Relevance of Educational Psychology for the Teacher

The role of the teacher is to nurture the child as per his nature. The teacher is to acquire sufficient knowledge of different psychological aspects. The teacher must be trained on different aspects of education and psychology to give a psychological treatment to the child.

Pestalozzi wanted to psychologize education. A teacher must have the knowledge of psychology to develop the potentialities and personality of the child. It is possible if a teacher has sufficient knowledge regarding the contributions of psychology to education. When psychology is applied in the field of education it is termed as educational psychology. Educational psychology helps the teacher to understand the following

1. Whom to teach — (Child)
2. Who is to teach — (Teacher)
3. What to teach — (Subject-matter)
4. How to teach — (Various approaches)
5. When to teach — (Motivational aspects)

The study of educational psychology helps the modem teacher to understand child, how to grow, develop, learn and adjust in an educational situation. Without the knowledge of educational psychology, a teacher cannot take or fulfill the responsibilities of an ideal teacher.

Educational psychology equips a teacher with necessary skills to face the present situation in a systematic manner and makes educational environment live. The following aspects are to be considered to justify the importance of educational psychology for a teacher.

 

1. To understand the child — The teacher should know the nature of the child, his interests, attitudes, needs and capacities. It helps to study his behavioural, motivational and psychological problems in order to provide sufficient helping hand, guidance in the educational situation.

 

2. To understand individual differences — Every individual is a unique one. Each individual is different physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. There is an intra and inter individual difference of psychological aspects between two individuals. So a teacher has to with different minds. He should possess sound knowledge in psychology in order to cater to the problems of individual difference.

 

3. To understand developmental characteristics — A child has to pass through different developmental stages i e. infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Each stage comes with some unique psychological features. So a teacher must be trained about the developmental characteristics of each Stage and to instruct accordingly. In his way he can his child and provide adequate guidance at each stage.

 

4. To follow effective methods of teaching — A teacher has to follow different techniques, approaches and methods to train the child in the classroom situation. So should he should refresh his knowledge in different new methods and techniques to maximize teaching-leaking effect.

 

5. To understand learning process — Learning is a complex task. Education depends upon learning. So, the complex learning process is simplified through theories and rules of learning developed by psychologists and researchers. The process is also ever-changing and developing. Therefore, a teacher should know educational psychology to study the changing process of learning.

 

6. To understand the nature of classroom learning — Educational psychology a teacher to adopt the techniques of learning to solve adjustment problems of the child in the educational situation. A teacher faces multifarious problems in the classroom presenting instruction. So, knowledge of educational psychology helps him to relate his skill of teaching to boost the teaching-teaming situation by solving complex problems of the classroom.

 

7. To measure learning outcomes — A teacher has to evaluate his students by employing various psychological tests. Learning outcomes can be evaluated through some systematic and standardised techniques. These should be properly mastered by the teacher Now stress is given to continuous comprehensive evaluation. Learning outcomes show the performance of ones in teaching-teaming situation.

 

8. To develop curriculum — A teacher should know different psychological principles in formulating suitable curriculum for different stages of the education. While preparing a curriculum a particular stage he should give priority to the needs and developments of the child and requirements of the society and changes in learning situation.

 

9. To reduce maladjustment — The aim of education is to prepare a child to live with educational psychology studies the adjustment problems of the children and their causes and consequences and train a teacher to check the child from maladjustment. It helps to bring necessary changes in the academic environment for better adjustment.

 

10. To promote good mental health — Educational psychology helps a teacher to create a healthy mental environment for effective teaching-learning process. A teacher should be mentally fit and sound enough so that he can develop a sound mental health among children. He should identify the cause of the factors for mental problems and maladjustment and take necessary steps to eliminate these.

 

11. To develop scientific attitude— A teacher should develop positive, scientific attitude in the educational practice and be objective and rational in performing his educational duties. He should check outdated, conventional, orthodox ideas in his thinking and practice. So educational psychology helps the teacher to develop such habit in building scientific attitude among children.

