PROFESSIONAL TEACHING PRACTICE III

UNIT 1 : HOW DO WE LEARN?

VIRTUAL CLASS #11

Hello, my dear students! Today we are going to start understanding how do people
learn.

The first activity you are going to do is to watch an interesting video called: “How
We Learn”. Then, you are going to answer some questions about that. Before
watching the video, read all the questions.

Activity #1:

 Watch the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlaG99awCD8

 Answer the following questions:

1. How can we help students’ knowledge to reach LTM?

2. How do negative emotions influence learning and what can we do about
it?
3. What should we, as teachers, bare in mind when presenting new
information?
4. What is the cognitive conflict and why is it important?
5. Mention and explain the components of intrinsic motivation.
6. Which are the two other key elements to solve a cognitive conflict and
reach LTM?
 Upload your answers to our Google Classroom.

Let’s move on discussing the central role of COGNITIVE CONFLICT in teaching. This
term will appear over and over again throughout the year and I want you to have it
very clear in your mind.
If you look up on the internet you will find the following definition:

“A perceptual state in which one notices the discrepancy between an anomalous

situation and a preconception.”

I know you are thinking…ok then, but what is the relationship between that and
teaching?

Well, let me explain…for learning to occur we need disequilibrium or cognitive

conflict (both terms refer to the same thing). On the internet definition they use
the term “discrepancy”.

We need to ask our students something that triggers their knowledge, that makes
them think. A very simple example I always tell my students is the following:

You are teaching a 5 years old kid the colours. As you probably know, when they
are 4 years old they are taught primary colours. So, before teaching other colours
you ask them…what colours can we find in a rainbow? They will start telling you the
colours in Spanish, so you tell them…in English…do you know all the colours of a
rainbow? And there you have it!! That’s a cognitive conflict!! They will realize they
don’t know those colours in English and their brains will be ready to start a new
learning process. Do you understand?

Activity #2:

Can you think of another example of Cognitive Conflict when teaching members of
the family/ present continuous/ past simple to teens??? Choose one topic and give
me one example.

Activty #3:

We will start working with our booklet, you are going to read about Short and Long
Term Memory. I would like you to summarize in a top ten list the ten (they can be
more than ten or less than ten) aspects that were new to you regarding this topic
of Memory.
Hope this class has been simple and clear to you, we will keep on expanding these
concepts in our future lessons. Don’t forget to upload your answers as each class
will have a mark.

“SEE” YOU NEXT WEEK!