Implications of Learning Theories in Modern World

pauperism Excerpted from Chapter 11 of Biehler/S straight offman, PSYCHOLOGY utilize TO TEACHING, 8/e, Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Definition of want (p. 399) styleal Views of drive (pp. 399-402) Cognitive Views of demand (pp. 402-406) The benevolentist View of want (pp. 406-409) The squeeze of conjunct instruct on Motivation (pp. 416-417) Suggestions for breeding in Your schoolroom Motivating Students to Learn (p. 422) Resources for Further Investigation (pp. 433-434) Definition of Motivation Motivation is typi cryy defined as the forces that account for the arousal, selection, direction, and continuation of behavior.N forevertheless, m distri thatively an early(a)(a)wise(prenominal) instructors acquit at least two major mis intentions ab bulge out penury that prevent them from apply this apprehension with maximum effectiveness. One misconception is that roughly students ar un incite. Strictly speaking, that is non an immaculate statement. As long as a st udent chooses stopping points and expends a certain kernel of bowel movement to carry out them, he is, by definition, move. What t separatelyers re in ally mean is that students ar non do to behave in the counselling teachers would like them to behave. The second misconception is that ne single end directly motivate a nonher. This observe to it is inaccurate because pauperism discerns from within a person. What you crumb do, with the help of the various motivation theories discussed in this chapter, is create the circumstances that wreak students to do what you urgency them to do. Many factors delimitate whether the students in your phra strivees will be motivated or not motivated to train. You should not be surprised to disc all over that no renderle theoretical indication of motivation explains all eyeshots of student interest or lack of it.Different theoretical interpretations do, however, shed debile on why nigh students in a break d taken nurture business office be more likely to want to key than others. Furthermore, each theoretical interpretation tramp serve as the backside for the bankruptment of techniques for motivating students in the classroom. whatsoever(prenominal) theoretical interpretations of motivation whatsoever of which argon derived from word of honors of schooling presented earlier will this instant be summarized. big top Behavi oral examination Views of Motivation Operant Conditioning and complaisant encyclopaedism TheoryThe Effect of Reinforcement In Chapter 8 we discussed Skinners emphasis of the role of funding in skill. After demonstrating that organisms tend to repeat actions that ar rein obligate and that behavior can be do by support, Skinner create the technique of programmemed instruction to coiffe it practical for students to be reinforced for every advance response. According to Skinner, supplying the correct actand being in varianted by the program that it is the cor rect answermotivates the student to go on to the next frame and as the student massages by with(predicate) the program, the want terminal behavior is progressively shaped.Fol scurvying Skinners lead, many behavioral cultivation theorists devised techniques of behavior fitting on the assumption that students be motivated to complete a delegate by being promised a bribe of few kind. Many times the take begets the form of praise or a grade. just aroundtimes it is a token that can be traded in for some desired objective and at other times the punish whitethorn be the privilege of amiable in a self-selected activity. Operant conditioning interpretations of acquirement whitethorn help herald why some students react avorably to event subjects and dislike others. For instance, some students may tangle with a leadd math class with a feeling of delight, musical composition others may feel that they have been sentenced to prison. Skinner suggests that much(preno minal) differences can be traced to past experiences. He would reason that the student who loves math has been shaped to respond that delegacy by a series of absolute experiences with math. The math hater, in contrast, may have suffered a series of negative experiences.The Power of Persuasive Models Social culture theorists, such as Albert Bandura, call attention to the importance of observation, imitation, and secondary reinforcement (expecting to receive the aforementi unmatchabled(prenominal) reinforcer that we see someone else get for exhi smearing a token(prenominal) behavior). A student who identifies with and admires a teacher of a break downicular subject may work hard cancelly to please the admired individualist and partly to try becoming like that individual.A student who observes an old(a) brother or sister reaping benefits from earning racy up grades may strive to do the same with the prospect of experiencing the same or mistakable benefits. A student who notices that a schoolmate receives praise from the teacher after naughtytail itacting in a certain way may decide to imitate such behavior to win identical observes. As we take aimed out in Chapter 8, both vicarious reinforcement and direct reinforcement can raise an individuals backbone of self-efficacy for a particular projection, which, in turn, leads to racyer levels of motivation. outmatch Cognitive Views of Motivation Cognitive views stress that gentle behavior is influenced by the way spate value somewhat themselves and their environment. The direction that behavior takes can be explained by 4 influences the indwelling carry to construct an organized and logically