Module2:
Learner-Centered Psychological Principles (LCP).
• The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles were put together by the American
Psychological Association. The following 14 psychological principles pertain to the
learner and the learning process .The 14 principles have the following aspects.
The focus on psychological factors that are primarily internal to and under the
control of the learner rather than conditioned habits or psychological factors.
However, the principles also attempt to acknowledge external environment or
contextual factors that interact w/ these internal factors .
The principles are intended to deal holistically w/ learner's in the context of real-
world learning situations. Thus, they are best organized set of principles; no principles
should be viewed in isolation.
The 14 principles are divided into those referring to (1) cognitive and Metacognitive,
(2) motivational and Affective, (3) Developmental and Social ,and (4) Individual
Differences factors influencing learner's and learning.
Finally, the principles are intended to apply to all learner's from children, to teachers,
to administrators, to parents, and to community members involved in our educational
system.
Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors
1. 1. Refers of the learning Process
The learning of a complex subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional
process of constructing meaning from information and experiences .
There are different types of learning process for example, habit formation in
excreted learning and learning that involves the generation of knowledge or cognitive
skills and learning strategies.
Learning in schools emphasizes the uses of intentional processes that students can use
to construct meaning from information, experience and their own thoughts and
beliefs.
Successful learners are active, goal- directed, self-regulating and assume
essential responsibility for contributing to their own learning.
2. Goals of the learning Process
The successful learner's overtime and with support and instructional guidance can
create meaningful, coherent representation the of knowledge.
The strategic nature of learning requires students to be goal-directed.
To construct useful representations of knowledge and to acquire the thinking and
learning strategies necessary for continued learning success across the life span,
students must generate and pursue personally relevant goals. Initially, students' short
term goals and learning may be sketchy in an area, but overtime their understanding
can be refined by fillingvgaps,resolving inconsistencies and deepening their
understanding of the subject matter so that they can reach long term goals.
Educators can assist learner's in creating meaningful learning goals that are consistent
with both personal and educational aspirations and interests.
3. Construction of Knowledge
The successful learner can link new information with existing knowledge in
meaningful ways.
Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to build links between new
information and experience and their existing knowledge base. The nature of these
links can take a variety of forms, such as adding to, modifying or recognizing existing
knowledge or skills. However, these skills are made or developed may vary in
different subject areas, and among students w/ carrying talents, interests and abilities.
Educators can assist learners in acquiring and integrating knowledge by a number of
strategies that have been shown to be effective w/ learners of varying abilities, such as
concept mapping and thematic organization or categorizing.
5. Thinking about Thinking
Highest Order of strategies for selecting and monitoring means operations initiates
creates and critical thinking.
Successful learners can reflect on how they think and learn, so reasonable learning or
performance goals, safest potentially appropriate learning strategies methods, and
monitor their progress towards their goals.
In addition, successful learner's knows what to do if a problem occurs or if they are
not making sufficient or timely progress toward a goal.
Instructional methods that focus on helping learner's develop there higher order
(metacognitive) strategies can enhance student learning and personal responsibility
for learning
6. Context of Learning
Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including the culture,
technology, and instructional practices.
Learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers play a major role w/ both the learner
and the learning environments.
Cultural or group influence on students can impact many educationally relevant
variables, such as motivation, orientation toward learning and ways of thinking.
Technologies and instructional practices must be appropriate for learner's level of
prior knowledge, cognitive abilities and their learning and thinking abilities.
The classroom environment, particularly the degree to which at is nurturing or not,
can also have significant impacts on students learning.
Motivational and Affective Factors
7. Motivational and Conventional enhancers on Learning
What and how much is learned and influenced by the learned motivation.
Motivation to learn, inform is influenced by the individuals emotional states, beliefs,
interests and goals, and habits of thinking
The rich internal world of thoughts, beliefs, goals, and expectations for success or
failure can enhance or interfered with the learner's quality of thinking and information
processing.
Students’ beliefs about a marked influenced in motivation. Motivational and
emotional factors also influence both the quality of thinking and information
processing as well as an individual’s motivation to learn.
Positive emotions, such as curiosity, generally enhance motivation and facilitate
learning and performance. Mild anxiety can also enhance learning and performance
by focusing the learner's attention on a particular task. However, intense negative
emotions and related thoughts generally destruct from motivation interfere with
learning and contribute to low performance.
8. Intrinsic motivation to learn
The learner's creativity, higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all
contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks of optimal
novelty and difficulty, relevant to personal interests, and providing for personal
choice and control.
Curiosity, flexible and insightful thinking, and creativity are major indicators of the
learner's intrinsic motivation to learn which is in large part of a function of meeting
basic needs to be competent and to exercise personal control.
