STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES

UNDERSTANDING A SPECIFIC TOPIC OR SUBJECT

A Research Report

Presented to

the College of Teacher Education – Laboratory School

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY ARASOF – NASUGBU

Nasugbu, Batangas

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements in Purposive Communication

by

2021
I. Introduction

One of the most significant factors in increasing students' achievement is effective

teaching. As a result, educators are searching for new ways to improve learning
efficiency. However, subjects such as physics, chemistry and calculus may be
considered to be an easy subject for other people, nonetheless majority would say it’s
one of the hardest. Since educators has already a predetermine curriculum that is
expected for all students to follow, there’s one aspect that most educators overlooked
and that is the different types of learners. One of the important resources for teachers
to use in their classes are textbooks. Several researchers discovered that when
preparing lessons, teachers rely heavily on textbooks for knowledge. Furthermore,
textbooks are a valuable resource for improving students' awareness since educators
include a variety of representations that affect students' learning.
According to Lodge, J.M., Kennedy G., and Lockyer, L. et al. Difficulties are an
inevitable yet essential part of the learning process. This seems to be particularly
valid for studying complex conceptual concepts. Challenges in the learning process,
on the other hand, especially difficulty to identify and react to in educational settings
where increasing class sizes and the increased use of digital technology mean that
teachers are unable to provide nuanced and personalized guidance and encouragement
to help students overcome their difficulties. Still in under the study of Lodge, J.M.,
Kennedy G., and Lockyer, L. et al. Individual differences, learning experience
nuances, and the complexity of providing individual input in broad classes and digital
environments all contribute to the challenge of student response in difficulties and
uncertainty.
The researchers would like to investigate the factors that might be behind the
reasons why students are having difficulties understanding a subject and also create a
creative lecture format to be implemented for students who have difficulty
understanding a certain topic.
 II. Body
The following evidence and results will help to extend the analysis and learn more
about why students are having difficulty understanding a topic, as well as come up
with ways to help students understand it better, which will be summarized in the
conclusion.
A. Major support #1:

A philosopher Edmund Burke once said, learning without reflection is like eating without
digestion. In any case, you may feed a person as much as you want, but they will not leave
nourished; they might as well not have eaten at all. Critical faculties become engaged with
thought, the learner's comprehension of the learning process deepens, and information becomes
concrete knowledge that is linked to another knowledge, the learner's existence, and the wider
world. It’s believed that reflection is critical to the educational process at Georgetown, where
“contemplation in action” is one of our core values. The principle of reflection has recently
become popular in a number of teacher education programs to assist pre- and in-service teachers
in clarifying their ideas about their own teaching practices, as well as considering and reviewing
those ideas in the hopes of developing the capacity to assess and refine their teaching practices.
Day (2001) usefully indicates that ‘reflection involves the participant in a critique for
practice, the values which are implicit in that practice, the personal, social, institutional and
broad policy contexts in which practice take place, and the implications of these for
improvement of that practice’. He emphasises that reflection is necessary for all teachers to
maintain their effectiveness by writing. Reflection is also an important way to meaningfully
integrate learners' social identities (e.g., class, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation) into the
learning process. Reflection brings lived experience to the surface and attempts to reconcile
apparent inconsistencies between different lived experiences and more abstract theories. To put it
another way, reflection serves as a springboard for critical inquiry that values a variety of sources
of information, including emotional intelligence and lived experience.

Writers and psychologists Peter Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel
remind us in their book Make it Stick that "reflection can require many activities...that lead to
stronger learning." These include retrieval (calling to mind recently acquired information),
elaboration (connecting new knowledge to what you already know), and generation (rephrasing
main ideas in your own words or visualizing and mentally rehearsing what you would do
differently next time).” In other words, intensive processing is involved in reflection, which
increases the likelihood that students will be able to absorb, recall, and master what they are
learning. The only way we can learn from experience—including class experience—is to reflect
on it. That is why, in this century, higher education is gradually shifting away from providing
skills for finding, interpreting, integrating, and applying information across disciplines, space,
and time, toward an education that provides skills for finding, interpreting, integrating, and
applying information across disciplines, space, and time; this is how information becomes
knowledge.
 B. Major Support #2:

According to Gunn and McCallum (2005), games are another way for students to study,
review, and internalize different grammar structures. According to the findings of this report,
games are a significant and essential part of English language teaching and learning in the sense
of primary school lessons because they provide EFL teachers with numerous instructional
benefits. Since young learners enjoy being physically involved, they are innovative and
inventive, and they learn subconsciously, games are one of the best ways to channel their
creativity into language learning. As a result, teaching young learners necessitates extra effort
and challenge on the part of the instructor, and games are one of the most effective ways to do
so.