consistent have it offledge base, ones expectations for achieverfully finish a task, the factors that one commits account for mastery and unsuccessful person, and ones beliefs round the nature of cognitive ability. The Impact of Cognitive DevelopmentThis view is based on Jean Piagets pri nciples of equilibration, assimilation, accommodation, and schema formation. Piaget proposes that boorren possess an inherent desire to maintain a sense of organization and balance in their conception of the world (equilibration). A sense of equilibration may be experienced if a child assimilates a impudent experience by relating it to an existing organization, or the child may accommodate by modifying an existing scheme if the spick-and-span experience is too different. In addendum, individuals will repeatedly use in the altogether schemes because of an inherent desire to master their environment.This explains why young children can, with no loss of enthusiasm, sing the same song, tell the same story, and incline the same game over and over and why they repeatedly open and unsympathetic doors to rooms and cupboards with no seeming purpose. It too explains why older children take spacious delight in collecting and organizing closely everything they can get their hands on a nd why adolescents who have begun to attain bollock operational thinking will argue incessantly around all the injury in the world and how it can be eliminated (Stipek, 1993).Top The Need for Achievement Have you ever decided to take on a moderately difficult task (like take a course on uranology even though you argon a history major and have lone(prenominal) a limited background signal in science) and thence make that you had somewhat irrelevant feelings about it? On the one hand, you matte eager to start the course, confident that you would be pleased with your action. But on the other hand, you in like manner felt a bit of anxiety because of the small possibility of failure. straight off try to imagine the opposite situation.In reception to a suggestion to take a course outside your major, you flat out refuse because the probability of failure seems great, while the probability of success seems quite small. In the early 1960s John Atkinson (1964) proposed that such d ifferences in achievement behavior are due to differences in something called the direct for achievement. Atkinson depict this postulate as a global, generalized desire to attain goals that require some course of competence. He saw this deprivation as being partly essential and partly the resolve of experience.Individuals with a high ask for achievement have a stronger expectation of success than they do a fear of failure for most tasks and then anticipate a feeling of superciliousness in acquisition. When crumblen a choice, high-need achievers adjudicate out moderately challenging tasks because they press an optimal balance between argufy and expected success. By contrast, individuals with a low need for achievement avoid such tasks because their fear of failure greatly outweighs their expectation of success, and they in that locationfore anticipate feelings of shame.When faced with a choice, they typically opt either for relatively easy tasks because the probabil ity of success is high or rather difficult tasks because there is no shame in weakness to achieve a lofty goal. Atkinsons point about taking fear of failure into account in arranging tuition experiences has been made more recently by William Glasser in Control Theory in the classroom (1986) and The Quality School (1990). Glasser argues that for community to succeed at life in general, they must first experience success in one outstanding aspect of their lives.For most children, that one outstanding part should be school. But the conventional start out to evaluating learn, which emphasizes comparative grading (comm solitary(prenominal) called grading on the nose), allows solitary(prenominal) a nonage of students to achieve As and Bs and feel successful. The self-worth of the remaining students (who may be quite capable) suffers, which depresses their motivation to achieve on subsequent classroom tasks (Covington, 1985). Top The Humanistic View of Motivation Abraham Maslow make his Ph. D. in a psychology discussion section that supported the behaviorist position.After he graduated, however, he came into contact with Gestalt psychologists (a assort of German psychologists whose work during the 1920s and 1930s laid the mental home for the cognitive theories of the 1960s and 1970s), prepared for a career as a psychoanalyst, and became raise in anthropology. As a result of these various influences, he came to the conclusion that American psychologists who endorsed the behaviorist position had be fill in so preoccupied with overt behavior and objectivity that they were ignoring other important aspects of human organism (hence the term humanistic to describe his views).When Maslow ascertained the behavior of especially well-adjusted personsor self- veridicalizers, as he called themhe reason that healthy individuals are motivated to adjudicate fulfilling experiences. Maslows Theory of Growth Motivation Maslow describes cardinal propositions, discussed in Chapter 1 of Motivation and spirit (3d ed. , 1987), that he believes would have to be co-ordinated into any sound theory of offset motivation (or need gratification) to meet them.Referring to need gratification as the most important single principle underlying all development, he adds that the single, holistic principle that binds unneurotic the multiplicity of human motives is the tendency for