Reflection Paper

The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles was introduced by the American Psychological

Association (APA) in 1990. Originally, there were only 12 principles published but after seven years, it
became 14. Moreover, this is categorized into four factors--cognitive and metacognitive (6),
motivational and affective (3), developmental and social (2), and individual differences (3). The 14
principles will guide each teachers to be effective in relating and attending the needs their students.

Nature of the learning process. Indeed, learning is a long process and teachers are bound to
educate us, students, not just through the lessons from books, but also the lessons of life. In this
principle, I am going to emphasize intentional process from its description. A teacher entering the
classroom clearly indicates that his or her intention is to provide knowledge to the students about a
particular lesson. With that, the students are expected to ace their assessment since they have
received the intention of their teacher.

Goals of the learning process. Each of us has goals in life and learning is the first step to reach
the real deal. Fortunately, we students, are being guided by our teachers to reach our short-term and
long-term goals. For example, A’s goal is to become a writer so A tried to do everything, even if it
seemed impossible to make it happen. Then, B, who is A’s teacher, found out about A’s passion in
writing and started helping A to achieve its goal. This example proved that support and guidance from
teachers make, us, students to be more goal-oriented.

Construction of knowledge. One of the things my parents have taught me back then was to
always listen to my teachers, especially during discussions. Now that I am finally in college, I realized
that they were right. Previous lessons are always and will always find a way to haunt us. We must
always remember most of the important details of our teacher’s lessons for we might use them even if
our student days are over.

Strategic thinking. Honestly speaking, this is my favorite principle. Successful learners are
mostly using this. Try to imagine a scene where F failed to bring the most important thing to make his
group’s experiment successful. G, being a strategic thinker, thought of an alternative for the missing
thing, resulting their group to get an A+. I guess, the strategies are just around the corner and it is one
of the keys to excel in school.

Thinking about thinking. On my previous school, monthly assessments triggered me in some

ways. I thought of failing or passing. What if I fail? My parents would be so disappointed! On the other
hand, if I pass, then I would think of ways to do better. Monitoring my learning performance is
necessary to figure out which subject do I lack of. Metacognition helps in the improvement of students’
performance at school.

Context of learning. Environmental factors truly affect the system of learning. Now, technology
contributes to the learning of us, students, and our teachers are coping up, especially in the new way
of teaching in the midst of pandemic. Also, our teachers and us, students, have different culture,
beliefs, and practices, so each of us must be aware and sensitive with those matters.
 Motivational and emotional influences on learning. When teachers motivate their students,
emotional rapport can be felt everywhere inside the classroom. Last school year, my teachers were
very supportive in some things that we did that is why discussions would always go smoothly since we
connect and relate to our teachers.

Intrinsic motivation to learn. Frankly speaking, I am only intrinsically occupied with a subject
that catches my interest and curiosity. But, when my chemistry teacher patiently taught us things
about this subject, majority of the class became intrinsically motivated to answer his questions
correctly. The bonus part here was the fact that we learned while having fun.

Efforts on motivational effort. Effort begets effort. Most of my former teachers’ way to my heart
was the fact that they were motivating me to be do well in school even though there were struggling
days sometimes. Words of encouragement is like an energizer that push students to aim for more
and do more things that would benefit them.

Developmental influences on learning. Aside from cognitive aspect, developing holistic

learning must be done by the learners. By doing so, we would find the purpose and the meaning of life
by the connections that we have built around the community.

Social influences on learning. Communication will always be the key to learn. Since our
teachers communicate to us inside and outside the classroom, we must do the same to learn. An
example for this is our teachers is the part where our teachers ask us for follow-up questions after the
discussion and our response would always be “none”. in fact, few people do really have questions but
they are shy to ask around.

Individual differences in learning. Everyone is not the same as me. We have different views
and techniques when it comes to learning. If majority of the class easily absorbed the lessons in one
discussion, few are wondering how the answer changed to something else. Differences in learning
has also something to do with the type of environment and people that I usually hang around with.
Those people’s influence to us will reflect our actions in school.

Learning and diversity. Learning is for everyone despite of the differences of our culture,
beliefs, and practices of each students and teachers. Inside the classroom, respecting everyone is
one of the golden rules. I believe that being respected at school would give not just me, but also my
fellow students, to feel more comfortable and motivated enough to do well in school. For example, Z is
originally from Australia but, she transferred in a school in the Philippines for good. Language barriers
affected her first few weeks at school. By the help of Z’s classmates and teachers, she managed to
cope up with everything (from the language and practices of her new environment). With the total of
help and respect Z got from her peers, she got more reasons to learn and love the new part of her life.

Standards and assessments. Quizzes, exams, and other written works are the teachers’ way to
monitor if we learned something from the previous lessons through giving us such activities. As a
student, it is my responsibility to ace each tests for I have goals. Moreover, when students get passing
scores in those assessments, it will satisfy our teachers knowing that their efforts in teaching us was
not wasted.

Soon, I am going to apply The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles to my daily journey as

an educator. By doing so, I am expecting that my future students would be satisfied and motivated
enough to learn from what I have under my sleeves. As of now, I am going to work on myself to be an
effective student as a preparation for what lies ahead in my future..