FLE 200 Section 2 01.11.

2020
Name: Büşra Zeynep ARSLAN
ID: 2367670

Response Paper 3: Psychological Foundations of Curriculum

I learned that psychology is concerned with how people learn, and it provides us with
a basis for understanding the learning and teaching process. The major theories of learning
can be classified into three groups: behaviourist theories which deal with various aspects of
stimulus-response and reinforces, cognitive information-processing theories which see the
learner in relation to the total environment and consider the way learner applies information,
phenomenological and humanistic theories which consider the whole child. Edward
Thorndike, the founder of behavioural psychology, defined learning as habit formation, i.e.
connecting more and more habits into a complex structure. Moreover, I learned that
Thorndike developed three major laws of learning, and I had to read their definitions several
times to understand them. The first one is the law of readiness, which is not educational
readiness. It is the degree of eagerness to learn. The second is the law of exercise which
emphasizes on continued practice such as repetition and drill. The last one is the law of effect
which indicates that responses accompanied by satisfaction strengthen the connection and
vice versa. Anything that people crave can be used to modify their behaviour. When it comes
to cognitive psychology, I learned that long-term memory deals with two types of
information: semantic, which refers to the way the world is and procedural, which indicates
the way we do things. I learned that it could be impractical to give lower-class students
homework because they, unfortunately, lack intellectual stimulation such as proper room to
study. I already knew about most of the content such as Piaget’s cognitive development,
Kohlberg’s moral development, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, and Montessori’s prepared
environment because of the educational psychology course that I had taken last year. And,
lastly, phenomenology, or humanistic psychology deals with learners’ attitudes, feelings,
needs, motivation, and self-actualization.

I would want to discuss a part from Thorndike that states “learning which involves
meaningful organization of experiences can be transferred more readily than learning acquired
by rote. The more abstract the principles and generalizations, the greater the possibility of
transfer.” (Hunkins and Ornstein, 2018, pp. 114). Would not it lead to better learning transfer
if learners were to learn with more concrete principles rather than abstract ones? First, it says
FLE 200 Section 2 01.11.2020
Name: Büşra Zeynep ARSLAN
ID: 2367670

experiences make learning transfer easy; then it emphasizes abstract principles which come to
me as contrast terms.

As a teacher, I would make sure that students’ essential needs are met before the
lesson. Because, otherwise, they would not be interested in secondary drives such as learning.
At the beginning of each lesson, I would tell students what we will do today and why it is
important for them to learn these new concepts to give them a reason to learn. I would give
praises and express my approval right after they demonstrate good behaviours to maintain
their desired behaviours. To boost their critical thinking skills, I would spare at least a fifteen-
minute of each week to discuss a topic that will create awareness for them. For instance, our
topic could be success, so we would discuss what is success, who are considered successful
by society and for them in English. It would not only improve their English but also help them
to see if they have their own thoughts, or they are just letting society decide for themselves. In
this way, they would question things, stimulate their minds, learn from one another, see
different viewpoints and hopefully be more open-minded. When it comes to what I can do
when I learn as a student, I will try to associate participation in class discussions with good
things. I will be aware that I should continuously give myself rewards to stay motivated to
learn.

References

Hunkins, F. P., & Ornstein, A. C. (2018). Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and issues.
Pearson Education. Harlow: Pearson. (pp. 112-150).