P2
The Elements of Teaching and Learning
The principal elements required for teaching and learning to be attainable and possible are the teacher, the learner, and a conducive learning environment.
Precision and predictability in the education process occur only when a positive relationship exists among these three elements.
The Teacher: Acts as the prime mover of the educational wheel and serves as a catalyst for growth.
The Learner: The key participant and active agent of construction. Learning cannot happen passively; it requires the active engagement of the student.
The Environment: Provides the essential ingredients to guide teaching-learning processes. It acts as the pedagogical architecture and includes the physical, emotional, and social context that can either accelerate or hinder the process.
The Cognitive Faculties of the Learner
The learner is equipped with cognitive faculties that allow for the intake and processing of information. These includes:
Five Senses: These are part of the sentient body. The principle states that "there is nothing in the mind which was not first in some manner in the senses."
Instincts: Derived from the Latin word instinctus, meaning impulse. These are inherent tendencies or natural capacities to respond to environmental stimuli, such as danger signs, for the purpose of survival or self-preservation.
Imagination: The ability to form mental images of things not currently perceived through the senses. Practical applications in education include:
Role playing.
Simulation.
Short story writing.
Drawing and dress designing.
Visualizing situations.
Inventing creative ways of reporting or presenting.
Memory: The cognitive faculty responsible for retaining and recalling past mental acts and experiences. This is enhanced through repetition and retrieval practice.
Warning: Anxiety is the enemy of memory.
Intellect: The highest cognitive faculty. It is responsible for forming ideas or concepts, reasoning, making judgments, conceptualization, and logical reasoning.
Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS): Basic cognitive functions that serve as the foundation for higher learning.
The Appetitive Faculties of the Learner
The appetitive faculties represent the learner's drive and volitional nature:
Feelings and Emotions: These dictate the quality of the learning experience. Positive emotions make learning joyful and fruitful, while negative feelings turn the process into a burden. Lessons that are remembered most are those that strike the learner emotionally.
Will: The rational will serves as the guiding and main integrating force in the learner's character. Free will ensures the learner is not totally determined by their environment. It involves choice and the power to act.
Factors Contributing to Individual Differences
Every child is considered a "potential genius" and is malleable, but various factors lead to differences in learning:
Ability: Determines the capacity to understand and assimilate information. Learners are generally classified as fast, average, or slow based on their typical reactions and facility to learn. It influences how one observes and interprets surroundings.
Aptitude: Refers to an innate talent, gift, or genetic predisposition for specific skills. It represents a natural capacity to learn certain tasks.
Interests: These are not inherited but developed. Interests are preferences that transform the labor of learning into a pleasure. We always find time for things we consider to be of value.
Family and Cultural Background: Socio-conditioning and upbringing practices dictate behavior and manifest in a wide range of classroom behaviors. This includes the learner's paradigm and communication styles.
Attitudes and Values: A positive attitude leads to persistence. Learners driven by a search for knowledge exhibit grit and a strong inner drive (gut).
Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory
Intelligence extends beyond linguistic and mathematical domains to include various strengths:
Verbal/Linguistic: Skilled in communication. In Medical Laboratory Science, this is applied to communicating in clinical facilities and writing laboratory reports.
Logical/Mathematical: Involves reasoning and analysis. In clinical settings, this is used for statistical analysis of data, troubleshooting errors, and interpreting Quality Control metrics.
Visual/Spatial: The ability to interpret visual information. This is essential for identifying morphology under a microscope and reading flow charts.
Musical: Sensitivity to rhythm and sound.
Bodily/Kinesthetic: Physical coordination and movement.
Interpersonal: Understanding and interacting effectively with others.
Intrapersonal: Self-awareness and understanding of one's own feelings.
Naturalist: Recognition and classification of patterns in nature.
Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model
Learning style is the way a person processes, internalizes, and studies new material. The model categorizes stimuli into five groups:
Environmental Stimuli: Elements include Sound (quiet vs. white noise), Light (bright vs. dim), Temperature (cool vs. warm), and Seating (formal vs. informal).
Emotional Stimuli: Elements include Motivation, Persistence (task completion), Responsibility/Conformity, and Structure.
Sociological Stimuli: Learning through Self, Pair, Peers, Team, Adult, or Variety.
Physiological Stimuli: Elements include Perceptual strengths (visual, auditory, etc.), Intake (eating/drinking while studying), Time of Day (peak energy periods), and Mobility (need to move).
Psychological Stimuli: Includes Global vs. Analytic processing, Hemisphericity, and Impulsive vs. Reflective decision-making.
Summary of the Learner
The learner is an embodied spirit.
Teachers have a responsibility to feed the learner's appetite for knowledge both mentally and spiritually.
The learner possesses two main qualities:
Cognitive Domain: Five senses, instincts, imagination, memory, and intellect.
Appetitive Domain: Emotions and the will to learn.
Every learner is innately unique, shaped by their ability, aptitude, interests, cultural background, attitudes, values, intelligence profile, and specific learning style preferences.