MODULE 3
PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
INTRODUCTION
Sound curriculum development can be effected only from a sound
psychology of learning. Knowledge about the psychology of the learner and of
the learning process is relevant to the three different matters of the curriculum
which are (a) selection and arrangement of content, (b) choice of the learning
experiences and (c) plans for the optimum conditions for learning.
The curriculum must be a means of initiating learners into activities and
experiences which are worthwhile for them. For this purpose it must draw upon
analyses of the nature of learning and the inherent human abilities it intends to
develop.
General Objective
To know and understand psychology as a foundation to the study of the
curriculum development.
Specific Objectives. After reading this module, you are expected to:
1.
Know and understand the major theories of learning that is important
in curriculum development.
2. Explain the relationship between the psychological foundation and the
curriculum.
3. Answer the given questions at the end of this module.
Learning
What is learning?
Learning is an acquiring knowledge or developing the ability to perform
new behaviors. It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in
school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classrooms, and people
continue to learn throughout their lives.
Even before they enter school, young children learn to walk, to talk, and
to use their hands to manipulate toys, food, and other objects. They use all of
their senses to learn about the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells in their
environments. They learn how to interact with their parents, siblings, friends,
and other people important to their world. When they enter school, children learn
basic academic subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. They also
continue to learn a great deal outside the classroom. They learn which behaviors
are likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be punished. They learn social
skills for interacting with other children. After they finish school, people must
learn to adapt to the many major changes that affect their lives, such as getting
married, raising children, and finding and keeping a job.
Because learning continues throughout our lives and affects almost
everything we do, the study of learning is important in many different fields. Teachers
need to understand the best ways to educate children. Psychologists, social workers,
criminologists, and other human-service workers need to understand how certain
experiences change people’s behaviors. Employers, politicians, and advertisers
make use of the principles of learning to influence the behavior of workers,
voters, consumers.
Learning is closely related to memory, which is the storage of information
in the brain. Psychologists who study memory are interested in how the brain
stores knowledge when we need it. In contrast, psychologists who study learning
are more interested in behavior and how behavior changes as a result of
person’s experiences.
These are seven major theories of learning presented in this module:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Associationism
Behaviorism
Social Interaction
Cognitive Development
Multiple Intelligences
Constructivism
Learning by Observation
Associationism
The associationists believed that ideas become more closely associated
with one another through experience, and that this associative bond constituted
learning.
For instance, the word bread maybe associated with the word butter due
to one’s experience of eating bread and butter. The more experience one has
with the associated ideas, the stronger the associative bond is thought to be.
Influential Psychologists and Contributions to Associationism
Hermen Ebbinghaus (1850 – 1909): The Classical Forgetting Curve
In 1885 German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus conducted one of the first
studies on memory, using himself as a subject. He memorized lists of nonsense
syllables and then tested his memory of the syllables at intervals reading from 20
minutes to 31 days. He found that he remembered less than 40 percent of the
items after nine hours, but that rate of forgetting leveled off over time. He
summarized that for verbal learning, forgetting proceeds very rapidly at first and then
more slowly as the time from initial learning increases.
Edward L. Thorndike (1874 – 1949): The Law of Effect
Thorndike stated that “Of several responses made to the same situation
those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal
will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so
that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur; those which are
accompanied or closely followed by discomfort to the animal will, other things
being equal, have their connections to the situation weakened, so that, when it
recurs, they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or
discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.”
Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1946): Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning was discovered by accident in the early 1900s by
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov was studying how saliva aids the
digestive process. He would give a dog some food and measure the amount of
saliva the dog produced while it ate the meal. After the dog had gone through
this procedure a few times, however, it would begin to salivate before receiving
any food. Pavlov reasoned that some new stimulus, such as the experimenter in
his white coat, had become associated with the food and produced the response
of salivation in the dog. Pavlov spent the rest of his life studying this basic type
of associative learning, which is now called classical conditioning or Pavlovian
conditioning.
The conditioning process usually follows the same general procedure.
Suppose a psychologist wants to condition a dog to salivate at the sound of a
bell. Before conditioning, an unconditioned stimulus (food in the mouth)
automatically produces an unconditioned response (salivation) in the dog. The term
unconditioned indicates that there is an unlearned, or inborn, connection between
the stimulus and the response. During conditioning, the experimenter rings a bell
and then gives food to the dog. The bell is called the neutral stimulus because it
does not initially produce any salivation response in the dog. As the
experimenter repeats the bell-food association over and over again, however,
the bell alone eventually causes the dog to salivate. The dog has learned to
associate the bell with the food. The bell has become a conditioned stimulus, and
the dog’s salivation to the sound of the bell is called a conditioned response.