Intrinsic motivation is facilitated on tasks that learner's perceive as interesting and
personally relevant and no intringful, appropriate in complexity and difficulties to the
learner's abilities and on which they believe they can succeed.
Intrinsic motivation is also facilitated on tasks that are comparable to real-world
situations and meet needs for choice and control.
Educators can encourage and support learner's natural curiosity and motivation to
learn by attending to individual Differences in learner's perceptions of optimal novelty
and difficulties, relevance and personal choice and control.
9. Effects of Motivation on Effort
Acquisitions of complex knowledge and skills require extended learner
effort and guided practice. Without learner's motivation to learn, the willingness to
exert this efforts is unlikely without coercion.
Effort is another major indicator of motivation to learn. The acquisition of complex
knowledge and skills demands the investments of considerable learner energy and
strategic effort, along with persistence overtime.
Educators need to be concerned by facilitating motivation by strategies that enhance
learner's effort and commitment to learning and to achieving high standards of
comprehension or understanding.
Effective strategies include purposeful learning activities guided by practices that
enhance positive emotions and intrinsic motivation to learn, and methods that increase
learner's perceptions that a task is interesting and personally relevant.
Developmental and Social Factors
10. Developmental influences on learning
As individuals develop, there are different opportunities and constraints
for learning .Learning is most effective when differential development with in and
across physical, intellectual, emotional and social domains is taken into account.
Because individual development varies across intellectual, social, emotional and
physical domains, achievement in different instructional domains may also vary.
Overemphasizes on one type of developmental readiness - may preclude learners from
demonstrating that they are more capable in other areas of performance.
The cognitive, emotional and social development of individual learner's and how
they interpret life experience are affected by prior schooling, home, culture and
community factors.
Early and continuing parental involvement in schooling and the quality of language
interactions and two-way communication between adults and children’s can inference
these developmental areas.
Awareness and understanding of developmental differences among children with and
without emotional, physical or intellectual disabilities can facilitate the creation of
optimal learning contexts.
11. Social Influence on Learning
Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations and
communication with others.
Learning can be enhanced when the learner has an opportunity to interact and to
collaborate with others on instructional tasks.
Learning settings that allow for social interactions and that respect diversity
encourage flexible thinking and social competence.
In interactive and collaborative instructional contexts individuals have an opportunity
for perspective taking and reflective thinking that may lead to higher levels of
cognitive, social moral development, as well as self-esteem.
Quality personal relationships that provide stability, trust and caring can increase
learner's sense of belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a positive
climate for learning.
Positive learning climates can also help to establish the context for healthier levels of
thinking, feeling and behaving. Such contexts help learner's feel safe to share ideas,
actively participate in the learning process, and create a learning community.
Individual Difference Factors
12. Individual Difference Factors
Learners have different strategies, approaches and capabilities for learning
that are a function of prior experience and heredity.
Individuals are born with and develop their own capabilities and talents.
In addition, through learning and social acculturation, they have acquired their own
preferences for how they like to learn and the pace at which they learn. However,
these preferences are not always useful in helping learner's reach their learning goals.
Educators need to help students examine their learning preferences and expand or
modify them, if necessary.
The interaction between learner differences and curricular and environmental
condition is another key factor affecting learning outcomes.
Educators need to be sensitive to individual differences, in general. They also need
to learner perceptions of the degree to w/c these differences are accepted and adapted
to by varying instructional methods ND materials.
13. Learning and Diversity
Learning is most effective when differences in learner's linguistic, cultural
and social backgrounds are taken into account.
The some basic principles of learning, motivation and effective instruction apply to
all learner's. However, language, ethnicity, race beliefs and socioeconomic status all
can influence learning. Careful attention to those factors in the instructional setting
enhances the possibility for designing and implementing appropriate learning
environments.
When learner's perceive that their individual differences in abilities, backgrounds,
culture and expatriate valued respected and accommodated in learning tasks and
context, levels of motivation and achievement are enhanced.
14. Standards and Assessment
Setting appropriately high and challenging standards and assessing the
learner as well as learning progress including diagnostic process and outcome
assessment and integral parts of the learning process.
Assessment provides important information to both the learner and the teacher at all
stages of the learning process.
Effective learning takes place when learner's feel challenge to work towards
appropriately high goals; therefore appraisal of the learner's cognitive strength and
weakness, as well as current knowledge and skills, is important for the selection of
instructional materials of an optimal degree of difficulty.
Ongoing assessment of the learner's understanding of the curricular material can
provide valuable feedback to both learners and teachers about progress toward the
learning goals.
Standardized assessment of learner’s progress and outcomes assessment provides
one type of information about achievement levels both within and across individuals
that can inform various types of programmatic decisions.
Performance assessment can provide other sources of information about the
attainment of learning outcomes.
Self- assessment of learning progress can also improve students' self-appraisal skills
and enhances motivation and self-directed learning.