According to Agwagah (2001), a game is considered mathematical when the players can
perceive/influence the game's outcome based on mathematical considerations. Games are used in
a variety of ways in the classroom, such as ice breakers, to incorporate new concepts, to
consolidate ideas, to remove drudgery from drill, and to create a constructive and enthusiastic
environment. It helps students overcome their apprehensions about a mathematical definition.
From the above description of games, it is clear that they require competition. In general,
mathematicians use games to consolidate previously learned concepts, either regularly or
infrequently. if games were readily accessible and teachers were introduced to game theory and
construction, they would enthusiastically embrace them as an effective and essential teaching
tool. It will encourage students, scholars, and parents to engage in the innovative process of
creating Math games. Since mathematics is such a feared topic, basic facts must be learned
before moving on to basic applications, and each level of application should expand on the
previous level. The facts and calculations become boring and time-consuming, causing students
to avoid the topic as much as possible. Using games to teach mathematics benefits students in a
variety of ways. It aids in making mathematics more fun and less difficult for students. Students
will gain the understanding they may have missed during boring lectures and homework by
watching other students and listening during games.

C. Majority Support #3

Lower-order, recall-type questions are commonly used by teachers in classrooms and

experiential learning settings, and their overuse stymies attempts to encourage broader, higher-
order, critical thinking in students. Understanding the taxonomy of questions and best practice
techniques will help pharmacy educators develop a broader range of questions that enable
learners to examine, assess, and create in addition to recalling essential factual, conceptual, and
procedural information. Students may gain deeper perspectives by paying more attention to
metacognition and the learner's personal answers through successful questions. Teachers should
have more opportunities for students to participate in the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy,
where critical thinking occurs, in order to provide the most value to students. Although most
teachers agree that critical thinking is critical for their students' success (Albrecht & Sack, 2000),
few have a clear understanding of what it is, how it should be taught, or how it should be
measured (Paul, Elder, & Batell, 1997). The following model (Figure 1) is a 5-step structure that
can be used to help students develop critical thinking skills in any classroom or training
environment.

D. Major point #4:

Bonwell and Eison (1991) described active learning as involving the students in activities
that cause them to think about what they are doing. Fink (2003) indicated that the concept of
active learning supports research which shows that students learn more and retain knowledge
longer if students acquire it in an active rather than passive manner. To make learning more
active, educators need to learn how to enhance the overall learning experience by adding some
kind of experiential learning and opportunities for reflective dialog. Comprehension necessitates
a response that demonstrates knowledge of the material. Students can be asked to outline,
explain, paraphrase, compare, and contrast in this level of questioning. Application necessitates a
response that demonstrates the ability to apply knowledge, principles, and hypotheses to novel
situations. Students can be asked to submit, create, solve, discover, and demonstrate in this stage
of questioning. A response that demonstrates the ability to see patterns and divide facts,
concepts, and theories into component parts is required for analysis.

The act of asking questions is an essential part of the teaching and learning process. It
enables the teacher to determine what is already understood before moving on to explore new
ideas and understandings. Questions may be used to encourage dialogue between the instructor
and the student, as well as to challenge the student to defend his or her position (i.e., to think
critically). Students' reasoning abilities can be cultivated by the use of questioning strategies.
There are a variety of ways to categorize questions. Using the general categories of convergent
and divergent questions is an easy procedure. Divergent questions seek a wide range of correct
answers, while convergent questions seek one or two very basic correct answers. Teachers must
consider the intent of each question while planning, and then create the required level and form
of question to achieve the goal. After being familiar with a definition, all students need practice
with higher level questioning. In order to provide that experience, the teacher's thoughtful
planning is necessary. Teachers should aspire to improve their courses on a regular basis to
ensure that their teaching methods are actually assisting students in developing critical thinking
skills. To do so, teachers should keep a close eye on what is going on in the classroom. A
teaching diary that identifies the students who participated, outlines the key class events, and
offers an evaluation of their progress can be held to monitor student participation. This journal
can also be used to document other reflective remarks, which can be very helpful when revising
or reviewing instructional activities.
References:

Lodge, J. M., Kennedy, G., Lockyer, L., Arguel, A., & Pachman, M. (2018, June 12).
Understanding Difficulties and Resulting Confusion in Learning: An Integrative Review.
Frontiers. Retrieve from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2018.00049/full.

The Teaching Commons. The Teaching Commons | Reflection in the Classroom. (n.d.).

Retrieved from: https://commons.georgetown.edu/teaching/teach/reflection-in-classroom/.

Yolageldili, G. A. (2010, November 30). Effectiveness of Using Games in Teaching Grammar to

Young Learners. Online Submission. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED527862.

Tofade, T., Elsner, J., & Haines, S. T. (2013, September 12). Best practice strategies for
effective use of questions as a teaching tool. American journal of pharmaceutical
education. Retrieved From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3776909/.

International Journal of Innovative Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. (n.d.). 2006,
Volume 17, Number 2, P.160-166. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijitlhe.

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