The Example of Classical Conditioning in Human Behavior
A person who has had painful experiences at the dentist’s office may
become fearful at just the sight of the dentist’s office building. Fear, a natural
response to a painful stimulus, has transferred to a different stimulus, the sight
of a building. Most psychologists believe that classical conditioning occurs when
a person forms a mental association between two stimuli, so that encountering
one stimulus makes the person think of the other. People tend to form these
mental associations between events or stimuli that occur closely together in
space or time.
Principles of Classical Conditioning
Following his initial discovery, Pavlov spent more than three decades
studying the processes underlying classical conditioning. He and his associates
identified four main processes: acquisition, extinction, generalization, and
discrimination.
Acquisition
The acquisition phase is the initial learning of the conditioned response –
for example, the dog learning to salivate at the sound of the bell. Several factors
can affect the speed of conditioning during the acquisition phase. The most
important factors are the order and timing of the stimuli. Conditioning occurs
most quickly when the conditioned stimulus (the bell) precedes the unconditioned
stimulus (the food) by about half a second. Conditioning takes longer and the
response is weaker when there is a dog delay between the presentation of the
conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. If the conditioned stimulus
follows the unconditioned stimulus – for example, if the dog receives the food
before the bell is rung – conditioning seldom occur.
Extinction
Once learned, a conditioned response is not necessarily permanent. The
term extinction is used to describe the elimination of the conditioned response by
repeatedly presenting the conditioned stimulus without unconditioned stimulus. If
a dog has learned to salivate at the sound of a bell, an experimenter can
gradually extinguish the dog’s response by repeatedly ringing the bell without
presenting food afterward. Extinction does not mean, however, that the dog has
simply unlearned or forgotten the association between the bell and the food.
After extinction, if the experimenter let’s a few hours pass and then rings the
bell again, the dog will usually salivate at the sound of the bell once again. The
appearance of an extinguished response after some time passed is called
spontaneous recovery.
Generalization
After an animal has learned a conditioned response to one stimulus, it may
also respond to similar stimuli without further training. If a child is bitten by a
large black dog, the child may fear not only that dog, but other large dogs. This
phenomenon is called generalization. Less similar stimuli will usually produce less
generalization. For example, the child may show little fear of smaller dogs.
Discrimination
The opposite of generalization is discrimination, in which an individual
learns to produce a conditioned response to one stimulus but not to another
stimulus that is similar. For example, a child may show a fear response to freely
roaming dogs, but may show no fear when a dog is on a leash or confined to a
pen.
Behaviorism
The idea of behaviorism was developed in the early part of the 20 th
century. The behaviorist viewpoint holds that observable data is objective data
and therefore the most useful in attempting to understand psychological
phenomenon. Behaviorism builds on the work of the Associationist by way of
conditioned responses.
Influential Psychologists and Contributions to Behaviorism
John B. Watson: Stimulus – Response
Watson performed experiments that studied behavioral responses to
stimuli. His most infamous study involved a baby named Albert. Watson
conditioned baby Albert to cry every time he saw a rat by presenting the rat to
Albert along with a very loud noise. The noise scared Albert. Soon Albert was
afraid of rats and cried whenever he saw one. This type of experimentation is
considered highly unethical today and would not be sanctioned by any institution.
B.F. Skinner: Operant Behavior
American psychologist B. F. Skinner became famous for his pioneering
research on learning and behavior. During his 60-year career, Skinner
discovered important principles of operant conditioning, a type of learning that
involves reinforcement and punishment. A strict behaviorist, Skinner believed
that operant conditioning could explain even the most complex of human
behaviors.
Operant behavior is the behavior “emitted by an organism”. The behavior
occurs in response to the environment. Reinforcement of the behavior, either
positive or negative will determine whether the behavior re-occurs.
Skinner designed an apparatus, now called a Skinner box that allowed him to
formulate important principles of animal learning. An animal placed inside the box is
rewarded with a small bit of food each time it makes the desired response, such as
pressing a lever or pecking a key. A device outside the box records the animal’s
responses.