 

12. To guide exceptional children — In a democratic educational system a teacher cannot neglect the exceptional children having special needs. So he should be sufficiently trained in the needs, development and problems of the above category. Educational psychology assists the teacher with its new methodology and techniques to give guidance and suggestions to these challenged children. These children include physically and mentally, gifted, learning disabled and retarded.

 

13. To solve problem of discipline — The learners sometimes create indiscipline in the classroom. The teacher has to know the cause of indiscipline and the method how to check indiscipline attitude of the learners through the study of educational psychology.

 

14. To organise co-curricular activities — The role of the teacher is to bring an all-round development in the child. So in the school, he should provide adequate facilities for co-curricular activities like literary activities, drama, discussion, social service activities, games and sports, leisure time activities, music, song, programmes, picnics etc. for a balanced and harmonious development of children. Therefore, educational psychology helps the teacher to master in different skills and activities and to devise suitable activity for the child taking his developmental characteristics.

 

15. To produce suitable text-books — Educational psychology helps the teacher to produce suitable text-books and other reading materials as per the need and requirement of the child having different psychological characteristics. At the time of production of texts he should laid emphasis on the intellectual maturity of the children.

 

16. To promote democratic administration —Teacher is a democratic administrator and manager of total educational affair. So educational psychology helps the teacher to follow pupil-centric, democratic leadership practices in order to give a democratic shape to the educational system.

 

17. To provide education to the parents — During childhood period, parents should have knowledge on educational psychology in order to understand the process of growth and development of their child. They have to provide a conducive environment for their sound development. Parents are the first teacher for the child. So they should control the home environment for a free growth of their child.

 

18. To promote educational research — Educational psychology equips a teacher with different developing tools and research devices for measuring and evaluating the learner and the learning process and situation periodically. It is an important task to influence the behaviour of the learner and teacher and to bring changes in the educational system.

 

19. To understand group dynamics — Group dynamics means the change of behaviour of an individual though interaction in the group. So a teacher should know the operating of group dynamics in the classroom situation to bring necessary changes in the individual behaviour. It can be studied by sociometric technique.

 

20. To develop character and personality — The sole goal of the teacher is to develop the character of the child. So educational psychology helps the teacher to know the process in which way he will shape the character of the child. He should inculcate moral and good character.

 

21. To use innovations and projects — For the development of the educational process and teaching-learning environment, various innovations in psychology and education are being introduced. The research findings and projects of the innovative ideas are the guidelines for a classroom teacher to bring some changes with tune to changing educational environment. Some examples are micro teaching, programmed instruction, Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI), grading system, team teaching etc.

 

Educational psychology is very helpful to parents and teachers for the development of the child as a whole. It develops a positive attitude among the parents and teachers to love the child and protect the child from outside dangers which are uncertain and unwanted due to environmental influence.

Meaning, Nature, Process, Characteristics and Process of Learning

Meaning, Nature, Process, Characteristics and Process of Learning 

Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. Learning means change in behaviour or behaviour potential that occurs as a result of experience and practice. Learning is a natural phenomenon which is natural to all organisms including both humans and animals. Learning can result from both vicarious and direct experiences.

        i.            Vicarious means observing someone and learning from that observation and not being directly involved in the experience. For example, a child learns how to clap hands by seeing someone else do it.

      ii.            Learning also takes place through direct experiences. For example, a child learns to write by practicing writing. A child normally learns from his parents, teachers and the environment.

Learning is defined as “any relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of practice and experience”.

a.	Learning is a change in behaviour—better or worse.
b.	It is a change that takes place through practice or experience, but changes due to growth or maturation are not learning.
c.	This change in behaviour must be relatively permanent, and it must last a fairly long time.

Definitions of Learning:

a.      “The term learning covers every modification in behaviour to meet environmental requirements.”

            -Gardener Murphy

 b.      “Learning is the acquisition of new behaviour or the strengthening or weakening of old behaviour as the result of experience.”

-Henry P. Smith

 c.       “Learning is the process of progressive behaviour adaptation.”

-Skinner

 d.      “Learning may be considered as change in insights, behaviour, perception, motivation or a combination of these.”

