Category: John Dewey

INTRODUCTION

In this assignment it focus onto make the learners understand the concept of individual differences. Moreover how to apply the content learn in classroom settings. Through this the learners will get a guideline on how to understand and deal with different types of classroom environments which would help in meeting diverse learning requirement of the students. Also in the movie “ To Sir With Love” it shows very clearly how can theories of psychologist is being so useful in handling such worse cases. In ahead of this assignment the effectiveness of strategies applied by the teacher which would affect the individual difference of students will be focused. After referring to the movie will also be sharing own experience in such classrooms. In whole it will be going to be report about different individual attitude and sstyle of students and how a teacher can use psychological theories in dealing with each case. Moreover the positive outcome of applying methods in improving the behavioral issues of students. Most importantly it will convey how even a single teacher can influence in an individual students life in a positive manner.

APPLICATION

After going through the situations shown in the movie “To Sir With Love” the two theories that has been applied by the teacher seems to be of John Dewey and Erik Erikson’s theory. As shown it the learning has been established by the teacher as per the student’s interest. Moreover the learning environment and the way teacher dealt with the students unbearable behavior was very smooth.

John Dewey

John Dewey, born on October 20, 1859 and at the age of 92 on June 2, 1952 was the most influential thinker on education in the twentieth century. He even established a laboratory school at the university of Chicago in 1903. In his school, all the educational theories by him was practiced.

During Dewey’s time learning was mostly teacher centered and the absolute control of teaching and learning will be under the teachers hands. Hence the learning was like the lecture type and it was expected from students side to memorize the information either through orally or written form.

However Dewey believed that the curriculum should be based on interest of the students and also the students should be having active experiences while learning. Moreover Dewey supports in curriculum which is integrated rather than divided into subject matter cause it makes the schooling unnecessarily long and learning becomes a big challenge for the learners.

For example : In the movie the teacher applied the Dewey’s theory by making the learning environment change for the students and carried the lesson as per their interest and somehow the technique applied by the teacher under Dewey’s’ theories assistance help a lot in making a difference in students towards learning and the way they tend to behave in the classroom. It clearly shows the action taken by teacher had a huge impact on the students. Hence the Dewey’s theory was helpful for the teacher in making the students who were not even paying attention to what he is teaching in the classroom to change that attitude. Indeed, it took some time to grab their attention however in the end it was a fruitful work done by that teacher.

Erik Erikson

Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is one of the well-known theories of personality in psychology. As per Erikson’s belief the development of personality is in series. In Erikson’s theory it describes the impact of experiences of social environment across the entire lifespan.

The main element of Erikson’s psychosocial stage theory is the development of Ego Identity. It is a sense that is develop through the social interaction that an individual faces. However, it will be constantly changing due to new experiences and information’s that will be acquired within a daily interaction as per Erikson. Moreover there will be challenges that will either be helpful or a hinder in the development of identity of an individual.

Normally it is said that identity is something that begins to form in childhood itself and becomes important during adolescence, however Erikson believed that this process will continue throughout ones’ life.

As per Erikson, in each of the stage people tend to experience a conflict that serves as turning point in development. Hence he believed either these conflicts will develop a psychological quality or will fail to develop that quality.

Stages of development

• Infant – Hope birth to 18 months
• Toddler – Will 18 months to 3 years
• Preschooler – Purpose 3 to 5 years
• School Age – Competence 6 – 12 years
• Adolescent – Fidelity 12 to 18 years
• Young adult – Love 18 to 35years
• Middle age adult – care 35 to 55 years
• Late adult – Wisdom 55 or 65 – death

(Information taken from notes.)

For example: In the movies the teacher first deal with them with the same behavior that they carry with them. Later, slowly the teacher started to create a bond with the students by making them feel cared. At the same time taught them to accept their mistake no matter what the situation was and how difficult it was to dealt with it. When the teacher explained why he is aksing the student to go and apologize to the athlete teacher at first the students argued but once the teacher explained the student slowly kept his ego aside and accept his fault and agreed to apologize. And that’s what Erikson was conveying through his theory.

