Eòlas-inntinn Gestalt

• Gestalt psychology served as the foundation of the cognitive perspective, opposing behaviorism's focus on external and mechanistic views by considering mental processes and perception.

Gestalt Principles

• Elements closer together are perceived as a coherent object.
• Similar elements are grouped as part of the same form.
• The mind tends to fill in gaps to perceive complete figures.
• Elements tend to be perceived as continuous whenever they establish an implied direction.
• Stimuli are organized into the best figure possible, referring to symmetry, simplicity, and regularity.
• Attention is given to things in the foreground, separating stimuli from their background.

Insight Learning

• Gestalt psychology supports the idea of learning through discovery or insight.
• Wolfgang Kohler's experiments with apes demonstrated problem-solving using insight.
• In one experiment, apes used boxes and sticks as tools to reach bananas.
• The key aspect of learning in these experiments was not reinforcement, but the coordination of thinking to create new solutions.
• Kohler referred to this behavior as insight or discovery learning.
• Insight follows the characteristics of objects under consideration.
• Learning occurs when an individual perceives and reorganizes elements, leading to a greater understanding.
• Insight can occur without reinforcement, training, or investigation and is not always observable.

Gestalt Principles and Teaching-Learning Process

• Gestalt principles influence both perception and learning.
• Kurt Lewin's "life space" theory aligns with gestalt psychology, noting inner and outer forces that affect perceptions and learning.
• Inner forces include motivation, attitudes, and feelings, while outer forces include teacher and classmate behavior.
• Mario Polito highlights the relevance of gestalt psychology to education, focusing on the experience of contact that occurs in the here and now.
• Considers the life space of teachers and students, takes interest in the complexity of experience, and stimulates learning as experience.
• Gestalt theory appreciates the affections and meanings attributed to learning, conceiving knowledge as an organized arrangement.
• Asserting that learning is not accumulation but remodelling or insight.
• Autonomy and freedom of the student is stimulated by the teacher.

Learners with Exceptionalities

• The term "exceptional learners" includes those with special needs related to cognitive abilities, behavior, social functioning, physical and sensory impairments, emotional disturbances, and giftedness.
• These learners often require understanding, patience, and special education services.
• Disability is a measurable impairment that interferes with abilities (physical, sensory, or mental).
• Handicap is a disadvantage resulting from a disability, influenced by personal and environmental adjustments.
• The extent of a handicap varies based on individual circumstances and support systems.

Categories of Exceptionalities

• Learning disabilities involve difficulties in cognitive processes (perception, language, memory) not attributed to other disabilities.
• Examples include dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia.
• ADHD is marked by difficulty focusing/maintaining attention and/or hyperactive/impulsive behavior.
• Speech and communication disorders involve difficulties in spoken language.
• Autism is a condition with impaired social interaction/communication, repetitive behaviors, and intense need for routine.
• Mental retardation signifies sub-average intelligence and deficits in adaptive behavior.
• Emotional/conduct disorders involve emotional states like depression and aggression that disturb learning and performance.
• Physical disabilities and health impairments involve physical or medical conditions, including limited energy/strength, reduced alertness, and/or little muscle control.
• Severe and multiple disabilities involve multiple types of disability, requiring specific adaptations and specialized programs.
• Visual impairments involve malfunction of eyes/optic nerves preventing normal vision even with corrective lenses.
• Hearing impairments involve malfunction of ear/auditory nerves hindering sound perception within normal speech range.
• Giftedness involves high level of cognitive development.

People-First Language

• This involves putting the person before the disability.
• It focuses on what conditions people have, not what they are.
• This includes avoiding generic labels, emphasizing abilities, avoiding euphemisms, and avoiding implying illness or suffering.

Behaviorist Perspective

• The theory of behaviorism focuses on observable and measurable behavior.
• It emphasizes that behavior is learned through conditioning and reinforcement (rewards and punishment).
• It gives less attention to the mind or thought processes and the contributions largely came from Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner.

Classical Conditioning

• Before conditioning, ringing the bell(neutral stimulus) caused no response from the dog.
• Placing food (unconditioned stimulus) in front of the dog initiated salivation stimulus (unconditioned response).
• During conditioning, the bell was rung a few seconds before the dog was presented with food.
• After conditioning, the ringing of the bell (conditioned stimulus) alone produced salivation (conditioned response).

Pavlov's Findings

• Once the dog has learned to salivate at the sound of the bell, it will salivate at other similar sounds.
• If you stop pairing the bell with the food, salivation will eventually cease in response to the bell.
• Extinguished responses can be "recovered" after an elapsed time, but will soon extinguish again if the dog is not presented with food.
• The dog could learn to discriminate between similar bells (stimuli) and discern which bell would result in the presentation of food and which would not.
• Once the dog has been conditioned to associate the bell with food, another unconditioned stimulus, such as a light may be flashed at the same time that the bell is rung.
• Eventually, the dog will salivate at the flash of the light without the sound of the bell.

Thorndike's Theory

• Learning is the result of associations forming between stimuli (S) and responses (R).
• The association of "habits" become strengthened or weakened by the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings.
• The model for S-R theory was trial and error learning in which certain responses came to be repeated more than others because of rewards.
• States that learning has taken place when a strong connection or bond between stimulus and response is formed.
• the more readiness the learner has to respond to the stimulus, the stronger will be the bond between them.
• When a person is ready to respond to a stimulus and is not made to respond, it becomes annoying to the person.

Principles Derived from Thorndike's Connectionism

• Learning requires both practice and rewards (laws of effect/exercise).
• A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence (law of readiness).
• Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned.

Watson's Theory

• Watson considered that humans are born with a few reflexes and the emotional reactions of love and rage.
• He believed in the power of conditioning so much that he said that if he is given a dozen healthy infants he can make them into anything you want them to be, basically through making stimulus-response connections through conditioning.

Experiment on Albert

• Watson applied classical conditioning in his experiment concerning Albert, a young child and a white rat.
• Each time Albert touched the rat, Watson made a sudden loud noise.
• Because Albert was frightened by the loud noise, he soon became conditioned to fear and avoid the rat.
• Later, the child's response was generalized to other small animals.

Skinner's Theory

• Operant conditioning is based upon the aspect that learning is a result of change in overt behavior.
• Changes in behavior are the result of an individual's response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment.
• Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner's S-R theory.
• A reinforcer is anything that strengthens the desired response, for example, a positive reinforcer or a negative reinforcer.
• A teacher announces that a student who gets an average grade of 1.5 for the two grading periods will no longer take the final examination which is a negative reinforcer.
• Reinforcement Schedules: Once the desired behavioral response is accomplished, reinforcement does not have to be 100%.
• In fact, it can be maintained more successfully through what Skinner referred to as partial reinforcement schedules, for example, fixed interval schedules, variable interval schedules, fixed ratio schedules, or variable ratio schedules.
• Practices should take the form of question (stimulus) - answer (response) frames which expose the student to the subject in gradual steps and require that the learner makes a response for every frame and receives immediate feedback.
• Ensures that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers such as verbal praise, prizes, and good grades.