Learning Methods and Concepts

Introduction

From early childhood, individuals manifest different interests, abilities, features, and inclinations, thereby indicating the rich diversity of human nature primarily formed by genetics and culture. Herewith, irrespective of contexts, all people are endowed by insatiable curiosity and aspiration to investigate the surrounding and internal worlds. Therefore, the central mission of teachers is to create a conducive learning environment that considers students’ characteristics and predispositions and fosters their thirst for knowledge and exploration. McManus and Kotzé (2019) claim that teachers should direct their efforts in promoting motivation and engagement in both in-class and outside activities and develop individuals’ autonomy during the learning process. With such a mindset, pupils can acquire desirable skills and grow as a full-fledged, broad personality that possesses explicit goals and, most importantly, will to achieve them. Besides, educators should provide necessary guidance during the learning process and covey practical knowledge beneficial for students.

Teaching Methods and Learning Activities

In my teaching practice, I have applied numerous education methods and activities to help pupils understand specific subjects or topics. First of all, it is worth noting that my personal approach was developed based on cognitivism, constructivism, and especially humanism. Additionally, I applied open-ended questions, group discussion, and one-to one-activities for preschool children, which contains the various alphabet, math, and art games. These exercises are mainly executed in a classroom, but I had to change the learning milieu with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, I have turned to the more advanced teaching methods and begun conducting ZOOM/synchronous lessons and using Google Classroom to support children’s engagement in learning. The activities include counting numbers, scavenger hunt, show and tell, seeking different items at home, talk about the letter of the week.

The Explanation of the Choices

Concerning concepts, my choice was conditioned by their focus on self-directed learning, discovery, and purposefulness. For example, the humanistic perspective highlights the significance of motivation in people’s actions and decisions. The humanistic perspective is founded on four assumptions, namely, the importance of learner’s freedom in the learning process, the existing experiences, the readiness to learn, the orientation on learning (Verywell Mind, 2019). A wide variety of activities was formed because I strived to make the learning process flexible and tailor it to the needs and preferences of students. Besides, in their study, Singh and Hurley (2017) revealed significant academic support for online teaching in terms of efficacy and student empowerment. Finally, the given exercised have been used to promote autonomy in pupils’ learning and exploration.

Formative and Summative Assessment

The main objective of formative assessment is to track students’ learning to deliver continued feedback that can be utilized to enhance the teaching approach and students’ performance. Specifically, this type of assessment aids pupils in detecting their strengths and weaknesses and problematic areas needing close consideration. Faculty can use this evaluation to recognize and address students’ learning difficulties immediately. The examples usually comprise self and peer evaluation, group activities and discussions, and exercises such as asking to write two sentences or draw a concept map that shows students’ understanding of a theme. Besides, unlike summative assessments, they possess a low or no point value (Carnegie Mellon University, n.d.). Summative assessment aims to evaluate students’ knowledge and understanding at the end of a particular educational unit following an established benchmark. Information obtained from summative assessments can be used to guide students’ and faculty’s efforts in successive courses. These assessments typically include tests, final projects, academic papers, exams, and etcetera.

Reference List

Cherry, K. (2019). Perspectives in modern psychology. Web.

McManus, C. and Kotze, H. (2019). ‘Mission: engage! Gamifying goals to launch student engagement beyond the classroom’, EA Journal, 35(1), pp. 53-58.

Singh, R. N. and Hurley, D. (2017). ‘The effectiveness of teaching and learning process in online education as perceived by university faculty and instructional technology professionals’, Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, 6(1), 65-75.

What is the difference between formative and summative assessment? (n.d.). Web.