Final Paper on Advanced Foundations of Education

Theorist and It’s Contribution to Education

Christine Joy R. Tahad

You cannot teach today the same way you did yesterday to prepare students for tomorrow.
- John Dewey
Learners are the heart of every school, we (teachers) cannot give what we do not have, that is the main
reason why we- teachers continue to search for new trends, skills, and strategies which we can apply in
teaching. Learners are constructivists itself; they easily adapt to the changes so as we teachers must always
prepare lesson that is realistic, and activity based. Moreover, we had to allow them to explore and experience
the learning they acquire in school so that they can create and build new ideas and skills which is their
foundation in the future. Learners are futuristic thinkers, teachers must only a facilitator of learning, thus
allowing learners to discover things on their own and learn through it. Learning by doing, a theory that is
developed by John Dewey helped me choose to think of a good strategy and activities that I can use in my
teaching since students learn best when their interests are engaged. It is important to develop ideas, activities,
and events that stimulate student interests and to which teaching can be geared. I believe that whenever a
lesson or a concept is taught there should be a reinforcement of activities to allow the learners experience a
real-life situation. Students should engage in active learning and inquiry, rather than teaching students to
accept any seemingly valid explanations. Childrens must be an active learner not a merely a passive listener.
Aside from it, there will be meaningful learning if the experience they acquire in school will apply in the real-
world situation. This means that the environment helps shape the behavior of the students, but we teachers
can be a great impact in shaping the minds of the learner to change their behavior. Teachers can help students
by controlling the classroom environment, teaching appropriate behavior, and conditioning the mind of the
learners towards positive learning. It is very important that a teacher must design a set of rules before the
start of the class to condition the minds of the learner. This is in line with the theory of classical conditioning
by Ivan Pavlov where the learning process is governed by associations between an environmental stimulus
and another stimulus which occurs naturally. The classical conditioning theory is very useful, especially in
lower grades since they are most likely following teacher orders. Reinforcement theory by B. F. Skinner
(operant conditioning theory) explained that behavior is changed, and learning occurs as the outcome or
effects of punishment and reinforcement. In education as much as possible, on my insights always use positive
reinforcement in a child’s behavior, there is no room for negative reinforcement such as punishment because
it might lead to the decrease of responses towards the learning of a child. We teachers must create a positive
environment hence we use rewards for every positive behavior. I believe that in whatever circumstances be
considerate for you do not know what a child bears in the family for them to behave in that way. Every child
has a different environment to whom they live, so whatever it be, always use positive reinforcement. As I
experience, many of our learners used to absent without permission, but when we use rewards by giving
monthly perfect attendance the absences on our class decreases, this is what skinner emphasizes that in every
action if the positive behavior is followed by pleasant consequences it is likely to be repeated and when the
behavior is followed by unpleasant consequences it is less likely to be repeated. Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development both benefits the teacher and the learner, it provides a framework for understanding how
children develop their thinking and reasoning over time. By identifying the different levels of a child’s thinking
and understanding capabilities you as a teacher know what activities are appropriate for the learners of a
specific age. Learners have differences but by studying Piaget’s theory of cognitive development you will
understand the behavior of each child, their interests, and their beliefs. Lawrence Kohlberg’s moral
development theory focusses on how learners develop morality or moral reasoning, it has three levels which
embodies 6 stages. It is easier for us teachers to understand our students well, if we can analyze their behavior,
as this theory contributes to every stage of child’s growth, we can change our teaching methodology
appropriate to the child’s growing age. We can also give proper guidance and understand the different levels
of moral understanding of every learner. Our goal is to help the learners make right decision which are good
for them, benefits them and prevent them from doing wrong, helps them to develop and promote good moral
values so that they become the best version of themselves, so for us to achieve the goals in education, we
teacher must see to it that we teach lesson appropriate to their level of comprehension seeing to it that they
really learn as well as fostered them the moral values that you want them to acquire so that in the future they
will be a responsible citizen. Social learning theory, introduced by psychologist Albert Bandura, proposed that
learning occurs through observation, imitation, and modeling and is influenced by factors such as attention,
motivation, attitudes, and emotions. In summarization, Bandura emphasizes that learning can be acquired
through observation and imitation. This theory moves beyond behavioral theories, which suggest that all
behaviors are learned through conditioning, and cognitive theories. The theory of social learning emphasizes
that children learn naturally from what they see and observe in the environment, that learning can also occur
simply by observing the actions of others. We cannot say that all knowledge and skills are acquired in school,
some are learned from experiences, others learn from what they observe or from the experiences of others,
there are learners who use to imitate before they develop the best version of themselves and there are
learners who learn by doing. In some cases, there are lessons that a teacher needs to model first before letting
the child do the task. It is also one of the strategies of the teacher to show first a specific task before letting
the pupil do it alone, this is to ensure that they will perform it in a right way especially lessons that needs
guidance. This theory makes me realize that children have different styles in learning and acquiring new skills,
let us not focused on one side of teaching strategies hence we must prepare lessons that accommodate
children’s learning styles. We cannot please all learners to learn what we want them to learn, but we can
change them the way they want to change because of your teaching.