Skinner became famous not just for his research with animals, but also for
his controversial claim that the principles of learning he discovered using the
Skinner box also applied to the behavior of people in everyday life. Skinner
acknowledged that many factors influence human behavior, including heredity,
basic types of learning such as classical conditioning, and complex learned
behaviors such as language. However, he maintained that rewards and
punishments control the great majority of human behaviors, and that the
principles of operant conditioning can explain these behaviors.
Principle of Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is the process of shaping behavior by means of
reinforcement and punishment.
In a career spanning more than 60 years, Skinner identified a number of
basic principles of operant conditioning that explain how people learn new
behaviors or change existing behaviors. The main principles are reinforcement,
punishment, shaping, extinction, discrimination, and generalization.
Reinforcement
In operant conditioning, reinforcement refers to any process that
strengthens as a particular behavior – that is, increases the chances that the
behavior will occur again. There are two general categories of reinforcement,
positive and negative. The experiments of Thorndike and Skinner illustrate
positive reinforcement, a method of strengthening behavior by following it with a
pleasant stimulus. Positive reinforcement is a powerful method for controlling the
behavior of both animals and people. For people, positive reinforcers include
basic items such a food, drink, sex, and physical comfort. Other positive
reinforcers include material possessions, money, friendship, love, praise,
attention, and success in one’s career.
Depending on the circumstances, positive reinforcement can strengthen
either desirable or undesirable behaviors. Children may work hard at home or at
school because of the praise they receive from parents and teachers for good
performance. However, they may also disrupt a class, try dangerous stunts, or
start smoking because these behaviors lead to attention and approval from their
peers. One of the most common reinforcers of human behavior is money. Most
adults spend many hours each week working at their jobs because of the
paychecks they receive in return. For certain individuals, money can also
reinforce undesirable behaviors, such as burglary, selling illegal drugs, and
cheating on one’s taxes.
Negative reinforcement is a method of strengthening a behavior by following
it by the removal or omission of an unpleasant stimulus. There are two types of
negative reinforcement: escape and avoidance. In escape, performing a particular
behavior leads to the removal of an unpleasant stimulus. For example, if a person
with headache tries a new pain reliever and the headache quickly disappears, this
person will probably use the medication again the next time a headache occurs.
In avoidance, people perform a behavior to avoid unpleasant consequences. For
example, drivers may take side streets to avoid congested intersections, citizens
may pay their taxes to avoid fines and penalties, and students may do their
homework to avoid detention.
Punishment
Whereas reinforcement strengthens behavior, punishment weakens it
reducing the chances that the behavior will occur again. As with reinforcement,
there are two kinds of punishment, positive and negative. Positive punishment
involves reducing a behavior by delivering an unpleasant stimulus if the behavior
occurs. Parents use positive punishment when they spank, scold, or shout at
children for bad behavior. Societies use positive punishment when they fine or
imprison people who break the law. Negative punishment, also called omission,
involves reducing a behavior by removing a pleasant stimulus if the behavior
occurs. Parents’ tactics of grounding teenagers or taking away various privileges
because of bad behavior are examples of negative punishment.
Considerable controversy exists about whether punishment is effective
way of reducing or eliminating unwanted behaviors. Careful laboratory
experiments have shown that, when used properly, punishment can be a powerful
and effective method for reducing behavior. Nevertheless, it has several
disadvantages. When people are severely punished, they may become angry,
aggressive, or have other negative emotional reactions. They may try to hide the
evidence of their misbehavior or escape from the situation, as when a punished
child runs away from home. In addition, punishment may eliminate desirable
behaviors along with undesirable ones. For example, a child who is scolded for
making an error in the classroom may not raise his or her hand again. For these
and other reasons, many psychologists recommend that punishment be used to
control behavior only when there is no realistic alternative.
Shaping
It is a reinforcement technique that is used to teach animals or people
behaviors that they have never performed before. In this method, the teacher
begins by reinforcing a response the learner can perform easily, and then
gradually requires more and more difficult responses. For example, to teach a rat
to press a lever that is over its head, the trainer can first reward any upward
head movement, then an upward movement of at least one inch, then two inches,
and so on, until the rat reaches the lever. Psychologists have used shaping to
teach children with severe mental retardation to speak by first rewarding any
sounds they make, and then gradually requiring sounds that more and more
closely resemble the words of the teacher. Animal trainers at circuses and theme
parks use shaping to teach elephants to stand on one leg, tigers to balance on a
ball, dogs to backward flips, and killer whales and dolphins to jump through
hoops.
