How 1

How Do Students Learn Best?

Hannah Garling

Education 200, Section 2 Professor Spilman November 1, 2011

How 2 Abstract

In this paper I have decided to focus on the developmentalist theorists Piaget and Vygotsky. I believe development is very important in the process of learning because if students do not learn to do certain activities by a certain age they will be behind other students of their own age and may not be able to function later in life if they do not learn how to perform basic tasks. I have also chosen to discuss Ausubel and Flavell who are theorists that concentrated on information processing. Information processing is very important to the basics of learning because it helps teachers understand how students process information. How students process information is very important to teachers because if they do not understand how information is taken in, how can they begin to teach their students.

How 3 How Do Students Learn Best? I could begin this paper by telling you the theorists I most agree with when it comes to how students learn best or I could actually put that information in perspective by explaining how I learn best. I am going to begin with the later. I am a very visual and kinesthetic learner which means I learn best through visual aids like pictures and videos and by using my hands to actually manipulate the props or items I am learning how to use. I have been a visual learner from a very early age. I always wanted books with brightly colored pictures in them because they helped me visualize the story better. I am also that one child who has the read the entire instruction pamphlet before playing a board game or putting something together because I need the pictures and explanation of how to do things to create a picture in my mind of what I need to do. I am a kinesthetic learner through my years of participating in soccer and dance. Those types of activities have a certain feel to them that you have to be able to recognize in order to do the moves properly. I would watch the instructor demonstrate the move and then practice the move myself until it was etched into my muscles for muscle memory. In dance if you are not doing a move properly you can severely injure yourself and if the instructor saw you were not demonstrating a move correctly she would tell you how it should feel to your body and which muscles should be tight and which should be relaxed, then I would be able to adjust the move according to her specifications and correct my muscle memory. I can see the theories of Piaget, Vygotsky, Ausubel, and Flavell in my own learning and believe that if more teachers use their theories students will all learn more efficiently. Jean Piaget lived from 1896 to 1980 in Switzerland. He began his career as a biologist at age eleven by publishing a short paper on the albino sparrow. He received his PhD in natural science and began studying mollusks before moving onto children. He studied childrens

How 4 intellectual development from infancy to adulthood. Children learn through maturation, both physiological and genetic, by participating in developmentally appropriate activities. An example of a developmentally appropriate activity would be playing peek-a-boo with an infant instead of practicing long division. Another way children learn is through their activities. An activity is the ability to act upon the environment and learn from it such as a student learning how to balance on their bicycle after taking their training wheels off. Also, Children learn from people around them through social transmission. For example, a student may see another student get in trouble for not raising their hand to use the restroom so they learn to raise their hand if they need to use the restroom. Piaget also theorized that children learn about the world around them through their schemas of the world. A schema is a group of similar actions or thoughts used repeatedly. An example of a schema would be the series of events that take place when a child visits the doctor. The child uses this model to formulate what may happen at their next visit to the doctor based on their past experiences. At their last visit they may have received a vaccination shot but on their next visit no vaccination shot is needed so the child will reformulate their schema of visiting the doctor to not always receiving a shot. Although development may not seem important when discovering the ways students learn best, it actually is very important especially in elementary schools. The students are still developing rapidly at their young age and each age group learns differently at their different stages of development so it is important for a teacher to know a general area of what their students are capable of accomplishing. That way a teacher can recognize if a particular student is falling behind or if another student is racing ahead. Lev Vygotsky is another psychologist who concentrated on the development of children. He lived from 1896 to 1934 in the Russian empire. He is considered a Soviet Psychologist. He focused mainly on language and thinking. He conducted studies of childrens thinking from the

How 5 1920s until 1934. He concentrated on the sociocultural perspective which is the effect society has on childrens learning and thinking. One main idea of Vygotskys theory is the Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD which is the difference between what a child can do on his/her own and what can be accomplished with some assistance. This is very important in schools because teachers need to be able to recognize what their students can do on their own and what their students can be capable of with just a little assistance. There are many ways that a teacher can assist their students in their learning processes. For example, teachers can use the scaffolding model in which an adult gives guidance to a child in any given task. For example, a teacher may assist their students in how to write an essay by giving them a basic outline but as the students become more comfortable with writing essays the teacher will no longer model a basic outline for them and just let the students write on their own. Another model a teacher can use is guided participation which is having students apply new skills in an adult environment. For example, now that their students can add and subtract a teacher may then teach their students how to balance a check book, an activity using the skills the students have but in an adult fashion. Teachers can also use the cognitive apprenticeship model where the student works with an expert or mentor in learning how to perform new skills such as a teacher guiding a student in how to think about a new skill. Students can also learn through interactions with their peers. If a student is having difficultly learning how to shoot a basketball at recess another student may come over and show that student how to shoot so the first student is learning from someone his own age instead of an expert on the subject such as a coach. David Ausubel lived from 1918 to 2008 and was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was greatly interested in psychopathology, ego development, and addictions. He theorized that students learn best when using advanced organizers. Such advanced organizers consist of

How 6 graphic, narrative, skimming, and concept mapping. A graphic organizer is a visual set up to outline new information such as a Venn diagram. A narrative organizer presents new information in form of story. Skimming is simply looking over new material in a quick manor. Finally, concept mapping shows concepts in a diagram form, such as a KWL chart. Ausubel also formulated the idea of meaningful learning. Meaningful learning is the concept of recognizing a relationship between new information and old information already stored in long term memory One the connection has been made between the new information and the old information, learning has occurred. Ausubels ideas about organizers greatly assist teachers is giving them a variety of ways to present information to their students because all students learn differently and if students do not understand one graphic organizer the teacher can simply try another one. John Flavell was born in 1928 in Massachusetts. He was greatly influenced by Piaget and focused his research on childrens communication and understanding roles of others. He researched and developed the idea of metacognition or thinking about thinking. Metacognition consists of three components. First is knowledge which is what individuals already know about themselves. Second is regulation which is the regulating of experiences through set of activities that help control learning. And lastly there are experiences which are something to do with current, ongoing learning endeavors. There are also three stages of information processing so that information can be stored and retrieved or learned. First, the information is received through sensation and perception and then encoded. Second, the information is stored in either short-term or long-term memory. Finally, the information is reactivated for current use or is retrieved. Flavells ideas about thinking and information processing allow teachers to know the process their students go through each time they are learning new material so that teachers may begin to understand why a student may not be learning the material as easily as another student.

How 7 All students learn differently from one another and in a variety of ways. I believe that the theories of Piaget, Vygotsky, Ausubel, and Flavell present the greatest tools for helping to understand how students learn so that teachers can learn from their theories. Teachers can learn from Piaget about how children view the world through schemas and relay to their students how schemas do not work in all situations in life because there are always abnormalities. Also, teachers can learn from Vygotsky ways in which to foster better learning in their students through assisting them some of the time and then letting them work on their own. From Ausubel, teachers can learn how students learn best through a variety of organizers. Finally, teachers can learn from Flavell how students think about thinking or metacognition. If teachers employ the methods and theories outlined by these psychologists their students should be the best equipped to learn any new information at any age.

How 8 References Class Notes Ormrod, J. E. (2011). Educational Psychology: Developing Learners (Seventh ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.