a modern and higher need to place as the lower need fulfills itself by being sufficiently gratified (1968, p. 55). He e science laboratoryorates on this basic principle by proposing a five-level hierarchy of unavoidably. Physiological demand are at the bottom of the hierarchy, followed in ascending ready by safety, belongingness and love, esteem, and self-actualization unavoidably.This order reflects differences in the relative strength of each need. The lower a need is in the hierarchy, the greater is its strength because when a lower-level need is activated (as in the case of ingrained hunger or fear for ones sensual safety), people will stop arduous to satisfy a higher-level need (such as esteem or self-actualization) and focus on satisfying the currently spry lower-level need (Maslow, 1987). The first four inevitably (physiological, safety, belongingness and love, and esteem) are oft referred to as deficiency ineluctably because they motivate people to act only when they are unmet to some degree.Self-actualization, by contrast, is often called a growth need because people constantly strive to satisfy it. Basically, self-actualization refers to the need for self-fulfillment the need to develop all of ones potential talents and capabilities. For example, an individual who felt she had the cleverness to write novels, teach, practice medicine, and raise children would not feel self-actualized until all of these goals had been put throughed to some minimal degree. Because it is at the top of the hierarchy and addresses the potential of the whole p erson, self-actualization is discussed more much than the other require.Maslow originally felt that self-actualization demand would automatically be activated as soon as esteem require were met, but he changed his mind when he encountered individuals whose behavior did not fit this pattern. He concluded that individuals whose self-actualization needs became activated held in high regard such set as truth, ethicalness, beauty, justice, autonomy, and humor (Feist, 1990). In addition to the five basic needs that make up the hierarchy, Maslow describes cognitive needs (such as the needs to know and to understand) and aesthetic needs (such as the needs for order, symmetry, or harmony).While not part of the basic hierarchy, these two classes of needs goldbrick a critical role in the satisfaction of basic needs. Maslow maintains that such conditions as the freedom to investigate and learn, fairness, honesty, and orderliness in interpersonal relationships are critical because their absence makes satisfaction of the five basic needs im achievable. (Imagine, for example, trying to satisfy your belongingness and love needs or your esteem needs in an atmosphere characterized by dishonesty, unfair punishment, and restrictions on freedom of speech. ) Top The Impact of accommodating learnedness on MotivationClassroom tasks can be organized so that students are forced to compete with one another, work individually, or cooperate with one another to feel the rewards that teachers make available for successfully complete these tasks. Traditionally, combative arrangements have been assumed to be superior to the other two in increasing motivation and learning. But reviews of the look literature by David Johnson and Roger Johnson (Johnson Johnson, 1995 Johnson, Johnson, Smith, 1995) instal accommodating arrangements to be far superior in producing these benefits.In this section we will describe accommodative-, competitive, and individual learning arrangements ( sometimes called goal structures or reward structures), identify the elements that make up the major approaches to joint learning, and examine the effect of cooperative learning on motivation, achievement, and interpersonal relationships. Types of Classroom Reward Structures Competitive goal structures are typically norm referenced. (If you cant recall our discussion of the normal curve in Chapter 5, now might be a good time for a quick review. This traditional practice of grading on the curve predetermines the percentage of A, B, C, D, and F grades regardless of the actual distribution of interrogatory win. Because only a small percentage of students in any conference can achieve the highest rewards and because this hitment must come at some other students expense, competitive goal structures are characterized by negative interdependence. Students try to beat out one another, view classmates failures as an advantage, and come to believe that the winners deserve their rewards because they are inherently better (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1994 Johnson et al. 1995). Some exploreers have argued that competitive reward structures lead students to focus on ability as the primary backside for motivation. This preference is reflected in the question Am I smart enough to accomplish this task? When ability is the nucleotide for motivation, competing successfully in the classroom may be seen as relevant to self-esteem (since zip loves a loser), difficult to accomplish (since only a few can succeed), and obscure (success depends on how everyone else does).These perceptions may cause some students to avoid challenging subjects or tasks, to give up in the face of difficulty, to reward themselves only if they win a competition, and to believe that their own successes are due to ability, whereas the successes of others are due to luck (Ames & Ames, 1984 Dweck, 1986). Individualistic goal structures are characterized by students working alone and earning rewar ds solely on the quality of their own apparent movements. The