Educational Theories for Teachers

Educational Theories - Outcomes

• Educational theories are important for Business Studies teachers
• Theories are significant in education
• Teachers can apply a theory or theories
• Teachers and learners should appreciate each other's responsibilities by using theory

Understanding Theory

• All teachers are influenced by theory
• Theory provides the basis for actions
• Everyone is driven by some form of theory

Impact of Theory

• Good teaching needs specialized skills
• Teachers must think and reflect
• Teachers need to select and apply appropriate methods
• Theory helps teachers decide how to apply methods
• Teaching methods should be adapted to suit learners

Field of Educational Theory

• The field is broad
• Teachers' choices must be driven by a theoretical base
• Teachers should understand the value of a theory to aid learning
• Need to consider what the teacher plans vs. what the learner experiences

Curriculum Theories

• Traditional Paradigm:
  • Liberal Theory
  • Experiential Theory
  • Behaviorist Theory
• Inquiry Paradigm:
  • Critical Inquiry Theory
  • Constructivist Theory

Main Schools of Thought

• Behaviorism
• Cognitivism
• Constructivism

Examining Each Theory:

• General aims and functions of education should be considered
• The learner's role and how learning is constructed
• Teacher's tasks and responsibilities
• The overall teaching and learning experience
• Theory's strengths and weaknesses

Schools of Thought Reflection

• Consider which school of thought you align with.
• What school of thought is CAPS based on?

Behaviorism

• Only observable behavior can be studied
• Action is more important than thought
• Action is controlled through motivation
• Key figures in behaviorism: Pavlov, Skinner, Watson, Hull, and Thorndike
• Proposes that humans respond to environmental stimuli
• Learner behavior changes through stimuli and reinforcement, eg. scolding

Behaviorism Assumptions

• Learners enter with no prior knowledge
• Behavior is modified by positive reinforcement and punishment
• Support, either progressive or undesirable, affects the likelihood of an event
  • Progressive support applies incentives
  • Undesirable support withdraws incentives
• Reprimands decrease the chance of an event happening
• Learners are primarily inactive and react to incentives

Cognitivism

• Direct response to Behaviorism
• Focuses on the capacity of the human mind
• Deals with learners’ mental actions:
  • Obtaining useful information
  • How they retain information
  • How they reproduce information when needed
• Extends beyond prior knowledge, addressing how learners use learning strategies to handle new things
• Prominent figures in cognitivism: Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner

Constructivism

• Places focus on the learner in the teaching and learning experience.
• Learning occurs through experiences that focus on learning how to learn.
• Occurs individually or through teamwork.
• Meaning is based on personal experiences and how they give meaning to the information.
• Emphasis is put on thinking, engaging, and reflecting to create meaning.
  • Learners can present on socioeconomic issues
• Knowledge is linked to lived context through socially relevant information
• Knowledge is dynamic and subject to change.
• Discourages fixed or static knowledge
• Promotes interdisciplinary studies.

Examining theories

• Considers the general aims/functions of education, learner roles/learning construction, teacher's roles/responsibilities, teaching/learning experience, and strengths/weaknesses.

General Aims and Functions of Education

• Preparing learners to contribute economically and socially to society
• Learners should understand the order of society
• There is a generally accepted body of knowledge
  • Business knowledge is true, given, and uncontested
• Education should help learners become better citizens and be useful to society
• Social interaction should promote societal norms and culture

The Role of the Learner and How Learning is Constructed

• Learners enter "raw" and leave refined
• Incentives are used by teachers while delivering the curriculum
• Learning is passive and responds to direction (stimulus) from the teacher
• Learners absorb transmitted knowledge
• Learners are conditioned to obey rules, becoming compliant citizens

The Tasks and Responsibilities of the Teacher

• Dispenses knowledge
• Uses different methods to impart goals of the lesson
• Has full control of teaching and learning
• Maintains a formal relationship in charge
• Delivers syllabus content as an expectation
• Operates using rewards for desired behavior and punishments for the undesired

