📘 PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING 2
💡 Learning Handout
Lesson 5: Skills and the Teaching-Learning Process in the 21st Century
LESSON 5: SKILLS AND THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
The demands of the 21st century are solving problems flexibly, thinking critically and creatively,
using knowledge and skills in new situations, collaboration and communication skills and
technology literacy. The principles of teaching for the 21st century identified by Suzanne
Donovan and John Bransford (2005) should guide teaching in the 21st century.
Teachers must address and build upon prior knowledge to promote student learning. Students
come to the classroom with prior understandings and experiences. In order to develop
understanding and effectively retrieve and apply knowledge in real-world contexts, students
must have factual and conceptual knowledge. Students learn more effectively when they are
aware of how they learn and know how to monitor and reflect on their own learning.
A. Creating the Environment for Learning
One of the most important influences on student achievement is the relationship between the
teacher and students (Hattie, 2009). Goodwin (2011) describes teachers who create a
conducive environment for learning as warm and empathetic and establish a sense of
community within the classroom where they respect students and students respect them and
one another. Essential in creating a favorable leaning atmosphere is a growth mind-set where
teachers' words and actions make it clear that student achievement depends on hard work
and effort and is not cast in stone by past performance (Dean, et al, 2012). This motivates
students to work harder. As students work harder, their feeling of self-efficacy increases.
The first three instructional strategies when applied will lead to a positive learning environment.
They are: 1) setting objectives and providing feedback, 2) reinforcing effort and providing
recognition and 3) cooperative learning.
STRATEGY 1.1. Setting objectives. There are four recommendations for setting objectives in the
classroom:
• Set learning objectives that are specific but not restrictive.
• Communicate the learning objectives to students and parents.
• Connect the learning objectives to previous and future learning.
• Engage students in setting personal learning objectives. Make them own the learning
objectives. This makes them self-directed learners
(Dean, et al, 2012).
STRATEGY 1.2. Providing feedback. How should feedback be provided? Here are
recommendations from Ceri B. Dean, et al. (2012):
• Provide feedback to make students understand what was correct and what was incorrect
and to make clear what students need to do next.
• Provide feedback in time to meet students' needs.
• Feedback should be criterion-referenced. Feedback should make students see their
performance in relation to the expected outcome or the learning target and not in relation to
the classmates' performance.
• Engage students in the feedback process (Dean, et al, 2012). This way, they are made to
reflect on their own performance and exchange feedback with peers. This can help them
become lifelong learners.
STRATEGY 2.1. Reinforcing Effort. What can reinforce student effort? Teach student that success
is within their control because it comes as a result of their effort not because of other people
or of luck. Numerous stories about people overcoming odds and becoming successful through
their determination and effort are found in TV broadcasts, internet, newspapers and
magazines. As guest speaker in graduation ceremonies, I always say: "I know of only one
formula for success: hard work, hard work, hard work!"
Providing Recognition. What can be done to provide recognition? Here are two
recommendations from Dean, et al (2012):
• Promote a mastery-goal orientation. Teachers should recognize effort in relation to
learning outcomes not to other students' performance. In
other words, the emphasis is on criterion-referenced and not on norm-referenced assessment.
• Provide praise that is specific and aligned with expected performance and behaviors.
Great and very good are quite general compared to "Congratulations, you struggled
with using a microscope properly, but you asked questions when you didn't understand,
and now your efforts are paying off." Teachers must be generous with genuine praise.
STRATEGY 3. Cooperative learning. Teachers are strongly encouraged to use cooperative
learning to lay the foundation for students' success in a world that depends on collaboration
and cooperation. In the layers of a complex world, the students of today need to possess not
only intellectual capabilities but also the ability to function effectively in an environment that
requires working with others to accomplish a variety of tasks, claims Thomas Friedman (2006),
the author of the The World Is Flat. Learning atmosphere is more favorable when students work
together rather than compete and work against one another. For an effective cooperative
learning, keep group size reasonably small.
B. Helping Students Develop Understanding
It is not enough that a positive learning atmosphere is created. Students must be helped to
develop understanding.
STRATEGY 4. Cues, questions and advance organizers.