Effectiveness of the approaches

There is no doubt that the approaches and strategies applied by the teacher was very successful. In order to gain something its also important to work that much hard to achieve that certain goal. There is no denying that the teacher had to go through lots of downs while bringing the students into a right path. Individually checking the ways on how to improve the certain students behavior and education and making a plan for every student is not that easy job. However with the patience and courage the teacher was able to make students much more responsible and well-disciplined ones. And that will be something which the students can carry throughout life as he said in the movie.

While teaching in own class, there was 3 boys who used to create disturbance in the class and will always deny to learn. Many strategies was applied on them nothing did work. One day saw the movie ‘ To Sir With love” it showed an idea on how to deal with such students. Firstly assigned them with few rules which they cant break and after that assign them to write what are the ways they are interested in learning once they are done checking their opinions. Once knowing the areas that they are interested focusing on them and try to teach them through their interested. After few days it was very easy to handle those students. It is a very interesting experience and lots of things were able to learn through this theories.

Methodology applied to cater individual students

Every student will be unique in their own way. It is a teacher’s reasonability to identify the skills and qualities in their students and to use different type of method to cater every single student’s requirements. For example the teacher can use different levels of instruction giving to each level of students. So that students also will not feel left ousted and will improve their involvement in the classroom.

Example: A boy was there in grade 5. He used to always deny to work by saying its difficult and he can’t to such works. In that situation as a teacher it is very important to be positive towards that student. Through positive talks and motivational words the teacher was able to make the student to agree on to do work. Moreover the teacher kept in mind that the student Is facing difficulty in doing the work given to others hence the teacher changes the question pattern for that student by making it even more interesting and worthwhile.

Also the teacher can use the digital resources. As it is one of the most effective and attractive learning technique for each kind of student. Hardly there will be a students who do not like learning through digital resources. It allows different materials, platforms and tools in achieving the learning outcomes, moreover the students tend to increase their confidence in their digital skills.

Most importantly the verbal support given by the teacher would be very influential for the student as it will help the teacher to identify different learning abilities of students hence can support them in their different academic levels. It mostly depends on the communication between the teacher and student, if it turn out to be successful it will be very beneficial for the students in their learning as they would be able to use both simple and complex dialogue according to their learning needs.

CONCLUSION

The main topic of this assignment was based on the teaching and learning theories used by the teachers. Also about how every individual learner will be having different requirements and the techniques and strategies that teacher can use in accordance to the requirement of the student. Also the different attitude, different levels of motivation were being discussed. In whole if to say then this topic is all about learning the behavior of students and how to cater them in accordance to their requirements.

References

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY Differentiation in the classroom . (2017). 7 methods of differentiation, 0 -1.
2. Eman, A. (2019). Father of educational psychology. John Dewey, 1 – 11.

Reflective practice is undoubtedly one of the most important steps towards a successful teaching career. Being reflective means being open-minded, wholehearted, and responsible.

In this essay I will present two theorists, Dewey and Mezirow, and their perspectives on reflection, as well as my own thoughts, agreements, and differences.

Reflective though started to form back in the 20th century, when philosopher and educator John Dewey published his book ‘How we think’ in 1933. Dewey claimed that we cannot tell someone how to think, but we can certainly tell someone in which way to think. Although confusing at first, he then goes on to explain the ‘better way of thinking’ and defines this as ‘reflective thinking’. In his mind, reflection or reflective thinking is a cycle of thoughts and not just a series of ideas. He describes reflection as a successive order in which each though or idea leads to another, and then another idea is built based on the previous one and so on, until it leads to an outcome. Most importantly, he considers that reflection should be democratic, happening in communities and in interaction with others. But as a trainee teacher, what I want to touch up on is, his views of routine action vs reflective action. In the routine action, Dewey refers to the unreflective teacher as an individual that does not see another way of solving a problem. Influenced by things such as: procedures, environment, authority and rules, the mind of an individual can be stagnant and indifferent to changing situations. On the other hand, his view of reflective actions, sees an individual that is willing to review and develop his way of thinking or acting. My own interpretation of Dewey’s reflective theory is that a teacher who is willing to accept the school routines and rules even if they do not work, is an unreflective teacher. Whilst a teacher who is willing to solve a problem that persists, in different ways than the obvious, is a reflective individual. Anyone could be a reflective thinker if they feel the need to solve an issue. However, this involves the active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it.

