Posts Tagged teaching
Educational Approach in Constructivism and Behaviorism
Educational practices are incredibly diverse not only around the world, but even within a given school. What some might view as the best approach to educating children, others might see as a mediocre attempt to do so.
The video “Pre-school in Three Different Cultures” illustrates this diversity in educational styles to the viewer. The documentary consists of the filming of three different pre-schools in different countries during the span of a normal day. The summaries of the day’s activities given in the video for each of the pre-schools let the viewer analyze both the social and academic aspects of the children’s experience throughout the day. The pre-schools included in the video are Komatsudani from Japan, Dong-feng from China, and St.Timothy from the U.S. (Hawaii). The following paper will shed light on what is known as constructivism and behaviorism, and describe which one of the schools falls under each category.
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Teaching Studies
At this point in my teaching practice I feel that I am ready to discuss matters relating to effective delivery of lessons. I have worked particularly closely at this aspect of teaching and will bring to light my very own thoughts, experiences and future goals that I have managed to set myself. The most important of all these is the fact that I feel that changes can be made in terms of becoming a better teacher or at least I understand that there is a need for evaluating oneself and learning from the evaluation lessons which cannot be learned through theory alone.
The very first lesson I learned in becoming an effective teacher is that children learn better when they are interested, motivated and can clearly see what the teacher is presenting to them. This is also stressed in the 2004 Qualifying to teach handbook. The standards S3.3.3 also stresses the importance of promoting active and independent learning and that children should take some responsibility to manage their own learning.
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Understanding Learning: How Recent Research Supports Natural Affinities
Fielding questions from parents about the best way to “teach” young children, I often revert to research that supports integrated and emergent education models. However, parents influenced by marketing trends and imprudent education mandates are often skeptical by what they view as hackneyed analysis. How thrilling to come across leading edge research, such as David A. Sousa’s, “How the Brain Learns”, which presents evidence of brain development in the first five years of life and the potential this has in the area of early childhood education and beyond.
An exciting revelation of brain research is that educators get to rethink the long-standing “tabula rasa” theory. This refers to the thesis that individuals are born with no innate or built-in mental content, and that their entire resource of knowledge is built up gradually. Researchers now know that children are ready and motivated to learn, not by being fed knowledge, but by discovering the world around them. It’s up to the teachers, parents and caregivers in their lives to provide the inspiration and facilitation. And instead of a mandated curriculum, it’s creativity and individuation that will best ensure a student’s lifelong success.
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