The lecture titled ‘First thoughts on teaching and learning’ introduced the views behind

how children learn and the ways in which we can, as teachers, develop our own
pedagogy. This topic raised many questions, such as ‘when does learning begin?’,
‘what are the characteristics of effective learning?’ and ‘what helps us learn?’. I hope to
address questions like these in this blog entry.

Goswami (2015) suggested that the structure and function of human brains does not
differ between children and adults, and the only differences are ‘enrichment’ levels. It
could therefore be suggested that the strategies used to improve adults learning
efficiency is similar to that used by children. Trainee teachers should begin to place
importance on their own ways of improving learning in their own classroom in order to
develop their own pedagogy. One of the first ways of doing this is to recognise the
different ways in which children learn.

How do children learn?

Child-initiated learning
This is when a child can learn by freely exploring their environment. Piaget supports this
form of learning through his cognitive developmental theory. He suggests that by
enabling children to learn through free exploration, they can develop their own
knowledge which is extremely important to their later cognitive development.
Trial-and-error
This method of learning is not specific to children and is also used by adults. Repetition,
another type of learning, coincides with trial-and-error. Children will keep attempting to
complete a task until they are successful. Gathercole and Baddeley (2011) suggested
that when children are learning their peers names, children in the ‘high repetition’
learning group managed to remember significantly more names than those in the ‘low
repetition’ group.

Social interaction
Children begin learning in the womb, and this is continued through social interaction
once they are born. If a child gets a reassuring response from their mother, the
behaviour they are carrying out is likely to be continued. An example of this is seen in
the ‘Visual Cliff Experiment’ (Gibson and Walk, 1960). A variation of this experiment
was the mother’s reaction. If the child’s mother showed concern, the baby would not
crawl over the glass, but if they portrayed encouraging emotions, they would crawl over
it.

Vygotsky’s Social Learning Theory proposes that children learn within a ‘zone of proximal
development’, in which their development is supported through social interaction.
Imitation
This type of learning overlaps with social interaction. A baby’s first behaviours will often
develop from a parents repetition of a particular action until the child develops the
knowledge of how to do it themselves. An example of the extent to which children
imitate their parents can be seen in the ‘Boo Boo Doll Study’ (Bandura, Ross and
Ross,1963), in which children are likely to imitate aggression that they have seen adults
use.

Motivation/Reward
From a very young age, children learn that specific actions will usually gain a particular
response. For example, babies learn to associate crying with food so will repeat this
behaviour. Kruger and Konner (2010) suggest that human evolution had enabled this
process and the maternal nature of a baby’s mother encourages this association.

How can I improve learning in the classroom?

Taking all of the above into account, I believe there are ways in which a teacher can
improve learning in the classroom.

-Many learning techniques overlap, making it important to ensure that children have the
opportunity to learn in a variety of ways.

-Children should be given time to explore through child-initiated learning. This can be
achieved through individual work, as well as group work.

-Children often learn more efficicently through social interaction with their peers so
group work should be encouraged.
-Teachers must be organised and plan lessons thoroughly and promote positive
interactions within the class.

The following links are useful for finding out more about what teachers can do to
encourage learning:
–Critical Thinking, tactics that encourage active learning
–Creative education
–New2teaching
By Charlotte Ralph

References
Bandura, A., Ross, D. & Ross, S.A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive
models. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66(1), 3-11.
Berk, L.E. (2009). Child Development. Pearson Education, Inc.: Boston.
Gathercole, S.E. & Baddeley, A.D. (2011). The role of phonological memory in
vocabulary acquisition: A study of young children learning new names. British Journal of
Psychology, 81(4), 43-47.
Gibson, E.J. & Walk, R.D. (1960). The “visual cliff”. Scientific American, 202, 67-71.
Kruger, A.C. & Konner, M. (2010). Who responds to crying?: Maternal Care and
Allocare among the !Kung. Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective, 309-
329.

https://princeralphnettleton.wordpress.com/