Extinction
As in classical conditioning, responses learned in operant conditioning are
not always permanent. In operant conditioning, is the elimination of a learned
behavior by discontinuing the reinforcer of that behavior. If a rat has learned to
press a lever because it receives food for doing so, its lever-pressing will
decrease and eventually disappear if food is no longer delivered. With people,
withholding the reinforcer may eliminate some unwanted behaviors. For instance,
parents often reinforce temper tantrums in young children by giving them
attention. If parents simply ignore the child’s tantrum rather than reward them
with attention, the number of tantrums should gradually decrease.
Generalization and Discrimination
Generalization and discrimination occur in operant conditioning in much
the same way that they do in classical conditioning. In generalization, people
perform a behavior learned in one situation in other, similar situations. For
example, a man who is rewarded with laughter when he tells certain jokes at a
bar may tell the same jokes at restaurants, parties, or wedding receptions.
Discrimination is learning that a behavior will be reinforced in one situation but not
in another. The man may learn that telling his jokes in church or at a serious
business meeting will not make people laugh. Discriminative stimuli signal that a
behavior is likely to be reinforced. The man may learn tell jokes only when he is
at a loud, festive occasion (the discriminative stimulus). Learning when a
behavior will and will not be reinforced is an important part of operant
conditioning.
Applications of Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning techniques have practical applications in many areas
of human life. Parents who understand the basic principles of operant
conditioning can reinforce their children’s appropriate behaviors and punish
inappropriate ones, and they can use generalization and discrimination techniques
to teach which behaviors are appropriate in particular situations. In the classroom,
many teachers reinforce good academic performance with small rewards and
privileges. Companies have used lotteries to improve attendance, productivity,
and job safety among their employees.
Psychologists known as behavior therapists use the learning principles of
operant conditioning to treat children or adults with behavior problems or
psychological disorders. Behavior therapists use shaping techniques to teach
basic job skills to adults with mental retardation. Therapists use reinforcement
techniques to teach self-care skills to people with severe mental illnesses, such
as schizophrenia, and use punishment and extinction to reduce aggressive and
antisocial behaviors by these individuals. Psychologists also use operant
conditioning techniques to treat stuttering, sexual disorders, marital problems,
drug addictions, impulsive spending, eating disorders, and may other behavioral
problems.
Social Interaction
This learning theory based on the idea of social interaction developed in
Soviet Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The social-interactionist believes that
history and culture play a prime role in learning and that language is key to the
development of higher ordered thinking skills.
Influential Psychologists and their Contributions to Social Interactionism
Lev Vygotsky: Zone of Proximal Development
The Zone of Proximal Development refers to the
child’s mental development. Pairing a child with an adult or
will frequently allow the child to go beyond what they are
mentally. Through guidance and instruction the child
intellectually.
potential level of a
a more capable peer
currently capable of
is able to mature
Jerome Bruner: Discover Learning
“Rearranging or transforming evidence in such a way that one is enabled
to go beyond the evidence so assembled to additional new insights.”
Discovery learning is a method by which teachers and learners set out to
systematically discover connections among phenomena in a continually evolving
world concept.
Cognitive Development
While all of the theories covered thus far believe in the development of
the mind as a part of learning, there are specific developmental theories that
have been well-articulated and which are highly influential.
Influential Psychologists and Theories of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget: Stage of Cognitive Development
Piaget developed his theory of the stages of cognitive development
through observing and experimenting with his own children. Piaget believed that
a child must pass through each stage of cognitive development before he could
understand certain ideas. This notion was in direct contrast to Vygotsky’s idea of
the Zone of Proximal Development and the role of a teacher or guide in helping
the child to develop mentally.
Jerome Bruner: Three Modes of Representation
Bruner’s developmental theory holds that children acquire three sequential
modes of representing the world mentally:
1) the Enactive;
2) the Iconic; and
3) the Symbolic.
Young children may not be able to describe how to do something to
another, but they can show one how do it. The iconic mode refers to the ability
of an individual to express an idea through an icon, such as a drawing. The
symbolic mode refers to the ability of the individual to express herself through
the use of a complex symbol system, such as language.
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
In 1983 American psychologist Howard Gardner proposed a theory that
sought to broaden the traditional definition of intelligence. He felt that the
concept of intelligence, as it had been defined by mental tests, did not capture all
of the ways humans can excel. Gardner argued that we do not have one
underlying general intelligence, but instead have multiple intelligences, each part
of an independent system in the brain.