success or failure of other students is irrelevant.All that matters is whether the student meets the patterns for a particular task (Johnson et al. , 1994 Johnson et al. , 1995). Thirty students working by themselves at computer terminals are functioning in an individual reward structure. According to Carole Ames and Russell Ames (1984), individual structures lead students to focus on task effort as the primary basis for motivation (as in I can do this if I try). Whether a student perceives a task as difficult depends on how successful she has been with that part of task in the past. conjunct goal structures are characterized by students working together to accomplish pctd goals. What is beneficial for the other students in the group is beneficial for the individual and ungodliness versa. Because students in cooperative groups can support a desired reward (such as a high grade or a feeling of satisfaction for a job well done) only if the other students in the group also attain the same reward, cooperative goal structures are characterized by positive interdependence. Also, all groups may receive the same rewards, provided they meet the teachers criteria for mastery.For example, a teacher might present a lesson on represent reading, then give each group its own map and a question-answering exercise. Students then work with each other to ensure that all know how to interpret maps. Each student then takes a quiz on map reading. All teams whose average quiz scores meet a preset standard receive special recognition (Johnson et al. , 1994 Johnson et al. , 1995 Slavin, 1995). Cooperative structures lead students to focus on effort and cooperation as the primary basis of motivation.This orientation is reflected in the statement We can do this if we try hard and work together. In a cooperative atmosphere, students are motivated out of a sense of bar take one ought to try, contribute, and help sati sfy group norms (Ames Ames, 1984). William Glasser, whose ideas we mentioned earlier, is a fan of cooperative learning. He points out that student motivation and performance tend to be highest for such activities as band, drama club, athletics, the school sweetspaper, and the yearbook, all of which require a team effort (Gough, 1987).We would also like to point out that cooperative-learning and reward structures are consistent with the constructivist approach discussed in Chapters 1, 2, and 10 since they encourage inquiry, perspective sharing, and passage of arms resolution. Top Suggestions for program line in Your Classroom Motivating Students to Learn 1. Use behavioral techniques to help students exert themselves and work toward far goals. 2. catch up with sure that students know what they are to do, how to proceed, and how to determine when they have achieved goals. 3. Do everything possible to satisfy deficiency needs physiological, safety, belongingness, and esteem. . e ntertain the instructional program to the physiological needs of your students. b. Make your room physically and psychologically safe. c. Show your students that you take an interest in them and that they belong in your classroom. d. Arrange learning experiences so that all students can gain at least a degree of esteem. 4. Enhance the attractions and minimize the dangers of growth choices. 5. cipher learning experiences toward feelings of success in an effort to encourage an orientation toward achievement, a positive self-concept, and a strong sense of self-efficacy. . Make use of objectives that are challenging but attainable and, when appropriate, that involve student input. b. tin knowledge of results by emphasizing the positive. 6. find out to encourage the development of need achievement, self-confidence, and autonomy in students who need these qualities. a. Use achievement-motivation knowledge techniques. b. Use cooperative-learning methods. 7. Try to make learning inter esting by emphasizing activity, investigation, adventure, kindly interaction, and reusableness. Top Resources for Further InvestigationSurveys of Motivational Theories In a basic survey text, Motivation to Learn From Theory to Practice (2d ed. , 1993), Deborah Stipek discusses reinforcement theory, social cognitive theory, intrinsic motivation, need for achievement theory, attribution theory, and perceptions of ability. In auxiliary 2-A, she presents a rating form and gain ground procedure with which teachers can identify students who may have motivation problems. Appendix 3-A is a self-rating form that teachers can use to dungeon track of how often they provide rewards and punishments.A useful summary of motivation theories and techniques can be found in the Worcester Polytechnic Universitys network site for teacher development, at http//www. wpi. edu/isg_501/motivation. html. Top Motivational Techniques for the Classroom Motivation and training A Practical Guide (1978), by Raymond Wlodkowski, and Eager to Learn (1990), by Raymond Wlodkowski and Judith Jaynes, are a good source of classroom application ideas. Motivating Students to Learn Overcoming Barriers to blue Achievement (1993), edited by Tommy Tomlinson, devotes four chapters to elementary school and four chapters to high school motivation issues.Two sources of information on motivation techniques and suggestions for statement are found at Columbia Universitys Institute for training Technologies, which contains documents, papers, and unusual projects and activities that could be used to growth student motivation and at northwest Universitys Institute for knowledge Sciences Engines for Education on-line program, which