-M. L. Bigge 

 The above definitions emphasize four attributes of learning

1. As Process: the first is that learning is permanent change in behaviour. 
2. It does not include change due to illness, fatigue, maturation and use of intoxicant.
3. The learning is not directly observable but manifests in the activities of the individual. 
4. Learning depends on practice and experience.

Process of Learning

It follows the following steps in sequence as shown below:

a. Stimulus: Stimulus refers those factors that motivate or inspire or induce learners to learn the required skills and knowledge. The factors that affect the learning process must be understood by the learner. Then only they can motivate themselves to learn. Stimulus exists in the environment in which the person lives and behaves.

b. Response: It means the amount of interaction by the learners. Response emphasizes that there should be a positive response from the learners with regard to learning process and program. Because the regular and timely response provides an opportunity to determine the level of teaching. This also helps to explore to what extent learners are improving.

c. Motivation: Stimulus and response are not enough for an effective learning process, rather the learners must be motivated to impart required skills and knowledge fro the training. Hence, an effective motivation package consisting of rewards and prizes should be provided to the learners to motivate them.

d. Reward: It is an incentive which satisfies the learner from learning. If a motivated learner is rewarded, he/she will be inspired by the further performance. Reward further stimulates the learners.

Therefore, the effective learning process will be completed only after the integration of different steps of learning stimulus, response, motivation, and reward. Then the only learner can learn effectively. As a result, the desired output can be obtained.

Nature of Learning

a. Learning is Universal: Every creature that lives learns. Man learns most. The human nervous system is very complex, so are human reactions and so are human acquisition. Positive learning vital for children’s growth and development.

b. Learning is through Experience: Learning always involves some kind of experience, direct or indirect (vicarious).

c. Learning is from all Sides: Today learning is from all sides. Children learn from parents, teachers, environment, nature, media etc

d. Learning is Continuous: It denotes the lifelong nature of learning. Every day new situations are faced and the individual has to bring essential changes in his style of behaviour adopted to tackle them. Learning is birth to death.

e. It results in Change in Behaviour: It is a change of behaviour influenced by previous behaviour. It is any activity that leaves a more or less permanent effect on later activity.

f. Learning is an Adjustment: Learning helps the individual to adjust himself adequately to the new situations. Most learning in children consists in modifying, adapting, and developing their original nature. In later life the individuals acquire new forms of behaviour.

g. It comes about as a result of practice: It is the basis of drill and practice. It has been proven that students learn best and retain information longer when they have meaningful practice and repetition. Every time practice occurs, learning continues.

h. Learning is a relatively Permanent Change: After a rat wake up from his nap he still remembers the path to the food. Even if you have been on a bicycle for years, in just a few minutes practice you can be quite proficient again.

i . Learning as Growth and Development:  It is never ending growth and development. At reach stage the learner acquires new visions of his future growth and news ideals of achievement in the direction of his effort. According to Woodworth, “All activity can be called learning so far as it develops the individual.”

j. Learning is not directly observable:  The only way to study learning is through some observable behaviour. Actually, we cannot observe learning; we see only what precedes performance, the performance itself, and the consequences of performance.

Characteristics of Learning

a. Learning involves change: It is a reconstruction, combined thinking, skill, information and appropriation in a single unity process.

b. All learning involves activities: These activities involve either physical or mental activity. They may be simple mental activities of complex, involving various muscles, bones, etc. So also the mental activities may be very simple involving one or two activities of mind or complex which involve higher mental activities

c. Learning Requires Interaction: At the time of learning, the individual is constantly interacting with and influenced by the environment. This experience makes him change or modify his behavior to deal effectively with it.

d. Constitute Learning: To constitute learning, the change should be permanent. Temporary changes may be only reflective and fail to represent any learning.

e. Learning is a Lifelong Process: Learning is a lifelong process of gaining and using the information presented to a person. It is not static. A person never stops acquiring new information. It keeps a person’s mind active and aware but also conscious of the world around them.

f. Learning Occurs Randomly Throughout Life: Some learning occurs randomly throughout life, from new experiences, gaining information and from our, perceptions, for example: reading a newspaper or watching a news broadcast, talking with a friend or colleague, chance meetings, and unexpected experiences.