In formulating his theory, Gardner placed less emphasis on explaining the
results of mental tests than on accounting for the range of human abilities that
exist across cultures. He drew on diverse sources of evidence to determine the
number of intelligences in his theory. For example, he examined studies of
brain-damaged people who had lost one’s ability, such as spatial thinking, but
retained another, such as language. The fact that two abilities could operate
independently of one another suggested the existence of separate intelligences.
The eight intelligences Gardner has defined are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
Linguistic Intelligence
Spatial Intelligence
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
Musical Intelligence
Interpersonal Intelligence
Intrapersonal Intelligence
Naturalist Intelligence
Gardner’s theory found rapid acceptance among educators because it
suggests a wider goal than traditional education has adopted. The theory implies
that traditional school training may neglect a large portion of human abilities, and
that students considered slow by conventional academic measures might excel in
other respects. A number of schools have formed with curriculums designed to
assess and develop students’ abilities in all of the intelligences Gardner
identified.
Critics of the multiple intelligences theory have several objections. First,
they argue that Gardner based his idea more on reasoning and intuition than
empirical studies. They note that there are no tests available to identify or
measure the specific intelligences and that the theory largely ignores decades of
research that show a tendency for different abilities to correlate-evidence of a
general intelligence factor. In addition, critics argue that some of the
intelligences Gardner identified, such as musical intelligence and bodilykinesthetic intelligence, should be regarded simply as talents because they are
not usually required to adapt to life demands.
Constructivism
The theory of constructivism is philosophical in nature. The idea is that
the world is interpreted and constructed internally by each of us. Our individual
constructions will by definition be different from one another. Therefore we will
reach have a unique understanding that we have individually constructed. Reality
for each of us is slightly different and built on our own perceptions and
experiences, not on objectivity.
Constructivism in Education
This idea in education has been translated into teaching principles and
techniques that can be combined to facilitate the naturally occurring constructive
process.
Learning by Observation
People learn much of what they know simply by observing others. Here a
child learns to use a lawnmower by observing his father’s behavior and imitating
it with a toy lawnmower.
Although classical and operant conditioning is important types of learning,
people learn a large portion of what they know through observation. Learning by
observation differs from classical and operant conditioning because it does not
require direct personal experience with stimuli, reinforcers, or punishers.
Learning by observation involves simply watching the behavior of another
person, called a model, and later imitating the model’s behavior. Both children and
adults learn a great deal through observation and imitation. Young children learn
language, social skills, habits, fears, and many other everyday behaviors by
observing their parents and older children. Many people learn academic, athletic,
and musical skills by observing and then imitating a teacher. According to
Canadian-American psychologist Albert Bandura, a pioneer in the study of
observational learning, this type of learning plays an important role in a child’s
personality development. Bandura found evidence that children learn traits such
as industriousness, honesty, self-control, aggressiveness, and impulsiveness in
part by imitating parent, other family members, and friends.
Factors Affecting Imitation
Many factors determine whether or not a person will imitate a model. As
already shown, children are more likely to imitate a model when the model’s
behavior has been reinforced than when it has been punished. More important,
however, are the expected consequences to the learner. A person will imitate a
punished behavior if he or she thinks that imitation will produce some type of
reinforcement.
The characteristics of the model also influence the likelihood of imitation.
Studies have shown that children are more likely to imitate adults who are
pleasant and attentive to them than those who are not. In addition, children more
often imitate adults who have substantial influence over their lives, such as
parents and teachers, and those who seem admired and successful, such as
celebrities and athletes. Both children and adults are more likely to imitate
models that are similar to them in sex, age, and background. For this reason,
when behavior therapists use modeling to teach new behaviors or skills, they try
to use models that are similar to the learners.
Influence of Television
In modern society, television provides many powerful models for children
and abundant opportunities for observational learning. Many parents are
concerned about the behaviors their children can observe on TV. Many television
programs include depictions of sex, violence, drug and alcohol use, and vulgar
language – behaviors that most parents do not want their children to imitate.
Studies have found that by early adolescence, the average American child has
watches thousands of dramatized murders and countless other acts of violence
on television.
