Personally, I believe that it is essential that teachers have an extensive knowledge of key theorists of education in order to demonstrate good practice in their teaching. Different approaches include: the cognitive approach, the behaviourist approach, the humanistic approach and the discovery learning approach. These key theorists include John Dewey and Lev Vygotsky. During my teaching practice, I have tried to implement their theories into my classes. I hope to continue this in the last four weeks of my teaching practice.
Dewey considered learning by doing to be very important in the development of people. “Dewey believed that human beings learn through a ‘hands on’ approach” (Jordan, n.d). Students should be able to go discover and research a topic introduced during the class rather than the teacher passing on all the information to the students. Students tend to learn more when they research topic content for themselves. This learning by doing is commonly referred to as discovery learning. I have used this in my 2nd year MTW class where I got the student in groups to construct a model of the air seasoning set-up. I hope that the students will learn a lot from this activity and that it will help them to remember it better.
Scaffolding is where a teacher or another adult is teaching an inexperienced person to increase their knowledge to another level. Bentham describes scaffolding as a process where “a more skilled individual is trying to impart knowledge to a less skilled individual” (Bentham, 2002, p. 11). Jerome Bruner was interested in the role of language in learning and emphasised its importance. Bruner was in agreement with Vygotsky’s theory of scaffolding and therefore he developed it further. “Bruner was particularly interested in the language of learning and teaching and expanded on Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding” (Bentham, 2002, p. 12). Therefore, Vygotsky and Bruner can be seen to be quite similar in some aspects of their theories. Throughout my teaching practice I have used scaffolding in my classes. For example, in TG and DCG, when starting a new topic I work through the questions with the class, proving clues throughout on how to solve the questions. As the students become more familiar with the topic I let the students do more on their own. I am constantly reducing the amount of help that I give the class. Towards the end of topic, the students should be able to complete questions completely on their own.
In conclusion, it is evident that the theories of John Dewey and Lev Vygotsky can and should be implemented into the classroom to improve the quality of teaching and learning within the class. It is evident that I am using these theories on TP2 and I hope to use them throughout my teaching career.
Dewey considered learning by doing to be very important in the development of people. “Dewey believed that human beings learn through a ‘hands on’ approach” (Jordan, n.d). Students should be able to go discover and research a topic introduced during the class rather than the teacher passing on all the information to the students. Students tend to learn more when they research topic content for themselves. This learning by doing is commonly referred to as discovery learning. I have used this in my 2nd year MTW class where I got the student in groups to construct a model of the air seasoning set-up. I hope that the students will learn a lot from this activity and that it will help them to remember it better.
Scaffolding is where a teacher or another adult is teaching an inexperienced person to increase their knowledge to another level. Bentham describes scaffolding as a process where “a more skilled individual is trying to impart knowledge to a less skilled individual” (Bentham, 2002, p. 11). Jerome Bruner was interested in the role of language in learning and emphasised its importance. Bruner was in agreement with Vygotsky’s theory of scaffolding and therefore he developed it further. “Bruner was particularly interested in the language of learning and teaching and expanded on Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding” (Bentham, 2002, p. 12). Therefore, Vygotsky and Bruner can be seen to be quite similar in some aspects of their theories. Throughout my teaching practice I have used scaffolding in my classes. For example, in TG and DCG, when starting a new topic I work through the questions with the class, proving clues throughout on how to solve the questions. As the students become more familiar with the topic I let the students do more on their own. I am constantly reducing the amount of help that I give the class. Towards the end of topic, the students should be able to complete questions completely on their own.
In conclusion, it is evident that the theories of John Dewey and Lev Vygotsky can and should be implemented into the classroom to improve the quality of teaching and learning within the class. It is evident that I am using these theories on TP2 and I hope to use them throughout my teaching career.