Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, the student will be able to:

• Analyse student physical, social, emotional and spiritual stages of development as well as diversities in abilities and contexts.

• Explain research on learning and developmental theories and how they apply to learning and teaching, including a range of associated teaching strategies (eg. explicit instruction, modelling, scaffolding, spacing, and retrieval practices).

• Explain how learning occurs and how a variety of factors, such as motivation, physical, social and intellectual development, spiritual development and social influences may impact on learning

• Evaluate themselves as learners, examining their own learning profiles and how that might impact their teaching practices.

Unit Description

This unit will explore the human learning process from 4 distinct perspectives.
Each lens provides a unique way to reflect on the process:

• One lens focuses on theories about learning that have been generated through the disciplines of philosophy, psychology and sociology. Preservice teachers will be required to compare and contrast these, particularly in relation to the foundational Christian beliefs about what it means to be a fully educated human (goals of education) and the nature of knowledge.

• A second lens will be the current research around the brain and cognition and memory.

• A third lens will be the school-based research around specific contexts and practices that have led to improving learning progress.

• A fourth lens is the literature on the stages of development and styles of learning exploring the diversity of humans and what this means for diversity in processing and the reformulation of knowledge for students at various stages of development.

Preservice teachers will be required to participate in workshops practicing their reflection skills. Furthermore, they will be required to synthesise the information they have acquired about learning and apply this as they begin to connect a range of teaching methods to theories of learning. Preservice teachers will also be required to reflect on their own experiences of learning and how these may hinder or help in their development of teaching practices.

As the first education unit of the Bachelor of Education, it will also introduce preservice teachers to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) at the Graduate level and the importance of working with the framework to identify the range of knowledge and skills that are needed to become a graduate teacher.

Topics

1. Theories of learning through the disciplines of philosophy, psychology and sociology.
2. Evaluate learning through various theories.
3. Investigating the diversity of learners: Stages of physical, social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual development (including the development of executive functioning and the implications for teaching).
4. Brain research and learning: The effectiveness of explicit teaching, modelling and scaffolding practices based on how the brain learns.
5. Psychology of learning: Motivation, Learned helplessness, Cognitive Overload, Biologically Primary vs Biologically Secondary knowledge acquisition, and cognitive processes for memory retention.
6. Social dimensions of learning - communities of learning, collaboration and cooperative learning.
7. Implications for Rhythms/phases of learning and teaching practices and strategies
8. Celebrating learning
9. Introduction to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) at the Graduate level

Learning Experiences

Topic 4 (cc 2.2.1) Understanding Research. Students are required to read current research regarding explicit teaching, modelling and scaffolding and how this attends best to how student’s brains learn.
Current Research includes:
Australian Education Research Organisation. (2023). How students learn best: An overview of the evidence. https://www.edresearch.edu.au/research/research-reports/how-students-learn-best-overview-evidence.

Students read one article and create a summary. They then share learning, in groups, from the articles and discuss the concepts and understandings.

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Unit offerings

Please note

The Unit Offerings listed above are a guide only and the timetable for any year is the final authority. The College may vary offerings based on demand, regulatory requirements, continual improvement processes or other conditions.

This unit may be available in different modes of delivery i.e. online and face-to-face as listed above. The unit content will not differ between these modes of delivery. There will possibly be a difference in the schedule and/or the prescribed assessment tasks, however both will cover and assess the same content.