For many years, psychologists have debated the question of whether
watching violence on television has detrimental effects on children. A number of
experiments, both inside and outside laboratory, have found evidence is
inconclusive. Most psychologists now believe, however, that watching violence
on television can sometimes lead to increased aggressiveness in children.
The effects of television on children’s behaviors are not all negative.
Educational programs give children the opportunity to learn letters of the
alphabet, words, numbers, and social skills. Such programs also show people who
solve problems and resolve differences through cooperation and discussion
rather than through aggression and hostility.
Factors that Influence Learning Ability
A variety of factors determine an individual’s ability to learn and the
speed of learning. For important factors are the individual’s age, motivation, prior
experience, and intelligence. In addition, certain developmental and learning
disorders can impair a person’s ability to learn.
Age
Animals and people of all ages are capable of the most common types of
learning-habituation, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning. As children
grow, they become capable of learning more and more sophisticated types of
information. Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget theorized that
children go through four different stages of cognitive development. In the
sensorimotor stage (from birth to about 2 years of age), infants use their senses
to learn about their bodies and about objects in their immediate environments. In
the preoperational stage (about 2 to 7 years of age), children can think about
objects and events that are not present, but their thinking is primitive and selfcentered, and they have difficulty seeing the world from another person’s point
of view. In the concrete operational stage (about 7 to 11 years of age), children
learn general rules about the physical world, such as the fact that the amount of
water remains the same if it is poured between containers of different shapes.
Finally, in the formal operational stage (ages 11 and up), children become
capable of logical and abstract thinking.
Adults continue to learn new knowledge and skills throughout their lives.
For example, most adults can successfully learn a foreign language, although
children usually can achieve fluency more easily. If older adults remain healthy,
their learning ability generally does not decline with age. Age-related illnesses
that involve a deterioration of mental functioning, such as Alzheimer’s disease,
can severely reduce a person’s ability to learn.
Motivation
Learning is usually most efficient and rapid when the learner is motivated
and attentive. Behavioral studies with both animals and people have shown that
one effective way to maintain the learner’s motivation is to deliver strong and
immediate reinforcers for correct responses. However, other research has
indicated that very high levels of motivation are not ideal. Psychologists believe
an intermediate level of motivation is best for many learning tasks. If a person’s
level of motivation is too low, he or she may give up quickly. At the other
extreme, a very high level of motivation may cause such stress and distraction
that the learner cannot focus on the task.
Prior Experience
How well a person learns a new task may depend heavily on the person’s
previous experience with similar tasks. Just as a response can transfer from one
stimulus to another through the process of generalization, people can learn new
behaviors more quickly if the behaviors are similar to those they can already
perform. This phenomenon is called positive transfer. Someone who has learned to
drive one car, for example, will be able to drive other cars, even though the feel
and handling of the cars will differ. In cases of negative transfer, however, a
person’s prior experience can interfere with learning something new. For
instance, after memorizing one shopping list, it may be more difficult to memorize
a different shopping list.
Intelligence
Psychologists have long known that people differ individually in their level
of intelligence, and thus in their ability to learn and understand. Scientists have
engaged in heated debates about the definition and nature of intelligence. In the
1980s American psychologist Howard Gardner proposed that there are many
different forms of intelligence, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical,
and interpersonal intelligence. A person may easily learn skills in some
categories but have difficulty learning in others.
Learning and Developmental Disorders
A variety of disorders can interfere with a person’s ability to learn new
skills and behaviors. Learning and developmental disorders usually first appear in
childhood and often persist into adulthood. Children with attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may not be able to sit along enough to focus on
specific tasks. Children with autism typically have difficulty speaking,
understanding language, and interacting with people. People with mental
retardation, characterized primarily by very low intelligence, may have trouble
mastering basic living tasks and academic skills. Children with learning or
developmental disorders often receive special education tailored to their
individual needs and abilities.
Conditions Affecting Learning
The conditions that affect learning are as follows:
1. Learning will be most effective when the learning situations are related to
life as realistically as possible.
2. Learning will be most effective when the learner gains confidence in his
ability and also acquires favorable attitudes and good work habits.
3. Learning will be most effective when the environment contributes positively to
the learning situation.
4. Learning will be most effective when the learning experiences help the learner
gain an insight through practical use of the relationship with which he is having
experiences.
5. Learning situations will be most effective when they are adapted to the needs,
capacities, and interests of learners.
6. Learning will be most effective when the learners feel the need for the
experiences and outcomes.
7. Learning will be most effective when the students are free from emotional
tensions.
