Scheme of Work and Theories of Learning

University Degree Education and Teaching

SCHEME OF WORK AND THEORIES OF LEARNING

This assignment will look at the four main theories of learning. These are Behaviourism, Cognitivism, Social Constructivism and Humanism.

It will then move onto explain the difference between surface and deep learning and describe the domains of learning, and the levels within the domains of learning.

They essay will then examine my own scheme of work, for Challenging Offending Behaviour, and finally conclude with any suggestions for change.

Behaviourism works under the premise that learners require some sort of reward or reinforcement for learning. This could be praise, attention or some other form of encouragement, for example, a gold star. Reinforcement should follow the ‘learning’ as soon as possible, and encouragement should be continuous whilst the students are working. This is called Operant conditioning. Learning is divided into achievable tasks, in a step by step approach, so that the brain remembers what has happened. Learning by association also comes under the behaviourist theory. This is called Classical conditioning. Some of the techniques of behaviourism would be: prompting, role play and positive reinforcement.

Humanism is based on the theory that learning occurs primarily through reflection on personal experience. It is about putting the students at ease with their own learning and relies on emotional factors and personal growth and development. It relies on the wellbeing of students. The more at ease they are with themselves and their situation, the more they are likely to want to develop their personal growth. The theory behind this is that it encourages them to make their own decisions, and manage their own learning. Teachers would act as a facilitator rather than a teacher in the lessons.

“The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his own education. We think of the mind as a storehouse to be filled when we should be thinking of it as an instrument to be used.” (Gardener, J.W).

Cognitivism is much more academic. Its approach focuses on logically presented information. It builds on a base of information and focuses on the relationship between the bits of information built on top of the base. It is very much teacher led, and the main activity would be lectures.

Students would be likely to ...

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Students would be likely to be given problem solving tasks, debates and class presentations as activities.

The Social Constructivism approach is teaching by asking or guided discovery. The teacher takes an active role, but makes sure that learning remains student centred. Constructivism developes existing knowledge and concepts, in language and both moral and social education.

Surface learning is the ability to memorise and recall certain facts. These may have no connection whatsoever. There is no thought needed for this, and no reflection. It is a superficial learning. Deep learning is the ability to process information. The ability to relate it to other things and existing knowledge. It is an understanding of knowledge and an analysis of new ideas. Surface learning might be used to memorise answers for an exam. Deep learning is far more beneficial to the learner as it is likely to be remembered for a long time.

“The Surface learner is trying to “suss out” what the teacher wants and to provide it, and is likely to be motivated primarily by fear of failure. One interesting study has suggested that efforts by teachers to convey that what they want is Deep learning only succeeds in getting Surface learners to engage in ever more complex contextualising exercises, trying to reproduce the features of the Deep approach, from a Surface basis.

Some examples of surface learning are memorising answers for an exam, or perhaps watching a video. Deep learning would be a discussion after the video or any form of activity that requires the students to think about what they have watched.

In the 1950’s a psychologist called Benjamin Bloom divided what and how we learn into three separate domains of learning. These are: psychomotor, cognitive and affective. Psychomotor is the physical skill, so learning would be to draw for instance, or to cook perhaps. The cognitive domain deals with a person’s ability to process and utilise information. And lastly the affective domain concerns the feelings and attitudes that result from the learning process.

Within each domain, there are different levels of taxonomy. The categories are arranged in order of difficulty with the easiest being first.

In the Cognitive domain these are: Knowledge (recognizing and recalling information), Comprehension (understanding of the facts), Application (to be able to use the information), Analysis (examine and break down information), Synthesis (compiling information and putting together a new task/idea) and lastly Evaluation, which speaks for itself.

The Affective domains levels are: Receiving (aware of), Responding (actively participates in some way), Valuing (attaches a value or belief), Organising (putting together values) and lastly characterizing (the students belief/value has an affect on their bhaviour so that it has now become a characteristic).

The psychomotor domain’s levels are:Imitation (observation), Manipulation (performs skill), Precision (Performs skill with accuracy), Articulation (combines a few skills and shows consistency) and Naturalisation (completes skill with ease).

“A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holisitic form of education”.

My own scheme of work is for Challenging Offending Behaviour. It is a week long course that makes the students “think” about their own behaviour and attitudes towards others. I would say that most of the course works in the Affective domain. It is based on giving offenders an awareness of how they act, of the affect they have on other people and an appreciation of what they lose when they come into prison. Some of the students have very little or no key skills, so have a lack of confidence when it comes to learning. Therefore we do have to start at the bottom of the taxonomy ladder. If the students aren’t listening to the tutors and their peers then we aren’t likely to change any values or beliefs. The whole course depends on them thinking of goals in life, their families and valuing what they have. By the end of the week, they have all been given food for thought. They have to reflect on how their own actions have affected other people, for instance, the victim awareness session, a common belief is that commercial burglary doesn’t affect anyone, this course makes the students understand how their crime affects many more people than they realise. In the Anger Management lesson, students watch a video called ‘red mist’. It basically shows how people react when they get angry, and how they forget consequences etc, because they have tunnel vision. This session could be seen as being surface learning, but after the video is shown a discussion takes place, between the students. Following that, we draw a human size body, and on the body we chart different symtoms and signs of anger, which shows students how they can tell when they are starting to get angry. We then discuss tools that can help them cope with getting angry and how they can put these into practise. Most of the course is deep learning, as students have to think about their own offences, the victims involved and their own behaviour and how they consequences of their behaviour affects others.

The Challenging Offending Behaviour course must be Deep Learning. If it were only surface learning then the students would go away, and there would be no change in their behaviour. So therefore we must make permanent changes to their thought process. The main domain needs to be the Affective domain, as the course builds on feelings, emotions, beliefs and values. There are no physical skills in the course, and all knowledge is personal knowledge, which differs from student to student.

Bibliography

GARDNER.J.W(2004)Teaching Today.3rd edition.Cheltenham:Nelson Thornes Ltd.

RAMSDEN et al.(1986)Approaches to study “Deep” and “Surface”[Online].Available at:URL:www.learningandteaching.info/learning/deepsurf.html.Accessed 29 Januray 2008.

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives[Online].Available at:URL: 27 January 2008].