change theory for human development, we learnt that organizations serve two purposes, the work purpose and the human purpose.