So earlier this week,we did a discussion on the topic of “School
of Thought” in the context of Learning and Teaching.We went through 3 different
types of methods,one would say,on how a lecturer should/could incorporate them
into their teaching.The 3 thoughts are Cognitive,Humanistic and
Behavioural.Just by looking at these 3 words,you can already get the definition
of it,its almost self explanatory but just to be sure everyone knows what I’m
talking about,I wilL try to explain it in lay man’s term so you can get a
clearer picture.
Cognitive,what is it?.We can say it’s the psychological processes
involved in obtaining and understanding knowledge, formation of beliefs and
attitudes, and decision making and problem solving. They are distinct from
emotional and volitional processes involved in wanting and intending. Cognitive
capacity is generally tested with an IQ test.
Remember what I said about Cognitive being distinct from emotional
and volitional processes in the above paragraph? This is where Humanistic comes
into play,it touches mainly on the more human meanings, understandings, and experiences
involved in growing,teaching, and learning. They emphasize characteristics that
are shared by all human beings such as love, grief, caring, and self-worth
aspects of life.The main emphasise here is the mental well being of the
students,thus making them more subject to learning
This leads me to my 3rd and final school of thought,which
would be the Behavioural school of thought. In behavioural,the factor that
plays a key role here is the environmental factor,when I say environmental,I’m
not talking about trees or stuff like that but more like the classroom and the
lecturer,For instance,having a lesson where there’s no much verbal interactions
between the lecturer and the students will lead to the students not wanting to
learn,its human nature isn’t it,if something doesn’t grab our attention, why
waste our time?.Another example would be lecturers with no commitment in their
line of work,just walking into the classroom and telling the students what to
do without giving them a reason to do it gives a negative vibe to everyone thus
leading to their students losing interest
As a economics major,I have to implement one of this methods
into my teaching but before I do that, I have a theory,we shouldn’t base our
choice of a teaching method solely on what we teach but on our nature as well.How
would a person with no sense of empathy and sympathy be able to incorporate humanistic
method in their particular field. A moral education teacher which has to teach
about forgiving and respecting in the classroom but not having the values
himself /herself won’t do much on the students.The right approach here is to
know your strength and weakness and what you are given to work with before you
start.I’m a more understanding,loving and caring person by nature therefore the
right approach for me would be Humanistic as I can use these values I have to
my benefit in the classroom.
