REGINE MAE V.

DELA CRUZ
MAED major in Guidance & Counseling
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
- SYNTHESIS PAPER –
March 5, 2016

Learners and their learning process are said to be an important features many schools are

focus into. In educational institution, learner is said to be the center of any educational process.

Teachers, in particular, aid the learners in their learning process by adjusting or changing their

teaching strategies just to befit it to the needs of their students. Teachers’ main agenda is to make

the students learn. However, the amount of learning the students’ received may still depends on

their learning environment. With this, to ensure this enrichment of learning, the school personnel

must therefore try to develop programs and teaching style beneficial to the learners.

Concisely, learners’ academic, emotional and social growth serves as few of the vital

aspect educators and other professionals dwell into. Usually, to address these facets, they create

effective methods and/or programs for the development of the students. However, before

designing one, it should be backed up with principal concepts and principles, so that the set goals

can orderly and smoothly be achieved.

There are various concepts and principles that may be studied and reconsidered to make

these plans/ programs beneficial to the holistic development of school and the teachers, as well

as the learners themselves. Two of these are under behaviorist perspective. Pavlov’s Classical

conditioning and B. F. Skinner Operational conditioning assumed that the root of individuals’

behavior is their own environment. For Pavlov’s theory, when a neutral stimulus is paired with

unconditional stimulus, there will be conditioning. However, there is a possibility of unlearning

of new behavior if the unconditioned stimulus is not present anymore. Other terms in relation to

Pavlov’s theory are Acquisition, Generalization, Discrimination, Extinction and spontaneous

recovery. While for Skinner, there is this reinforcement, positive and negative, which motivates a

person to behave in a particular manner. It is by giving implicit and/or explicit reward that the

person performs a certain behavior. However, Skinner also remark on extinction and punishment

to weaken the occurrence of undesired behavior.

Another one is Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory. Based on Piaget, constructive

learning happens by the self, where children mainly depend on their level of cognitive ability to

comprehend. Thus, the readiness of the children is vital and it depends on their age. Piaget also

identified four stages namely: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete-operational and formal to

explain the stages children undergone. For Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory, unlike Piaget,

Vygotsky explained that constructive learning happens by having interaction with others. It is

believed that cognitive development occurs through the child’s conversations and interactions

with more capable members of the culture—adults, teachers, or older peers. With this, Vygotsky

formulated the term scaffolding, in which adults give information, prompts, reminders, and

encouragement at the right time and in the right amounts, and then gradually allowing the

children/ students to do more and more on their own.

Then, Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, suggests that human learning occurs in a

social environment. It is by observing others that people acquire new behavior. Aside from this,

Bandura emphasizes that it is not only the environment that causes people’s behavior, but the

person himself can manipulate the environment to attain desired outcome, which he referred as

Human Agency. Also, Bandura added the concept self-efficacy, where it defines as the belief of

oneself that he/she is capable of performing a task. Aside from this, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological
Theory tells that children, as they grow up, their surroundings are affecting their development

directly and indirectly. Bronfenbrenner identified five systems where children are surrounded by

it namely: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem. Another one,

Chickerings’ Social Developmental Theory, suggests that there are seven (7) vectors where

individuals have to manage and master to have a successful personal and social development.

These are (1) developing competence, (2) managing emotions, (3) moving through autonomy,

(4) developing mature interpersonal relationship, (5) establishing identity, (6) develop purpose

and (7) develop integrity.

Other topic, educators and other professionals may come to consider is the way parents

raised their children. Parenting is said to be the combination of all the professions, since a

parent’s role expand from just being the caretaker of the children to becoming a teacher, every

time their children have homework’s; doctor, every time their children got sick and etc.

(Martinez, 2016). There are three parenting style namely Authoritarian, authoritative,

permissive. Also, it is said that the ideal parenting among the three is authoritarian – not too

strict and not too lenient as well. Another one is Peer Pressure. Peer pressure is said to be when

someone forces a person to do something. There are two types of peer pressure that is the good

peer pressure, where the person/s forces someone to do something beneficial to the person being

forced (i.e. studying); and the other one, bad peer pressure is when a person/s forces someone to

do something destructive to the person being forced (i.e. smoking, drinking)

These said theories and concepts have a great impact in the development of different

school programs and teaching methods. For constructivist like Piaget and Vygotsky, their

theories implicate the importance of learning through ones’ effort and learning assisted by others.

Though they have different view, one can conclude that somehow, children/ students undergone
the same occurrences where there are tasks that can really be done through their own effort and

tasks that can be done with the assistance of others. Through this as well, teachers may come to

understand why some students tend to be inactive in participating in class and could help them

employ activities which suited to the students’ age. They should also be able to determine who

among the students need assistance and who among do not. For Bandura, it explains that since

children learn from observing others, the school personnel should be a good example for them.

In particular, teachers should be a good advocate of good behavior. They can also motivate the

students to do their tasks on their own, telling them that they believe they are capable of it.

Moreover, teachers must also teach the students that everything should not be blamed in their

environment alone; instead they have the ability to manipulate it to attain their anticipated

outcome.

Aside from these, by applying Pavlov’s conditioning, students may come to be accustom

to various habits and practices, provided that it is positive and still truly requires teachers’

guidance. Also, teachers’ application of operant conditioning in the classroom setting may help

them motivate and challenge their students to become better. However, in some instances,

teachers must still be keen determining if the reward and/or punishment they are giving to their

student still serve its purpose.

Teachers should also come to consider the significant effect of the people and other

things surrounding the person (i.e. their parents, peers, teacher, religion, culture). By ruminating

these things, the teacher may come to understand why for instance, her/his student is always

absent, misbehaving and/or in good or bad mood. Through this as well, teachers may design

activities/ programs and change their teaching style just to address student’s possible needs and

concerns. Also, by designing one, teachers may consider Chickering’s vectors in which they can
identify what particular vector/s his/her students need assistance to improve. In return, by

deeming these aspects, teachers could recognize the importance of his/her student’s individual

differences, where if the teacher takes it as a challenge, may enhance her teaching ability and

experience.

Indeed, after this course of study, it made me realize that before designing a new

program/ school plan, it should be supported by different theories and concept to make it more

effective. After all, such aforesaid theories are not formulated for nothing. It is by the desire of

the proponents of the theories to understand and make great sense what is going on in the

learning process of every person. Also, I realized that it is vital that there is someone in school

that addresses the needs of the students. Apart from this, though the students are the main

concern of the school, seeing the significance of teachers and the students’ parents, as one of the

main contributor of the growth of every student, is something that should be taken consideration.

Furthermore, in school, I come to appreciate that students really are different from one

another. Every student has their own personalities, have different family background, and

already have their own biases and beliefs in life. For this reason, it is a challenge for the teachers

to handle all these concerns on their own. However, despite of these diversities, one can identify

that each of them transpires individual uniqueness where they can share to one another.