In my opinion, Dewey’s strength is that he acknowledged how reflection leads to learning but only if the learning happens through experience. What I am trying to highlight is that, is not enough to reflect on something if we do not act upon it, see if it works, revise it and then reflect again to create that cycle of learning though experience. However, I think his view of experience can be misleading as he does not talk about how experience can be different for everyone. Hence why, I want to shift my attention on Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. He built on Dewey’s research by stating that learning itself is not necessary a direct result of the experience. To learn through experience, we need to critically reflect on a situation, establish a strategy and carry out the steps needed to learn from this. Mezirow called this the learning process, and in this learning process we do not need to reflect how to solve issues but rather why, and If I were to give a concrete example of this, I could potentially refer to one of the most common things that happen in a classroom: low level disruption. The teacher should always think why s(he) needs to solve this issue and not how.

Compared to Dewey, Mezirow believed that learning should be a process rather than an experience itself, and this is where we encounter the disorienting dilemma, which is also his number one phase in the perspective transformation phases. The disorienting dilemma could potentially be a step forward from Dewey’s routine action, as Mezirow suggests that people experience this when new experiences contradict old experiences.

Reflective practice is undoubtedly one of the most important steps towards a successful teaching career. Being reflective means being open-minded, wholehearted, and responsible.

In this essay I will present two theorists, Dewey and Mezirow, and their perspectives on reflection, as well as my own thoughts, agreements, and differences.

Reflective though started to form back in the 20th century, when philosopher and educator John Dewey published his book ‘How we think’ in 1933. Dewey claimed that we cannot tell someone how to think, but we can certainly tell someone in which way to think. Although confusing at first, he then goes on to explain the ‘better way of thinking’ and defines this as ‘reflective thinking’. In his mind, reflection or reflective thinking is a cycle of thoughts and not just a series of ideas. He describes reflection as a successive order in which each though or idea leads to another, and then another idea is built based on the previous one and so on, until it leads to an outcome. Most importantly, he considers that reflection should be democratic, happening in communities and in interaction with others. But as a trainee teacher, what I want to touch up on is, his views of routine action vs reflective action. In the routine action, Dewey refers to the unreflective teacher as an individual that does not see another way of solving a problem. Influenced by things such as: procedures, environment, authority and rules, the mind of an individual can be stagnant and indifferent to changing situations. On the other hand, his view of reflective actions, sees an individual that is willing to review and develop his way of thinking or acting. My own interpretation of Dewey’s reflective theory is that a teacher who is willing to accept the school routines and rules even if they do not work, is an unreflective teacher. Whilst a teacher who is willing to solve a problem that persists, in different ways than the obvious, is a reflective individual. Anyone could be a reflective thinker if they feel the need to solve an issue. However, this involves the active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it.

In my opinion, Dewey’s strength is that he acknowledged how reflection leads to learning but only if the learning happens through experience. What I am trying to highlight is that, is not enough to reflect on something if we do not act upon it, see if it works, revise it and then reflect again to create that cycle of learning though experience. However, I think his view of experience can be misleading as he does not talk about how experience can be different for everyone. Hence why, I want to shift my attention on Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. He built on Dewey’s research by stating that learning itself is not necessary a direct result of the experience. To learn through experience, we need to critically reflect on a situation, establish a strategy and carry out the steps needed to learn from this. Mezirow called this the learning process, and in this learning process we do not need to reflect how to solve issues but rather why, and If I were to give a concrete example of this, I could potentially refer to one of the most common things that happen in a classroom: low level disruption. The teacher should always think why s(he) needs to solve this issue and not how.

Compared to Dewey, Mezirow believed that learning should be a process rather than an experience itself, and this is where we encounter the disorienting dilemma, which is also his number one phase in the perspective transformation phases. The disorienting dilemma could potentially be a step forward from Dewey’s routine action, as Mezirow suggests that people experience this when new experiences contradict old experiences.