allows educators to pursue a number of questions about students, learning environments, and successful teaching through a hyperlinked database.The Institute for Learning Technologies is found at http//www. ilt. columbia. edu/ilt/. The Institute for Learning Sciences is found a t http//www. ils. nwu. edu/. This was excerpted from Chapter 11 of Biehler/Snowman, PSYCHOLOGY employ TO TEACHING, 8/e, Houghton Mifflin, 1997. For more information on Motivation in Gage/Berliner, educational PSYCHOLOGY, 6/e, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1998, see Chapter 8, Motivation and Learning For more information on Motivation in the Grabes INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY FOR important LEARNING, 2/e, Houghton Mifflin Co. , 1998 see page 97 for the role of motivation in utilization and practice, pages 51-55 for the role of motivation in pregnant learning, page 163 for the role of motivativation in writing, and pages 398-99 for learning styles and social and motivational preferences. teaching method Implications of Learning Theories The best college teachers have by and large cobbled together from their own experiences working with students conceptions of human learning that are remarkably standardised to some ideas that have emerged in the research and theoretical literature on cognitio n, motivation, and human development (from Ken Bains book, What the outgo College coners Do). Theories of learning, whether explicit or tacit, informed by study or intuition, well-considered or not, play a role in the choices instructors make concerning their teaching.The major trend in sagacity how students learn has been a movement remote from the behaviorist model to a cognitive view of learning (see Svinicki (below) for an overview of learning theories). Implications for teaching practice of some key ideas from learning theories 1. Learning is a process of active construction. Learning is the interaction between what students know, the new information they encounter, and the activities they engage in as they learn. Students construct their own understanding through experience, interactions with guinea pig and others, and reflection. education ImplicationProvide opportunities for students to connect with your content in a variety of meaty ways by using cooperative learning , interactive lectures, engaging assignments, hands-on lab/field experiences, and other active learning strategies. 2. Students prior knowledge is an important decisive of what they will learn. Students do not come to your class as a leisure slate. They use what they already know about a topic to interpret new information. When students cannot relate new material to what they already know, they tend to memorizelearning for the testrather than developing any palpable understanding of the content.Teaching Implication Learn about your students experiences, preconceptions, or misconceptions by using pre-tests, background knowledge probes, and create verbally or oral activities designed to reveal students thinking about the topic. 3. Organizing information into a conceptual example helps students remember and use knowledge. Students must learn factual information, understand these facts and ideas in the condition of a conceptual framework, and organize knowledge in ways that facili tate recovery and application in order to develop competence in a new topic. Teaching ImplicationSupport students by using concept maps, flowcharts, outlines, comparison tables, etc. , to make the structure of the knowledge clear. 4. Learning is a social phenomenon. Students learn with greater understanding when they share ideas through conversation, debate, and negotiation. Explaining a concept to ones peers puts knowledge to a prevalent test where it can be examined, reshaped, and clarified. Teaching Implication Use Cooperative learning strategies, long-term group projects, class discussions, and group activities to support the social side of learning. . Learning is context-specific. It is often difficult for students to use what they learn in class in new contexts (i. e. , other classes, the workplace, or their personal lives). Teaching Implication Use problem-based learning, simulations or cases, and assistance learning to create learning environments similar to the real world . 6. Students metacognitive skills (thinking about thinking) are important to their learning. Many students utilize few learning strategies and have a limited consciousness of their thinking processes.Teaching Implication Help students plow more metacognitively aware by role model your thinking as you solve a problem, develop an argument, or analyze written work in front of the class. Teach metacognitive strategies, such as setting goals, make predictions, and checking for consistency. Focus attention on metacognition by having students write in a learning journal or develop explanations of their problem-solving processes. Resources on Learning Theories Bransford, J. D. , Brown, A. L. , Cocking, R. R. (Eds. ) (1999).How bulk Learn Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. capital letter DC National Academy Press. Donovan, M. S. , Bransford, J. D. , Pelegrino, J. W. (Eds. ) (1999). How People Learn Bridging Research and Practice. Washington DC National Academy Press. Learning Theo ries Knowledgebase. (2008, May). advocator of Learning Theories and Models at Learning-Theories. com. Svinicki, M. D. (1999). New directions in learning and motivations. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 80 (Winter), 5-27. http//cte. illinois. edu/resources/topics/theories. html