g. Learning Involves Problems Solving: Learning involves problem-solving i.e. understanding and discovering relations between different contents in a situation.

h. Learning is the Process of Acquiring Information: Learning is the process of acquiring information, knowledge, wisdom, and skills. It occurs as a result of interaction with the person’s environment.

i. Learning Involves far more than Thinking: Learning involves far more than thinking: it involves the whole personality – senses, feelings, intuition, beliefs, values, and will. If we do not have the will to learn, we cannot learn and if we have learned, we are changed in some way. If the learning makes no difference it can have very little significance.

 Factors influencing Learning

The factors are:

1. Physiological Factors: The physiological factors are sense perception, physical health, fatigue time and day of learning, food and drink, age and atmospheric conditions.

 a. Sense-perception: Sensation and perception are the basis of all cognitive learning. Weaker the power of perception, lesser the amount of learning. A blind man learns far less than a normal person. Impairment of sense organs is a handicap in the process of learning.

 b. Physical Health: Ill health hampers learning. Sound mind is only in a sound body. Sound physical health gives vigor and vitality to pursue learning activities for a longer education. A diseased person is handicapped by the normal physical strength necessary for any mental activity.

c. Fatigue: Muscular or sensory fatigue causes mental boredom and indolence. A number of factors in the home and school environment may cause physical and mental fatigue, such as lack of accommodation, bad seating arrangement, unhealthy clothing, inadequate ventilation, poor light, noise over crowdingness, and pure nutrition. Longer homes of study also cause fatigue which affects the learning capacity.

d. Time of Learning:  Morning and evening hours are the best periods of study. During the day, there is decline in the mental capacity. Experiments on children have shown that there are great variations in learning efficiency during the different hours of the day.

e. Food and Drink: Nutrition is responsible for efficient mental activity. Poor nutrition adversely affects learning. The type of food also has some effect. The alcoholic drinks, caffeine, tobacco and such addictive items have adverse effect on neuron-muscular system, and consequently upon the learning capacity.

f. Atmospheric conditions: High temperature and humidity lower the mental efficiency. Low ventilation, lack of proper illumination, noise and physical discomfort (as we find in factories and overcrowded schools) hamper the learning capacity. Distractions of all sorts affect power of concentration and consequently the efficiency of learning.

g. Age: Learning capacity varies with age. Some subjects can better be learnt at the early age, and some during adulthood. On the evidence of experiments conducted. Thorndike says that mental development does not stop at 16 or 18 but increases upto 23, and halts after 40. Learning proceeds rapidly between 18 and 20, remains stagnant till 25, and declines upto 35. Age accompanies mental maturation. So some complex problems cannot be solved till the person is sufficiently mature.

 2. Psychological Factors:

 a.Mental Health: Mental tension, complexes, conflicts, mental illnesses and mental diseases hamper learning. A maladjusted child finds it difficult to concentrate. Concentration needs mental poise and absence of mental conflict or complex. Some pupils find it difficult to prepare for the university examination, simply because of fear of the examination and anxiety neurosis. A calm, serene and balanced mind her the power to concentrate and learn better.

b. Motivation and Interest: No learning takes place unless it is motivated. Purposeless learning is no learning at all. Every child is impelled by some motive to learn new things. In the absence of motivation, can he does not feel interested in the act of learning. A child’s behaviour in learning is energised by motives, selected by motives and directed by motives.

                              i.      Motives energise behaviour: Hunger and thirst induce acquisition of food.   Reward                              induces further success. Punishment or failure induces action for achievement.

  ii.      Motives select behaviour: Only those acts of learning are selected which are supported     by some motive. A boy visits a village fair. He sees only those toys, objects or things that     interest him.

 iii.      Motives direct behaviour: These activate the person, enthuse him and impel him to do     the desired action. These direct his energies to reach the desired action. These direct his       energies to reach the desired goal. Sultan of Kohlar was directed by hunger to reach the        bananas, and that way he strived and learnt the way.

c. Success, Praise and Blame: Nothing succeeds like success. Thorndike’s law of effect is applicable most commonly. Experimental evidences show that praise stimulates small children to work and learn, although it does not produce much effect on superior and elder children. Elder children are more sensitive towards reproof and blame, than younger children are.

d. Rewards and Punishment: Rewards of all sorts are powerful incentives to learn. But these days in India school rewards are more abused than used properly. A first division of distinction in the examination is a false reward. Work is its own rewards. Pupils forget this point. They become over-dependent on rewards. They refuse to work without any incentive of reward. All learning should not be and cannot be rewarded immediately.

