PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION

OF THE CURRICULUM
Psychology provides the foundation of the
teaching-learning process.

1. How should the curriculum be organized to maximize

learning?
2. How to deliver the curriculum that drives optimum
students’ participation?
3. What is the best way students will learn?
4. How learners acquire, retain and recall knowledge?
Activity 1

 One Volunteer
Behaviorism

A worldview that assumes a learner is essentially passive,

responding to environmental stimuli.
Learning is the acquisition of a new behavior or change in
behavior, thus learning occurs when new behaviors or
changes in behaviors are acquired through association of
stimulus and response.
Teachers usually uses behaviourism when they reward or
punish student behaviors.
 Ivan Pavlov
 B.F. Skinner
 Edward. L. Thorndike
Ivan Pavlov (1949-1936)

 Father of the Classical Conditioning

Theory (S-R Theory)
 The key to learning is to train learners
what you want them to become.
 Foundation of Learning of learning
practice called indoctrination
 Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904 –1990)

Operant Conditioning
 Behaviours that are reinforced will
tend to continue, while behaviors that
are punished will eventually end.
Reinforcement
Punishment
Edward L. Thorndile (1874-1949)

 Connectionism Theory
 Learning is achieved when an individual
is able to form associations between a
particular stimulus and a response.
 Trial and error learning.
 Law of Effect, Law of Readiness, and
Law of Exercise (Use and Disuse)
 Albert Bandura (1925-at present)

 Social Learning Theory (Observational

Learning)
Learner learn from others via observation,
imitation, and modeling.
Behavior is learned from the environment
through the process of observational
learning.
Attention, Retention, Reproduction,
Motivation
Goal of Instruction: Behaviorism

 Communicate or transfer behaviors representing knowledge and

skills to the learner (does not consider mental processing)
 Instruction is to elicit the desired response from the learner who is
presented with a target stimulus
 Learner must know how to execute the proper response as well as
the conditions under which the response is made
 Instruction utilizes consequences and reinforcement of
learned behaviors

© 2002 ATGCI
1
Instructional/Learning Strategies:
Behaviorism

 Instructional cues to elicit correct response

 Practice paired with target stimuli
 Reinforcement for correct responses
 Building fluency (get responses closer and closer to correct response)
 Multiple opportunities/trials (Drill and practice)
 Discrimination (recalling facts)
 Generalization (defining and illustrating concepts)
 Associations (applying explanations)
 Chaining (automatically performing a specified procedure) 11
© 2002 ATGCI
Activity 2

4 pic 1 word
SNAP
 Sudden break
MILL
 Rice
Bars
 Block
Exam
 Test
Lens
 Eyeglass
 Cognitivism

 The cognitivist paradigm essentially argues that the “black box" of the mind
should be opened and understood.
 Learning is a change of knowledge state.
 Holds that if we are to understand learning we cannot confine ourselves to
observable behaviour, but must also concern ourselves with the learner’s ability
mentally to re-organize his psychological field (i.e. his inner world of concepts,
memories, etc.) in response to experience.
 It sees the individual not as the somewhat mechanical product of his
environment, but as an active agent in the learning process, deliberately trying
to process and categorize the stream of information fed into him by the
external world.
 Emphasis on structuring, organizing and sequencing information to facilitate
optimal processing.
 Jean Piaget

 Cognitive Development Theory

 Children construct their understanding of the world and
go through four stages of cognitive development.
(Schema, Assimilation, Accommodation, Equilibrium)
 Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational Stage, Concrete
Operational Stage, Formal Operational Stage
 "I believe that knowing an object means acting upon it,
constructing systems of transformations that can be
carried out on or with this object. Knowing reality means
constructing systems of transformations that correspond,
more or less adequately, to reality."
 Piaget’s Four Stages:

 Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2 yrs):

 actions become more intentional and integrated into patterns, there is an increased
awareness of self and surroundings.
 Preoperational Thought Stage (2 - 7yrs):
 development of language and conceptual thought occurs.
 Concrete Operations Stage (7-11yrs):
 increased ability to apply logical thought to concrete problems, thinking is still
primarily related to immediate experience.
 Formal Operations Stage (11yrs on):
 ability to apply logic to a variety of problems; higher order thinking occurs.
 David Ausebel (1918-2008)

 Subsumption Theory (A Subsumption Theory

of Meaningful Learning and Retention)
 Learners learn through a meaningful
process of relating new events to already
existing concepts. Consequently, meaning
is not an implicit response but an expressed
and distinguished conscious experience
that takes place when meaningful signs,
symbols, concepts, or propositions are
related to a given individual’s cognitive
structure.
 Learning Processes of Meaningful Learning

 Derivative subsumption
> New material or relationships can be derived from the existing structure. Information can
be moved in the hierarchy, or linked to other concepts or information to create new
interpretations or meaning
 Correlative subsumption
> New material is an extension or elaboration of what is already known.
 Superordinate learning
> An individual is able to give a lot of examples of the concept but does not
know the concept itself until it is taught.
 Combinatorial learning (Learning by analogy)
> it describes a process by which the new idea is derived from another idea
that is neither higher nor lower in the hierarchy, but at the same level.
 Robert M. Gagné (1916-2002)

 Conditions of Learning (Hierarchical

Learning Theory)
 The higher orders of learning in the
hierarchy build upon the lower levels,
requiring progressively greater amounts of
previous learning for their success.
 Eight Hierarchical Condition of Learning

 Signal learning
 Stimulus-response
learning-
 Chain learning
 Verbal association
 Discrimination
 Concept
 Rule
 Problem solving
 Howard Gardner (1943-)

