TAKE-HOME EXAM

NAME : GALIH HERMAWAN

ID : 20160810121
CLASS :C
SUBJECT : PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
LECTURER : EKO PURWANTI, PhD
___________________________________________________________________________

QUESTIONS

1. What do you know about the theory of human development?

2. How does the theory of human development relate to the principles of teaching and
learning?
3. What should teachers consider when teaching children in the classroom?
4. What should teachers consider when teaching adolescences in the classroom?
5. What should teachers consider when teaching adults in the classroom?

ANSWERS

1. Talking about human development, the things that come up in my mind are about
growth, development, and learning. I realized that learning the theories of human
development is an essential thing to learn. Why? Because, first of all, we as a human
developing from time to time, so knowing every phase of your life and also know
how to manage that in every phase is really important and essential thing to
understand. So, understanding human development not only gives an impact for our
personal lives but also for our kids in the future and regarding with now I’m taking
English Language Education in this university which means for several years to come
I’m projected to be a teacher, so all the knowledge from the human development
would give me a huge impact in the way I run the teaching and learning process later.
Understanding and having the skill to apply the theories of human development in
the process of teaching and learning is like guaranteed you will have an efficient and
successful teaching and learning process.
 Chart adapted from Erikson's 1959 Identity and the Life Cycle

That is the chart from Erikson theory about the human development, and that is the
exact thing that I learned in the class in the beginning of the semester. So, before
goes to my opinion about what is the human development in my persepective, there
are lots of theories about it out there but I prefer more to the Erikson’s theory. Why?
The influental writing of Erik Erikson (1902-1994) have stimulated over 50 years of
social science literature (Schwartz:2001). He was one of the first to propose a life‐
span model of human development which included eight successive psychosocial st
ages. Each stage is associated with an inherent conflict or crisis that the individual
must encounter and successfully resolve to proceed with development
(Sokol:2009). That are the reason that made me think the Erikson’s theory is reliable.
Beside, I also compared Erikson’s with other psychologist and found Erikson’s theory
as the most complete and has a clear explanation about the human development
with his life-span modeling like you can see in the chart. So, what I think about the
human development is a stages that happens in our life, the change,transisition,
issues that probably will happen to us, and for each phase its gonna be different
 situation and needed different reaction in order to manage and handle that in a
propper way. To make it cleare, i personally think that we couldn’t rely all the
knowledge about the human development into western theories, we also need to
look up to the Islamic perspective about the human development, to get the better
result and understanding about the human development.

2. How does the theory of human development relate to the principles of teaching and
learning? This was the same question that stuck on my mind in the very early meetings of this
class, it took 4 to 5 meetings for me to understand why I learned all the things about the
human development. Now, I realized that the most important thing to do to reach our goals
in the process of teaching and learning, or in other words, to make the teaching and learning
process going well, we should learn and understand the human development knowledge at
the very first place. Because, as a human, we experiencing multiple changes of

transformation, both physically and mentally. For the very simple example, you couldn’t teach

children the same way as you teach adolescence or an adult. Why? Because after learning all
the knowledge and the theory about human development I have a clear mind that the success
of teaching and learning process is related with how deep we understand and we properly
place our method of teaching and learning with every step of the human development itself.
You should learn the best way for teaching in every phase of human development, and also
as important as understanding the best way to teach, you should aware and know what issues
that could happen in every phase. With good understanding and mastering all the human
development aspect, I think we could make teaching and learning become more efficient and
furthermore we could maximize all the learners potential. There are several things that I
consider become the major factors why the human development relate to the principles
teaching and learning. Here are the several points including the explanation.

1) Intellectual factor

The intellectual capability is an instrumental thing in the way of teaching and learning, I
personally think that intellectual capability developing alongside with other aspects as the
human development aspect goes. So, I conclude that every phase of the human development
has a different Intelectual capability, which means we should treat and teach differently in
every phase. There is a statement that each individual has different intellectual capability
even they are in the same phases. I totally agree that, even in the same phases, every
individual has a different intellectual capability, but what I mean here is more generally like,
it absolutely has a really big margins between intellectual capability of children and the adult,
so the way we treat and teach them is absolutely not the same, that is my point. Talking about
individual intellectual capability in the same phases, it is already discussed in the human
development so we will be generalized and optimized to teach them in the best way, also like
a stated earlier that every phase has their own issues, so I think

2) Physical factor

The health condition of the learner will affect their ability to learn and concentrate in the
classroom. This physical factor also having changes from time to time according the human
development.