8. Learning experiences will be most effective when the students are free from
emotional tensions.
9. Learning will be most effective in situations that provide satisfactorily for student
participation in planning and learning.
Major Considerations in Curriculum Development
Two major considerations in curriculum development are: the process of
learning and the nature of the learner. Several of these generally accepted
principles centered around the student: Students will differ in important ways no
matter how they are grouped, and there will be “loners.” A student’s personal
history can be either a help or a hindrance to learning, depending on the teacher
involved. Students experience success when the tasks and materials are
meaningful. Although the tasks themselves should not be too easy or too difficult,
students without specific motivation will learn only as much as they think is
needed; therefore it is wise to challenge students because under challenging
conditions, students are more inclined to try and solve problems. Students will
have more success when they routinely set realistic goals for themselves and are
involved in selecting and planning activities. In fact, although active participation
is well documented as a key to learning, conceptual learning is strengthened
when it is presented in several different situations and then applied by students
to other situations. This transfer of learning will take place more readily if the
learner discovers the transfer and application for himself or herself. Finally,
students will learn more efficiently when they work with peers and ask
questions.
Other basic principles of learning are focused on content and how it is
presented: No one subject in school is significantly better at building mental
strength than the others. Information that fits the learner’s existing attitudes will
be more easily remembered than information that doest not fit the learner’s
existing attitudes. Retention is enhanced with repetitive practice when this
practice is spaced out over a long time. Finally, positive and constructive
feedback is valuable to all learners.
Even when teachers understand and apply these learning principles, they
will still have to come to terms with certain other realities imbedded in an honest
appraisal of the learning process. For example, some students simply cannot
read, write, and calculate at a socially acceptable level, no matter what
approaches to learning and instruction are attempted. The next step, then, is to
accept the responsibility for providing educative and productive learning
experiences for these students so they can participate constructively in their
schools and communities. The challenge that this and other realities pose to
those who design curriculum is clear.
Another example is found in motivation. It is suggests that goal setting is
central to helping students become motivated and that students who regularly
practice setting realistic goals for themselves are more motivated to learn.
Where this student-directed goal setting exists, curricula are appropriate for all
learners.
A final important principle of learning that relates to curriculum
development is related to conceptual development. Basically, students will learn
any fact or skill much more successfully in context than in isolation. That is, any
new information must somehow be seen by the learner as a part of a larger,
more continuous whole, whether it is using basic multiplication facts in
determining costs of grocery items or remembering the dates of the Civil War to
get a deeper perspective on the economy of the antebellum southern United
States.
Because the nature of the learner is all too often ignored in the curriculum
planning process, the result is typically a pervasive sense of academic dread,
frustration, and failure for many learners. For student-centered curriculum and
subject-centered curriculum, and it is unlikely that either type will totally
dominate curriculum development. Regardless, it is hard to deny that there is an
enormous amount of data on any individual learner that should be known and
considered in collaboratively developing curriculum.
Table 1.
Important Learner Data
vision
motor skills
verbal expressive language
listening vocabulary
stress responses
emotional functioning
talents
academic achievement
interests
memories
learning modalities/styles
family customs
Hearing
Handedness
nonverbal expressive language
reading vocabulary
social skills
Fears
likes and dislikes
personality type
Favorites
nutritional needs
best friends
family characteristics
Furthermore, it is far more productive to identify and plan for specific
individual learner characteristics than it is to label learners based on a single
characteristics. Instead of planning for the learning disabled, the culturally
different, or the gifted student, educators must plan for the individual learner
based on everything that the learner brings to the classroom. This type of
planning is enhanced when educators collaborate.
Besides examining data on individual learners, it is critical for educators
who are involved in curriculum development to keep a current list of
developmental characteristics close at hand so that they are never inclined to
drift away from a curriculum appropriate for the developmental profiles of the
students they are planning for at that particular time. In fact, it is quite
appropriate to plan curriculum needs directly from these developmental
characteristics.
In the process of planning a curriculum, educators should be aware of
several changes in the overall population of students. Compared to students from
a few generations ago, today’s students are bigger and healthier, enter puberty
earlier, and are exposed to far more information via television and the rest of the
technological explosion than any preceding generation. Adult authority has, in
many cases, become capricious, and many younger children are being left at
home alone; children appear more and more confused about what is and is not
acceptable in people’s relationships with each other. The implications for those
involved in curriculum development are not as simple in this case. It is clear,
however, that all families can help make school curriculum more meaningful for
learners, and that one of the very clear needs among today’s learners is a need
for consistent, challenging expectations, both academically and socially.
