Relevance of learning process in the planning of teaching and guidance

Competence goal No.3: You understand the relevance of the learning process in the planning of pedagogically founded teaching and guidance.

Please read again carefully the assessment criteria for this competence goal:

- You reflect on your own view of learning using various learning theories.

- You consider how the learning process manifests in the learning and teaching of your own substance field.

- In your analysis, you use your experience, scientific literature, and other reliable sources. 

Summary of the four theories of learning

According to James (2006), views of learning are affected by the following four theories on learning (see table 1). They are behaviorist theory, cognitive theory, constructivist theory and socio-cultural theory. Those theories have different implications for learning environments, learners, learning process, teaching and assessment. Some of the theories are interconnected while others can have divine arguments on what affects the learning process the most. 

For example, both cognitive theory and constructivist theory recognize that learners play an important role in shaping their learning process and in influencing their learning outcomes. Learners’ mind, inner motives, and thinking are emphasized. And learners’ achievement is a building, becoming process. One difference is that constructivist theory suggests that teachers guide and instruct in a planned and constructed manner, whereas cognitive theory does not emphasize structured teaching.

Behaviorist theory holds an opposite view against cognitive theory and constructivist theory, to the extent that it does not regard the human mind as that important in the learning process as the environments. It argues that the environment is the decisive factor in the learning process and that teachers and learners are triggered to react and adapt to the environments.

The socio-cultural theory suggests that both the learners and environments are important factors in shaping the learning process and in influencing the outcomes of learning. It emphasizes the development of both learners’ identities and promoting environments to achieve the maximum outcomes, to achieve what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development. Learners and teachers are learning together and instead of teaching, teachers play more roles in guiding, facilitating, and coaching. 

Each theory has developed since a specific historical time and had meant to guide the practices in time. Therefore, there is no right or wrong theory in learning. They have reminded us of how views of learning have changed and how those changes have led to the development or even revolution in how we as educators change our methodologies to work with students. They are inspiring and could help us to locate our practices in a developing context of education, and so trigger us as teachers to reflect on our own practices. 

 

Table 1: Four different views of learning (James, 2006)

 

Reflection on my own view of learning

I think the socio-cultural theory of learning is the dream goal for education but, practices in schools nowadays reflect quite a lot of the cognitive and constructivist views on learning. In terms of policies, a lot of schools strive to emphasize both learners’ individualities and the learning environments. In other words, they create an environment for stimulating thinking and actions (zone of proximal development). Vocational schools provide versatile learning environments, including traditional classrooms, special needs learning spaces, helper rooms (for example Yelppi at OSAO), simulators, and authentic workplace learning. Even though education providers try to offer as diverse and authentic learning environments as possible, the challenges lie on the practical level: are learners’ individualities valued enough? How are they valued? To what extent is enough? 

Personally, I think both learners and the learning environments are accounted for the learning process and progress. This is because humans are both biological and social. We learn both as individuals and in groups. Even though we can be different kinds of learners, the different kinds of the learning processes can take place in various learning situations and at different stages of a learner’s lifelong learning process. Some skills are hierarchy. We learn to walk before we can run. We learn basic mathematics calculations to continue with more complicated algorithms calculations or to get a more developed mathematical thinking mindset. Therefore, behaviorist theory is not completely out-to-date.  

Timed tests are no wrong ways of assessment either. It might sound stunt for some socio-culturalists that there are correct and incorrect answers. Perhaps the argument here is not whether there are correct or incorrect answers to certain questions. To take on a more skills-oriented perspective, we as educators should think about what kinds of skills or competence students should develop from giving answers to questions. Critical thinking, for example, would be one key to merging the different theories to learning. On one hand, we could teach students the right or wrong answers (behaviorist theory), whereas, on the other, we need to promote students to think critically, not to take the told correct answers for granted (socio-cultural theory). 

Another key question involved is the role of teachers. I think this correlates well with how we understand the learning process: how does it happen in individual learners and in groups? To cater to different learners and their diverse learning styles, teachers play different roles instead of one fixed role. A teacher can be a lecturer, a teacher, a tutor, a counselor, a coach, or even a peer for students. They can mechanically train, facilitate, or scaffold students’ learning depending on the situations or tasks. For example, for a student learning to be a worker working in a production shop that involves a lot of repeating work, a student needs mechanically training even though it can sound tedious and boring. In a learning situation where the learning goal is to promote critical thinking, a teacher’s role can be a facilitator, triggering students to think, talk and discuss. A teacher might have some semi-structured questions to promote students’ group work. In situations where the topic can be relatively new for both the teacher and the students, for example, social media memes, a teacher can be a peer to students. They try to work on the topic together. In this case, a teacher is also a learner in the learning process. 