3) Mental factor

Attitudes are made up from the mental factors, that's why we need to pay
attention in building the mental factor itself. We know that attitude is an important thing in
the process of teaching and learning, the outcome of our learning process depends on our
attitude. That's why we should build a good mental environment in order to create the good

attitude outcome. There is an old saying “Attitude before Knowledge”, and what real

existence in our educational life that indicating the uses of human development theory in the
learning and teaching process is we can find in the elementary school. Where the learners
more likely focused to build their mental and attitude rather than focusing on main
knowledge and attempting to create and build good habits for them. So, it's more likely
creating the foundation first before build a skyscraper building. This is happening because in
order to make a learning system (curriculum), the government as the one who responsible
for that, reflecting it from the theory of human development.

4) Emotional and social factors

The emotional factor is developing from time to time, so to create a good emotional stability
for each learner we should learn the knowledge about the human development first, in order
to manage emotional condition from our learners, and also in the human development
theories we learn about all the issues that could appear, including the social factor issue. So,
later we will understand and will be able to combine our knowledge into the real practical
condition that might happen to the learners.

3. Mostly, people think that teaching a children is an easy and fun things to do. It
was also happened to me before the school observation changed my mind about teaching
children in the classroom. Now, I realized that teaching children demands a huge deal of
creativity and energy to keep the learning and teaching process going well. What we want to
create in the classroom is an effective teaching. Improving the quality and impact of teacher-
student interactions within the classroom depends upon a solid understanding of just what is
effective learning (Pianta:2011). According to Pianta, an effective teaching is about improving
the quality and impact between teacher and learner, it means teaching well through
interactions. Pianta also drew a map to achieve an effective learning, needed 3 aspects that
are emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. So, I want to reveal
what those 3 aspects actually mean and I think it will be a thing to consider to teaching a
children in a classroom.

1) Emotional support

Covering classroom climate, teacher sensitivity, and regard for student perspectives
(Pianta:2011). So, I conclude here, that teacher should create a warmth situation when the
students feel comfortable to interact with each other and also with their teacher. Building
this kind of environment is not an easy thing to do, the teacher should be more sensitive, the
teacher should pay more attention to everything that happens in the classroom and to every
student individually. Most importantly teacher should be a role model for all the students.
Then, respect students perspective, as a teacher we should always encourage all of students,
with doing this, it will increase students interest, motivation, and create wider point of view.
If this aspect running well in the classroom, I think the outcome is student will feel enjoy and
enthusiast during the learning activities and also student will feel safe to express their passion
and explore something new to learn.
 2) Classroom Organization

Covering Behaviour management, productivity, and instructional learning formats

(Pianta:2011). What I learned from this point that is, Teacher could control the student's
behavior inside the classroom with giving a direct example and the theories. So, it will
decrease the possible issues of misbehavior students in the classroom that could be obstacles
to achieve an effective learning. Then as a teacher, we must make sure that our classroom
and all the student are productive, so it is teacher responsibility to make it works. To make it
happen we must don't let the students feel bored, as a teacher we must be a creative person.
Providing students with knowledge, materials, and fun activity is a good way to make student
have an opportunities to learn and explore more effectively.

3) Instructional support

Covering concept development, quality of feedback, and language modelling (Pianta:2011).

Which means as a teacher we should develop the wat our students thinking and
understanding and take it to the higher level. Also, always give our students with quality
feedback. Clear, explanatory, and timely feedback to students is important for learning
(American Psychologist Asociation:2015). It means in giving a feedback as a teacher we must
make it sure that we also give an explanation and clear feedback. So, the feedback will
motivate the students rather than making them feel blamed. Then, language modeling, let's
take an example from teacher talk theories from Krashen (1981) with the theories is all about
how we as a teacher communicate with the students in the class, the models of the teacher
talk are like repetition, open-ended question, and self and parallel talk. This teacher talk has
a purpose to make a clearer signal, so the students will also receive a strong signal and clear
instruction with better understanding.

