Enhancing Learning Approaches for Better Classroom Behaviors

1. Adopting and adapting teaching and learning styles

2. Learning Behavioural (Skinner, Thorndike) • Learning is a change in observable behaviour • Change existing classroom behaviours • Shape observable learning outcomes • Shape new skills

3. Four approaches Contiguity • Two stimuli become associated when they repeatedly occur together Classical conditioning.The pairing of an automatic response (emotional) (positive or negative) with a certain stimulus Operant conditioningThe type and timing of reinforcement affects learned behaviour. Social LearningLearning by observing other behaviours.

4. Contiguity • Two stimuli become associated when they repeatedly occur together • Task - give examples from your subject • Matching games; battleships; missing words; bingo; concentration type games • Discourage incorrect matches. It is imperative that wrong notions are not initially given!

5. Classical conditioning. • The pairing of an automatic response (emotional) (positive or negative) with a certain stimuluse.g. • fear, anxiety, worry - associated with ‘difficult’ concepts, examinations etc… • confidence, pride, comfort associated with ‘easy’ concepts, ‘fun’ lessons • Task - give examples from your subject

6. Learning experiences…. • enjoyable, positive so that positive outcomes are associated with the subject. • learning tasks must be hard enough to challenge; not so hard that failure is inevitable. • use co-operative team structures to establish new ideas • minimise individual competition (tests are for progress, not competition) • use familiar and relevant case study material so that study is associated with everyday life.

7. Operant conditioning. • The type and timing of reinforcement affects learned behaviour e.g. • an unpredictable series of reinforcement promotes persistence at a learning task • reward good ‘learning’ behaviour • reinforce new learning - apply previously learned knowledge to a local issue or make relevant by collecting current data • use unpredictable reinforcement • use plenty of praise when learning new concepts (construction of praise is important - give reasons) • Surprise tests are better than scheduled ones

8. Social Learning • Learning by observing other behaviours.(attention; retention; reproduction; motivation) • Attention is paid to things that are interesting, exciting, enthusiastic, engaging • Use of props, newspaper clippings, stories • Reproduction: model behaviour to be reproduced (‘talking through’ difficult concepts) • Motivation - positive reinforcement - grades, marks, praise motivates

9. Cognitive (Piaget, Voss, Wittrock) • Change in observable behaviour is a reflection of a more important internal change. • Learning is the result of one’s attempts to make sense of the world. • Learner is an active source of plans, goals, intentions, emotions which are used to sort incoming stimuli and construct meaning and knowledge, • Cognitive learning is often experiential.

10. Experiential learning • On the job experience • Mini enterprise • Role play • Problem solvingUnderstand the problemHave enough prior knowledge to solve the problemVisually portray the problem • Encourage role taking and opinion forming • Encourage different perspectives • Encourage ownership

11. Perception and Attention Which stimuli are attended to; which ignored? Depends on… • Rules • Knowledge • Patterns • Beliefs • Expectations Give examples from your own subject

12. Different perceptions • Different outputs possible from the same input (different perceptions).Teachers (you) can help pupils to attend to (focus on) relevance • Provide a context: • Purpose and main ideas of the lesson • Repeat and review main ideas • State ideas in students own words • Identify important central concepts and supporting examples • Use of headings and sub headings.

13. Arouse curiosity For each of the following, give examples from your own subject • Use surprise • Use novel ideas or approaches • Set up a puzzle or open ended issue • Raise a questions or issue before knowledge/answer

14. Memory Information storage consists of • words, concepts, skills, strategies (verbalised) • pictures, imagination (images) • meanings, perceptions (interpretation)

15. Networks • Networks of ideas etc. form the basis of memory; reinforced with examples, relationships and sub concepts • New ideas are integrated into existing network

16. Retrieval Help students to retrieve prior knowledge before proceeding For each of the following, give examples from your own subject • Brainstorm existing knowledge • Hierarchical classification (what I knew, what I know now, both together) • Pupils make mental images of new ideas • Rephrase, give examples, develop graphic representations • Pupils to be active participants