Teaching method

• Provides structured explanations
• Gives practice tasks
• Provides feedback after tasks completed
• Break tasks down into small steps

Teaching and Learning Experience

• The teacher makes decisions and aligns with the curriculum content
• Usually transmits information via lecture or presentation with resources like:
  • Charts
  • Chalkboard
  • OHP
  • PowerPoint presentations
• Focus remains on practice and mastery
• Teacher guides interaction between curriculum, learners, and learning material
• Teaching methods should be appropriate for the subject
  • Learners must positively react to teaching style
• Previous knowledge and attitudes shape future content.

Strengths of This Method

• Consequences of behavior are influential in learning
• Emphasizes the student to shape responses and get desired results
• Reinforcements have benefits and discipline
• Believes important content and attitude factors affect learners at school
• Repetition and support promote learning

Weaknesses of this Method

• Using punishment is not effective when trying to stop behavior
• Not a general solution to all educational issues
  • Parental approval and support and approval from peers
• One dimensional
• View humans as animals that need to be tamed first

Cognitive View on Education Aims

• To achieve efficient learning, information should be organized
• Learners are seen as active participants
• Views the mind like a computer
  • Information is input
  • Mind processes the information
  • Information is stored and can be retrieved later
• Learning is shaped by acquired strategies, attitudes, and prior knowledge

The Role of the Learner (Cognitive)

• Having varied abilities, learners are at varying stages of development
• Active engagement
• Possessing existing knowledge
• Connecting knowledge with new information using encoding/memory strategies
• Learning should be engaged
  • Teachers should use visual/audio to naturally engage learners
• Social interaction is important
• Cognitive construction
  • The Teacher is conductor, mediator, coach

The Tasks and Responsibilities of the Teacher

• Recognizes learners' different abilities
• Diagnose learners needs and designs learning experiences to match
• Identifies ways to stimulate learner interest with new knowledge
  • Visual stimuli to attract, engage and maintain interest
• Sources appropriate resources
• Organizes information into manageable portions
• Coordinates programs and allows memorization / retention
• Creates worthwhile environment for learning
• Uses practical examples

Classroom applications

• Makes learners thinkers that apply critical thinking
• Learners must develop awareness as thinkers and information processors
  • Field trips or excursions
• Development of metacognitive skills and cognitive strategies
• Has Concerned effort to develop programs
  • Invite resource-personnel or professional personnel to address learners

Conscious Learning Environment

• Encourages learners to learn by use of materials for learners to interact with

The Teaching and Learning Experience

• Relies on rich learning/teaching resources
• Incrementally process new knowledge
• Review and rehearse to enable long term memorization
• Requires the student to undergo self-assessment
• Students should accommodate the developmental stages
• Learners must interact with facilitators and materials

Strengths (Cognitive)

• Importance of mental levels and how people process, organize and recall it
• Immersed network of interactions is knowledge
• Strategize on organizing knowledge involving topics and subjects
• Progressive organization skills and clear relationship
• Education in empowering with skills etc

Weaknesses (Cognitive)

• Issues splitting up learning materials into organized concepts
• Relates learners into machines
• Disregards careful knowledge, feelings, and free will

Education General Aims and Functions:

• Constructivist: Education has no specific aim
• Education aims come from what is important to the student themselves.
• Curiosity and inquisitiveness drive learning
• Knowledge comes from experience.
• Teachers should utilize Bloom's Taxonomy to stack these experiences

The Role of the Learner

• Learners are naturally curious
• Investigate, explore and discover new things
• Curiosity + Need to know = Learning motivation
• Learner-centered methods
• Assumes responsibility for his/her own learning to be critical thinker, creative and conscious of academic tasks

Teacher tasks/responsibilities

• Not a disconnected observer
• Construct/create space for learners
• Master the content to be resourceful etc
• Helps Learners to understand
• Views topics as flexible