Use explicit clues. This can be done by: 1) giving a preview of what is to be learned perhaps
with the use of pictures; 2) by explaining the learning outcomes of the lesson/unit, and 3)
providing a list of guide questions that they should be able to answer at the end of the
lesson/unit. Ask inferential questions not fact questions. Inferential questions are questions that
can be answered through analysis and interpretation of the text. They can be answered by
reading between the lines.
STRATEGY 5. NON-LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATIONS
STRATEGY 6. Summarizing and note taking
The following processes can help students do the summarizing: (1) use summary frames and
(2) engage students in reciprocal teaching. One way of summarizing is by the use of summary
frames. A summary frame is a series of questions or statements that need to be completed. It
is designed to highlight the critical elements of a specific text pattern. Students' responses to
these questions constitute a summary of the key information. Note taking is another strategy
that can help students understand and remember new information. Note taking may be done
by writing words or by drawing.
STRATEGY 7. Assigning homework and providing practice
Two other ways to help students develop understanding of their lessons is by providing them
opportunities to develop mastery of their lessons through homework and practice.
In the last few years, there have been mixed research reviews on the effectiveness of
homework (Marzano & Pickering, 2007) but teachers continue to give homework anyway. To
ensure that homework works: 1) design homework that provides students with opportunities to
practice skills and processes in order to increase their speed, accuracy, fluency and
conceptual understanding or to extend their learning on a topic already learned or to learn
new content; 2) provide feedback on homework; 3) align homework to the learning outcome
or objective. In other words, homework should be meaningful. It should never be used as a
form of punishment.
For practice to produce desired results, design practice sessions that are short, focused and
distributed over time. Frequent, short practice sessions in the early phase of the learning
process result in the greatest amount of learning, which gradually decreases as students refine
their knowledge and skills (Dean, et al, 2012).
C. Helping Students Develop Understanding
Effective learning is proven in students' ability to apply and extend knowledge.
STRATEGY 8. Identifying similarities and differences
Dean, et al (2012) give four strategies in identifying similarities and differences, namely: 1)
comparing. 2) classifying. 3) creating metaphors and 4) creating analogies.
Comparing is showing similarities and differences,
e.g., Compare Problem-Based Leaming (PBL) and Project-Based Learning (PrBL). Before
students can cite their similarities and differences, they have to have a thorough
understanding of PBL and PrBL. Thus comparing the two is higher in level that explaining PBL
and PrBL.
Classifying is the process of organizing groups and labeling them
according to their similarities. e.g., Classify the theories of learning. The theories of learning can
be classified as behaviorist, cognitivist and constructivist theories. But before students can
classify them as either behaviorist, cognitivist or constructivist, the students must have a
thorough understanding of each of them.
Creating analogies is the process of identifying relationships between pairs of concepts or
between relationships. e.g., Piaget: cognitive theory:: Kohlberg: moral development theory
hot: cold:: day: night
sword: warrior:: pen: writer
doctor: diagnoses illness: detective: investigates crimes
atom: electrons:: sun: planets
STRATEGY 9. Generating and testing hypotheses
When students generate and test hypotheses they actually apply principles learned. They
deepen their understanding of the principles upon which they base their hypotheses.
Generating and testing hypotheses are applicable not only in the Science class. When
students make predictions based on evidence or ask. "I I do this, what might happen?", they
are engaged in the process of generating and testing hypotheses. An example in a Grade 3
Science class: Will it rain or not rain today? What evidence supports your answer? In the TIE
Home Economies class, you ask: What might happen to the pancake if l added a half cup of
water more to the dough? The students will be asked to explain their hypotheses and proceed
with the cooking of the pancake with a half cup of water added to the usual formula to
determine which hypothesis is correct?
In the Art class, you ask: "What results if you mix the colors green and yellow?" Each one will
give and explain a hypothesis, then the class proceeds with the process of mixing green and
yellow to find out which hypothesis is correct. Generating and testing hypotheses can also be
applied in problem solving. A problem is anything that needs an answer or explanation. Here
is a simple problem: Does the eating pattern of the children in class include natural juice? The
pupils will give a hypothesis based on their observations, then gather information to determine
if their hypothesis is correct or wrong.