4. Adolescence for me is a transition period where we go through a significant

physical, emotional, intellectual and physical change. Where sometimes we are lack of
confident and unsure about our place in the future. As a teacher, we should help students
from the transition period and also make them succeed academically. So, the things that we
must consider as a teacher in teaching adolescence in the classroom, according to what I have
learned in the class from the presentation are :

1) Supportive

 Help students find their path and plan for facing their future.
 Always offering an assistance to students who need help.
 Reach students deeper if you aware that students having a problem outside
the classroom, allow them to share with you and give them an advice.
 Try to give a good example inside the classroom in order to gain students
positive response

2) Create a comfortable classroom environment

 Allow students to decorate the classroom feel. When I was still in my high
school, I was allowed to decorate the room as I like, and that made me
comfortable staying in the classroom.

 Demand student to respect one and another, and if someone isn’t you as a

teacher should handle it immediately

 Be patient with all your students to make them feel comfortable and safe
while exploring and sharing their ideas

3) Show that you are interested in your students

 Let students talk about themselves

 Knowing every student's name and use it often, it will make students feel
they exist in your mind
 Help students achieve their learning goals, provide the path and always
evaluate them

4) Make your students engaged in your class

 Sometimes work in fun activities to prevent the students from getting bored
 Pursue the students that they have a great potential and expect them to live
up their potential
 Use technology in teaching when its possible and appropriate
  Be aware of what is happening in your class, so the students also will think
that you care about the class

5) Be a role model for your students

 Always correcting miss understanding about anything that happens to your

students
 Be patience but also discipline
 Have a positive attitude
 Be understanding and forgiving

5. One of the most commonly applied frameworks of adult learning is andragogy,

described as the art and science of helping adults learn (Knowles and Associates:1984). What
a teacher should consider in teaching adult learners in the classroom. From what I have
learned in the last meeting where this topic being discussed, what glued to my mind is
pedagogy and andragogy both are the art and science of teaching children and adult. So, here
what will become my focus is the andragogy. Since I have learned and knowing the major
points of the andragogy, I think here are the things that teacher should consider while
teaching adult:

 During the class we must respect adult perspective

 Learning material should be relevant to the learner’s job or life, in order to

make learning and teaching process become effective

 Get them involved in planning and evaluating their learning process
 Be passionate when teaching to attract attention from learners, because

adults can tell immediately if the teacher doesn't have an interest in what’s

going on (teaching process)

 Encourage them to ask a question because adult learners come to the class
with full of experience whether it is life or academic experience. So,
 encourage them to ask a question to build their critical thinking and develop
their problem-solving skills.
 Correction, since we know that adult learners bring lots of experience and
knowledge, this is our duty to make it clear to do a correction to divide which
one is right and which one is wrong
 Don't forget to have fun. No one ever said that school and learning only can
be fun for kindergarten and elementary school. So, in the advanced stage of
formal education stage, I think the teacher should be as creative as they can
to create fun environment classroom. Because in my opinion adult also easy
to get bored.
 Bibliography

American Psychological Association, Coalition in Psychology in Schools and Education. 2015.

Top 20 principles from psychology for preK-12 teaching and learning. Retrieved from
http://www.apa.org/ed/schools/cpse/top-twenty-principles.pdf

Eriksen, Erik. H. 1959. Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: International Universities Press

Knowles, M.S. , and Assoc. 1984. Andragogy in Action: Applying Modern Principles of Adult
Learning. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass

Krashen, Stephen. 1981. Second Language Acquistion and Second Language Learning.
California: Pergamon Press Inc.

Pianta, Robert. C. 2011. Teaching Children Well. www.americanprogress.org

Schwartz, S. J. (2001). The evolution of Eriksonian and neo‐

Eriksonian identity theory and research: A review and integration. Identity: An Internation
al Journal of Theory and Research

Sokol, Justin T. (2009) "Identity Development Throughout the Lifetime: An Examination of

Eriksonian Theory,"Graduate Journal of Counseling Psychology: Vol. 1: Iss. 2, Article 14.
Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/gjcp/vol1/iss2/14