SUMMARY
Sound curriculum development can be effected only from a sound
psychology of learning.
Learning is an acquiring knowledge or developing the ability to perform
new behaviors. It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in
school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom, and people
continue to learn throughout their lives.
There are seven major theories of learning presented in this module; 1)
Associationism; 2) Behaviorism; 3) Social Interaction; 4) Cognitive Development;
5) Multiple Intelligences; 6) Constructivism; and 7) Learning by Observation.
Associationism. The associationists believed that ideas become more
closely associated with one another through experience, and that this associative
bond constituted learning. Behaviorism. The idea of behaviorism was developed
in the early part of the 20th century. Behaviorism builds on the work of the
Associationist by way of conditioned responses. Skinner contributed “Operant
Behavior”, a form of learning that takes place when an instance of spontaneous
behavior is either reinforced by a reward or discouraged by punishment. Skinner
identified a number of basic principles of operant conditioning that explain how
people learn new behaviors or change existing behaviors. The main principles
are reinforcement, punishment, shaping, extinction, discrimination, and
generalization. Operant conditioning techniques have practical applications in
many areas of human life. Parents who understand the basic principles of operant
conditioning can reinforce their children’s appropriate behaviors and punish
inappropriate ones, and they can use generalization and discrimination techniques
to teach which behaviors are appropriate in particular situations. In the
classroom, many teachers reinforce good academic performance with small
rewards or privileges. Social Interaction. The social-interactionists believe that
history and culture play a prime role in learning and that language is key to the
development of higher ordered thinking skills. Cognitive Development. Piaget
believed that a child must pass through each stage of cognitive development
before he could understand certain ideas. This notion was in direct contrast to
Vygotsky’s idea of the Zone of Proximal Development and the role of a teacher
or guide in helping the child to develop mentally. The Theory of Multiple
Intelligences. According to Gardner, there are 8 distinct intelligences that an
individual may possess. They include linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic,
musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic intelligence. Gardner’s
theory found rapid acceptance among educators because it suggests a wider goal
than traditional education has adopted. The theory implies that traditional school
training may neglect a large portion of human abilities, and that students
considered slow by conventional academic measures might excel in other
respects. A number of schools have formed with curriculums designed to assess
and develop students’ abilities in all of the intelligences Gardner identified.
Constructivism. The theory of constructivism is philosophical in nature. The idea
is that the world is interpreted and constructed internally by each of us. Our
individual constructions will by definition be different from one another.
Therefore we will each have a unique understanding that we have individually
constructed. Reality for each of us is slightly different and built on our own
perceptions and experiences, not on objectivity. Learning by Observation.
Although classical and operant conditionings are important types of learning,
people learn a large portion of what they know through observation. Learning by
observation differs from classical and operant conditioning because it does not
require personal experience with stimuli, reinforcers, or punishers. Learning by
observation involves simply watching the behavior of another person, called a
model, and later imitating the model’s behavior. According to Canadian-American
psychologist Albert Bandura, a pioneer in the study of observational learning, this
type of learning plays an important role in a child’s personality development.
Bandura found evidence that children learn traits such as industriousness,
honesty, self-control, aggressiveness, and impulsiveness in part by imitating
parents, other family members, and friends.
Factors that Influences Learning Ability. A variety of factors determine an
individual’s ability to learn and the speed of learning. Four important factors are
the individual’s age, motivation, prior experience, and intelligence. In addition,
certain developmental and learning disorders can impair a person’s ability to
learn.
Two major
considerations in curriculum development are the process of learning and the
nature of the learner.
Major
Considerations
in
Curriculum
Development.
Because the nature of the learner is all too often ignored in the curriculum
planning process, the result is typically a pervasive sense of academic dread,
frustration, and failure for many learners. For student-centered curriculum and
subject-centered curriculum, and it is unlikely that either type with totally
dominate curriculum development. Regardless, it is hard to deny that there is an
enormous amount of data on any individual learner that should be known and
considered in collaboratively developing curriculum.
Questions to Answer
1. How does psychological foundation of education influence curriculum
making?
2. Differentiate the different learning theories discussed in this module?
3. Which learning theory is/are applicable in the elementary curriculum
today? Why?