 Theory of Multiple Intelligences

 People have different kinds of "intelligences."
 “We are all able to know the world through
language, logical-mathematical analysis, spatial
representation, musical thinking, the use of the body
to solve problems or to make things, an
understanding of other individuals and an
understanding of ourselves. Where individuals differ is
in the strength of these intelligences and the ways in
which such intelligences are invoked and combined
to carry out different tasks, solve diverse problems
and progress in various domains."
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

 Verbal-linguistic intelligence
 Logical-mathematical intelligence
 Spatial-visual intelligence
 Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
 Musical intelligences
 Interpersonal intelligence
 Intrapersonal
 Naturalist intelligence
 Existential intelligence)
 Goal of Instruction: Cognitivism

 Communicate or transfer knowledge in the most efficient, effective manner

(mind-independent, can be mapped onto learners)
 Focus of instruction is to create learning or change by encouraging the
learner to use appropriate learning strategies
 Learning results when information is stored in memory in an
organized, meaningful way.
 Teachers/designers are responsible for assisting learners in organizing
information in an optimal way so that it can be readily assimilated
 Instructional/Learning Strategies:
Cognitivism

 Chunking Information  Synthesis

 Repetition  Explanations
 Concept Mapping  Demonstrations
 Advanced Organizers  Illustrative examples
 Analogies  Matched non-examples
 Summaries  Corrective feedback
 Interactivity  Outlining
 12  Mnemonics

© 2002 ATGCI
 Goal of Instruction: Cognitivism

 Communicate or transfer knowledge in the most efficient, effective manner

(mind-independent, can be mapped onto learners)
 Focus of instruction is to create learning or change by encouraging the
learner to use appropriate learning strategies
 Learning results when information is stored in memory in an
organized, meaningful way.
 Teachers/designers are responsible for assisting learners in organizing
information in an optimal way so that it can be readily assimilated
Activity 3

 Group yourselves with 4 members each…

 Solve…
> 9 dots, 4 lines
> A farmer and his dog, chicken, sack of grains.
Checkpoint…

 Get ½ sheet of paper…

 Answer the following questions:
 Write all the things, images, and words that comes into
your mind when you hear the word…

 Construct
 What is the Theory of Constructivism all about?
Write your own thoughts about it.
 Complete the state…
 I think the Theory of Constructivism says that …
Sharing time…

 Find a partner… and share your thoughts with

each other.
 Find another person and share again your
thoughts.
 Find another person and share again…
Reconsider and Rewrite

 Upon hearing the thoughts of others about

constructivism… what do you think is the Theory of
Constructivism?
Reflection

 From the activity, what are your insights?

What are the key points that we can derive?
Constructivist Theory says…

People are constantly building knowledge like they build

houses from materials they already have on hand, and
then creating new knowledge like they might build a new
house.
Other people influence how individuals create
knowledge just like neighbours influence the styles of
house that are built.
Constructivism

 Posits that learning is an active, constructive process. The learner is an information

constructor. People actively construct or create their own subjective
representations of objective reality.
 Learners build personal interpretation of the world based on experiences and
interactions.
 Knowledge is embedded in the context in which it is used (authentic tasks in
meaningful realistic settings).
 Create novel and situation-specific understandings by "assembling" knowledge
from diverse sources appropriate to the problem at hand (flexible use of
knowledge).
 Learning is an active process in which learners construct their own meaning based
on prior knowledge and experience.
 "As long as there were people asking each other
questions, we have had constructivist classrooms.
Constructivism, the study of learning, is about how we all
make sense of our world, and that really hasn’t changed."
(Brooks, 1999)
The Champions…

John Dewey (1859 – 1952)

Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980)
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896 – 1943)
Jerome Seymour Bruner (1915 – 2016)
John Dewey (1859 – 1952)

 Children learn best when they interacted

with their environments and were actively
involved with the school curriculum.
 Children should be given learning
opportunities that enabled them to link
present content to previous experiences
and knowledge.
Experiential Learning
Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980)

Learning is a dynamic process comprising

successive stages of adaption to reality
during which learners actively construct
knowledge by creating and testing their
own theories of the world.
 Jerome Bruner (1915 – 2016)

 The purpose of education is not to impart

knowledge, but instead to facilitate a child's
thinking and problem-solving skills which can
then be transferred to a range of situations.
 Different processes were used by learners in
problem solving, that these vary from person
to person and that social interaction lay at
the root of good learning.
 Readiness, Spiral organization, Going beyond
the information given
 Social interaction precedes development;
consciousness and cognition are the end
product of socialization and social behavior.
 Learning takes place within the Zone of
Proximal Development.
 Social interaction, The more knowledgeable
other, and The zone of proximal development.
Instructional/Learning Strategies:
Constructivism
 Modeling
 Collaborative Learning
 Coaching
 Scaffolding
 Problem-Based Learning
 Authentic Learning
 Object-based Learning
 Project-based Learning
 Research
 Discovery learning
Let’s have some reflection…

 What is/are the reasons why you go to school?

 What do you want school do to you?
 Why do you want to have good grades?
 Why do want to finish your studies?
 How are you going to achieve all of your aspirations?
 When can you say and see that your are successful?
Humanism

 Learning is viewed as a personal act to fulfill one’s potential.

 Focuses on the human freedom, dignity, and potential.
 People act with intentionality and values.
 It is necessary to study the person as a whole, especially as an
individual grows and develops over the lifespan. It follows that the
study of the self, motivation, and goals are areas of particular
interest.
 Person has an innate desire for growth.
Champions

 Abraham Maslow
 Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
Carl Rogers