Therefore, my view of learning is that teaching and learning should serve the purposes of promoting skills and competence. Teaching methods should be made as diverse as possible to meet different learners’ learning styles. 

Learning process in vocational English teaching

In vocational English teaching, which is also my field of teaching at OSAO, the practices are influenced not only by one learning theory. Instead, they reflect all the four theories of learning as mentioned above. 

Students memorizing words and vocabulary? Why not?

As language teachers, particularly language teachers to 15-year-old students, we cannot avoid teaching vocabulary. Vocabulary learning requires memorization skills, and there is a lot of quick and correct response training involved in the teaching and learning process. In addition, when it comes to vocabulary pedagogics, even though it is not necessarily about skills hierarchy development, there is some vocabulary used more commonly in everyday life situations than others. So, students learn those common words first and then move to more abstract concepts and working-life-related vocabulary. There is a sequence in the curriculum. This practice reflects the behaviorist theory of learning. 

Don’t confuse active participation with engaged participation 

Students are expected to participate in various educational activities both inside and outside of the school. There is a difference between active participation and engaged participation. While a student is actively participating in an activity that the teacher has prepared, he or she is not necessarily engaged in a process that other learners are part of. For example, if we ask the students to write a reply letter to a customer who has made a complaint, students are actively participating in the writing activity if they check information online, follow the instructions, and apply the useful phrases in constructing sentences. However, they are not necessarily engaged in the activity. As teachers, we need to create a learning environment where students acknowledge that other students and teachers are part of the learning process. In that case, instead of giving specific outlines of what a reply email to customers’ complaints is like, teachers can initiate a discussion on what topics should a salesperson include in such a reply email. Students can experiment with writing in their own styles, and then in groups, they practice inductive reasoning skills, discussing what purposes each sentence serves. Towards the end of the lesson, we could conclude as a whole group, what makes a well-structured reply letter.

As language teachers, we want different students´ learning processes crossed with one another, instead of going separately in their own ways. In an engaged participation scenario, there is a learning community where diverse interaction is triggered. Every student has an impact on shaping the learning process and can thus affect the outcome of learning. 

Active participation

Engaged participation

From learning to personal development 

In vocational institutions, learning does not happen only in the school. It is closely connected with working life. Students develop their professional identities through learning. In the vocational business unit, students develop their identities as salespersons, marketing persons, customer service support, business secretary, accountant, or entrepreneurs. Every student has their own personal study and development path. All the learning environments, including the school and the on-the-job learning workplaces, and the personnel, including subject teachers, special needs teachers, student counselors, tutors, and workplace instructors, collaborate to form a network of support for the students. For instance, in the vocational business unit, there is Yelppi where students can get extra help with their assignments and exams. There are counselors who can help students to find places for on-the-job learning and supervise their practices at work. There are workplace instructors who can supervise students’ on-the-job practices. Teachers play a major role in preparing students with the necessary knowledge and skills for the jobs that students are doing. For example, we as language teachers prepare students with job interview skills, sales, and customer service skills. Teachers also need to create an environment where interaction between students and between personnel and students is possible and encouraged.

Support of students’ personal growth and development

 

Learning processes in vocational education are diverse because each student is special on his or her own. The abovementioned examples show that as language teachers, we are part of a community which help students develop their own study and development path. We provide offer various kinds of support to students, including teaching, instructing, coaching, tutoring, counselling, supervising, and so on. We are also responsible for creating the environments that can promote students’ growing and developing. We need to actively cooperate with different people to support the students’ diverse learning process.

Sources:

James, M. (2006). Assessment, teaching and theories of learning. In Assessment and Learning (pp. 47-60). London: Sage.

Fleming, J. (2018, June 7th). Don’t Confuse Participation and Engagement. Illuminate education. https://www.illuminateed.com/blog/2018/06/dont-confuse-participation-and-engagement/ 

Previous personal experience and teaching practice at OSAO