3. Environmental Factors:

a. Working conditions: Learning is hampered by bad working conditions such as distraction, noise, poor illumination, bad ventilation, overcrowding, bad seating arrangement, and uncomfortable stay both at home and school. The location of the school, the internal set-up, the accommodation, decoration and healthful and sanitary conditions are very important for efficient learning.

b. Organisational set-up: The organisational set-up of the school also influences learning.

                                 i.  The time-table must be drawn, in accordance with the psychological principles. It should                       avoid fatigue and boredom. Difficult subjects should be taught in the morning. There                               should be interval after some periods

                                     ii. The democratic organisation promotes a healthy atmosphere for learning.

                                  iii. The teacher-pupil relations should be healthy, so that there is mental cooperation and the                          pupils are motivated to learn.

                            iv.  There should be some sort of competition. The inter-class or inter- house competitions                             will stimulate the pupils to work more in order to outshine others. Rivalry and jealousy                           should, however, be avoided. Group emulation should be strengthened.

                             v.  The participation on the part of the pupils should be active. The pupil should not act as a passive learner. 

                        vi.   Guidance in the selection of subjects and activities in accordance with age and ability and aptitude of the pupils should be provided. Unguided children may oscillate from one subject to another, and thus gather no mass.

4. Methodology of Instructions:

a. Presentation and Organisation of Material: The learning material should be properly planned and organised. It should be graded to suit the mental level of the pupils. It should be presented in a meaningful and interesting manners.

b. Learning by Doing: Practice makes a man perfect. Repetition and practice is important for learning. The pupils must be encouraged to learn through activity. Theoretical teaching should be replaced by practical application of knowledge, experimentation and personal application. Children learn better through personal experience. Verbalisation should be reduced to minimum.

c. Special Methods of Learning: It has been found that some special methods give better results. In learning a piece of poetry, learning by the whole method, and by the part method have been advocated. Sometimes it is helpful to recall what is learnt and to recite by memory. Gestalt psychologists do not approve of ‘trial and error learning’. They advocate learning by insight. They discourage mechanical repetitions without understanding.

d. Timely Testing: Through tests, the learner knows his exact achievement, and there is no scope for over-estimation or underestimation. Occasional and periodical testing motivates the pupil to be regular in his studies.

 

Piaget Cognitive Development Theory Definition & Stages

Piaget Cognitive Development Theory Definition & Stages

v  What is Cognition?

·         It is the process by which knowledge and understanding is developed in the mind.

v  Cognitive Development

·         Cognitive means connected with mental process of understanding. So cognitive development refers especially to the mental development of child. With the passage of time the experiences of child are changed and increased this is called the process of cognitive development.

v  Cognitive Process

·         According to cognitive theory children are innately born with the imagination that who are they? Or what they ought to be? With the help of these imaginations, the children start the process of learning through experiences which is known as cognitive process.

v  Basic Components of Piaget Cognitive Development

Adaptation and cognitive development continues as the child gets mature. New elements in the environment are deal with in old ways, and over time old elements can be deal with in new ways plagued called these growing abilities psychological structure and it are composed of two types.

1.      Schema:  The infant develops a sucking scheme, for example, and employing that scheme on other objects in the environment can thereby learn.

2.      Operation: A second type of psychological structure is operation. Whereas the schema is a behavioral adaptation develops through maturation as the child becomes increasingly able to think in a more complicated way.

3.      Assimilation: Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation?

4.      Accommodation: This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.

5.      Equilibration: This is the force, which moves development along. Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds.