Active Learning Philosophy

Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.

Each child in different stages has different behaviors and interest. Based on my observation of children in the middle childhood stage, I have seen them think more differently and logically than early childhood stage. In this stage they like to choose what they want. According to Piaget, at this stage a child develop logical thinking, hypothesizing abilities, possibilities to grow in understanding and knowledge, develop critical thinking and analytical skills and choose what is appropriate for them. Therefore, in the museum we need to create protective strategies and think about ways to make them learn better, supplement their

Traditionally, instructors used to focus on what they did, rather than what the students were learning. Just few decades ago, teaching revolved only around the teacher, putting the learner out of the game. The learner was seen as no more than a jar being filled with information. Besides, all the conversations and debates at that time argued that the active element in the teaching/learning process could be anything except the learner. Knowledge was considered to be poured by the teacher into the learner’s mind meanwhile all what the learner could do inside the classroom was to watch, having a passive role in the construction of his own knowledge. Recently, and in order to cover the drawbacks of teacher-centered approach, education has adopted a new approach to learning, particularly language learning calling it the learner-centered approach.

Each student has their own unique needs and distinctive styles of learning, and progressive education allows both the teacher and student to work together and form a learning experience. In a progressivism classroom, students are thoroughly learning not only about the curriculum but also about each other. Students collaborate with each other and learn to be accepting of each other and be more accepting of differences. Another teaching philosophy that I believe in is existentialism. Existential philosophy emphasizes a student's creative choice and provides them with individual freedom. The students are then required to ask their own questions, conduct their own experiences, which in turn helps them draw their own conclusions. Although we can provide various opportunities for students, in the end it all comes down to the student's own choice. I know from my personal experience this was true for me. Although, I was afforded many great opportunities, in the end many times, I chose not to take them. These choices can end up defining the students and as teachers we can only guide them, in the end, the choice is theirs. The management and organization of a classroom are also imperative to the learning process. A teacher's own belief system may influence the way the view their

The active learner is an individual who's participating in class activities and providing useful feedback within that activity. These activities could be as simple as discussion, writing, reading to more complex ones such as the evaluation of peers, or problem solving. The active learner can do these, either alone or cooperatively. [1]

A large part of my educational philosophy is based on the fundamentals of Progressivism. This philosophy, founded by John Dewey, organizes schools around the concerns, curiosity, and real world experiences of students. I agree with these ideas because people must continually learn to keep up with today’s fast paced world. I believe that when learning is relevant and enjoyable students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. Progressivism has respect for individuality, a high regard for science, and a receptivity to change that I feel is critical to successful education. As a Progressive teacher I will facilitate learning by helping students formulate meaningful questions and devise strategies to answer those questions. In my opinion, answers are best discovered through real world experience, especially hands on learning or pragmatism. I believe that there is a time and place for book-learning; however, there is no substitute for actually doing things. I

1). Research indicated the importance of active learning strategies, over the past few years, to help maximize the student’s education. A well-written lesson plan can cover the course content, maintain student attention, and incorporate the knowledge and skills the student needs to learn. A skilled educator can scrutinize the learning situation and differentiate instruction by using all the available resources. I think, to help facilitate learning, teachers should encourage students to be more responsible for their own education by engaging them to participate in individual or group activities, including collaboration with other students, hands-on activities, reading, writing, and verbal presentations.

Progressive education coincides with my belief that young children need to interact with their environment to nurture their natural curiosity and creativity. Progressive education allows the teacher to focus on the development of the whole child, which is critical since all developmental domains are interrelated. Children do not learn nor do they develop in isolation; therefore, the learning environment should support learning across all domains. For instance, when a child moves from crawling to walking new experiences open up for the child, their physical ability affects their cognitive ability as they venture out to explore areas of their environment that were limited to crawling. Both experimentalism and progressivism coincide with my belief that young children are active learners. These philosophies support my belief that children are critical thinkers and problem solvers as they actively attempt to make sense of the world through exploration. Furthermore, these types of ideologies correspond to my belief that the social and cultural context is relevant to learning.

In this student-centered philosophy, learning is loosely influenced by the facilitator. As such, independence, exploration and hands-on learning is successfully fostered. The distinction between teachers, trainers and facilitators must be duly noted in order to fully grasp their role in this philosophy. Teachers are typically content driven individuals who impart the knowledge of concepts and theories, whilst trainers are skill driven individuals who train people to develop practical skills and competencies in a particular area. In contrast, facilitators are process driven individuals aiding engagement

The first approach of student-centered learning that will be discussed is a teaching method called the Learning Cycle. A study was done with fifth grade students learning about sound. There were some students who were taught using the Learning Cycle, and some students were taught using the textbook approach. To see which method produced a greater understanding of sound the students were randomly selected, and an interview method was used in both groups to see what the students previously knew about sound. Then, in the instruction part of the procedure an instructor was used in both methods. In the Learning Cycle approach there were three phases: "exploration, concept introduction and concept application". During these three phases the students worked together in-groups while discussing their ideas and using manipulatives to act out the concepts. Also, the teacher would act as a facilitator, while the students discussed their ideas, and created more ideas and situations to figure out. During the lessons, the students were in active control and they could lead the lesson with their ideas and conclusions. The students were very excited to work together and the groups encouraged some of the students to share their ideas more willingly (Barman, & Barman 1996). Dinan

The development of social responsibility begins with family and continues with many external influences that include, but are not limited to, friends, siblings, peers, religious influences, and societal norms within the society you live. That learning continues as we grow and it is argued that universities play a central role in continuing to foster social responsibility, citizenship skills, and leadership skills in their students. To achieve this it is acknowledged that an active learning pedagogy must be adopted in the nation’s colleges and universities because active learning methods are effective in helping students develop critical and creative thinking skills as well as problem-solving skills (Laws, 1999; McDermott & the Physics Education

1.Active Learning is the process of participation in different fields of learning from active listening to looking at pictures and charts, speaking, interacting and doing things are all different ways of the learning process. Compared to the old conventional way of pasive listening these new learning methods have all been found to be more sucsessfull.

Therefore, some of the students might feel lost especially during the early stages of implementation of this approach as they are used to be spoon-fed and depend solely on the teachers to give

Progressivism will also be a part of my classroom. The world is constantly changing and as a part of the world we must be able to change with it as John Dewey, the man responsible for the success of progressivism, realized. Dewey relied on the scientific method to develop his ideas and found that books are no substitute for actually doing and experiencing in the learning process. I agree with Dewey on this point because in my classroom I plan to allow students to experience as much as they can first hand. Actually, being part of or performing an experiment helps to teach students because they are able to apply what they are learning to the real world. This ties in with the essentialist philosophy as well as the behaviorist philosophy. Progressivism also encourages social interaction between all students. Learning social skills is an important part of the learning process in school because this is one of the skills that the students will need in the world after school. Having activities and lab experiments in the classroom will encourage the growth of social skills.

As a teacher the main focus is on the students. In the progressivist teaching philosophy, student- centered learning is the focus. The progressivist style of learning not only looks out for the student in their education but also looks out for their well-being. As a progressivist teacher, they allow the student to make his/her own experience. From this experience, teachers use this as a way to get students