Lesson 13 Thorndike’s Connectionism

     

     Vega and Prieto (2012) stated that Edward Lee Thorndike was one of the first pioneers of active learning, a theory that proposes of letting children do it themselves rather than receiving instructions from the teachers. Thorndike’s early studies with animal behavior led him to declare his law of effect which states that if an act is followed by a satisfying change in the environment, the likelihood that the act will be repeated in similar situations increases.

According to him, learners are baled to learn more easily and effectively and retain learning longer if it has pleasant consequences. Thus, similar to that of the idea of Skinner, rewards and positive reinforcement further learning, while punishment, failure and negative experiences hinder it.

            Aside from this law of effect, the other two laws of learning Thorndike formulated were the laws of readiness and exercise.

            The law of readiness states that when an organism is ready to form connections to do so is satisfying and not to do so is annoying. Thorndike believe that the readiness is an important condition of learning, because satisfaction or frustration depends on individual’s state of readiness. An example of this is when a child forced to read before he/she is ready may acquire skills but may not necessarily develop the desire to read.

            Lastly, still in Vega and Prieto (2012), the law of exercise states that any connection is strengthened in proportion to the number of times it occurs. Edward Thorndike opined that practice alone was not enough for improvement. When students practice, they should be aware of the consequences of what they are doing. Otherwise, practice becomes ineffective or may even be harmful.

 

Teaching Implications

            Singhdiwakar (2013), enumerated the following implication of Thondike’s theory of connectionism:

  1. Start the tasks from the easier aspect towards its difficult side. This approach will benefit the weaker and backward children.
  2. Before starting teaching in the classroom the students should be properly motivated.
  3. Practice helps in reducing the errors committed by the child in learning any concept.
  4. Habits are formed as a result of repetition. With the help of this theory the wrong habits of the children can be modified, and the good habits can be strengthened.
  5. Control the negative emotions of the children such as anger, jealousy etc.
  6. Observe the effects of one's teaching methods on the students and should not hesitate to make necessary changes in them, if required.
  7. Teacher should conduct oral drill of the taught contents. This help in strengthening the learning more.

References

  • Aquino, A. M. (2009). Facilitating human learning (First Edition). Rex Book Store, Inc.
  • Bulusan, F., Raquepo, M. R., Balmeo, M. L., & Gutierrez, J. C. (2019). Facilitating learner-centered teaching (First Edition). Rex Book Store, Inc.
  • CMO No. 75 s. 2017, Policies, Standards and Guidelines for Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSEd), p. 39
  • CMO No. 80 s. 2017, Policies, Standards and Guidelines for Bachelor of Physical Education (BPEd), p. 24
  • Lucas, M. R. D., & Corpuz, B. B. (2013). Facilitating learning: a metacognitive process (3rd Edition). LORIMAR Publishing, Inc.
  • Ornos, P. S., Gonzaga, E. P., Esgra, C. B., Gomez, N. G., Tarinay, A. R., & Verde, S. P. (2008). Facilitators of the learning process. Grandwater Publications.
  • Vega, V. A., & Prieto, N. G. (2012). Facilitating learning (Revised Edition). Books Atbp. Publishing Corp.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lesson 5 Metacognitive Strategies to Facilitate Learning

Image
  According to researchers like Fang and Cox, metacognition awareness was evident even in preschoolers and those students as young as eight years old. Children at young age may already have the capacity to be more aware and reflective of their own learning yet many of them are not taught and encouraged to apply metacognition.             This pose a challenge for teachers to integrate more activities that would build the students’ capacity to reflect on their own characteristics as learners (personal knowledge), the task they are to accomplish (task knowledge) and strategies that they can use to learn (strategic knowledge).   7 Strategies That Improve Metacognition (Excerpt from Metacognition: Nurturing Self-Awareness in the Classroom of Price-Mitchell, 2015) Teach students how their brains are wired for growth. The beliefs that students adopt about learning and their own brains will affect their performance. Research shows that when students develop a growth mindset vs. a fix
Read more

Lesson 7 Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

Image
  I. Learning-Thinking Styles In this lesson we are going to focus on two of the several perspectives about learning-thinking styles. Those are the sensory preference and the global-analytic continuum.   A. Sensory Preferences (Learning Styles) This refers on the students’ preferred way of taking information or stimulus from the environment using senses. It is generally broken down into three types. Visual Learning Style Individuals who learn best when ideas or subjects are presented in a visual format, whether that is written language, pictures, diagrams or videos are visual learners. Visual learners usually learn best when the teacher provides written study notes, writes on the chalkboard and uses an overhead projector to explain concepts. Visual learners frequently take detailed notes in class, when studying from a textbook or listening to lectures. They also create diagrams and use pictures to understand and remember concepts and ideas. If this sounds like you then you ar
Read more

Lesson 8 Cognitive Development Theory

Image
         As mentioned by Vega and Prieto (2012), Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive development was one of the learning theories with the most impact in the field of teaching. Piaget is a Swiss psychologist who presented his theory through cognitive stages. According to him, that in fixed order, children go through the four cognitive stages namely sensori-motor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. How Learning Occurs             As cited in Bulusan, et al. (2019), in order to explain how cognitive development happens Piaget introduced the concepts of schema, assimilation and accommodation.      Schema – describes both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing. Schemata are cognitive that help one interpret and understand the world.      Assimilation – process of taking new information into existing schema. It occurs when we modify or change new information to fit into our schemas (what we already know). It keeps the new
Read more