Reflection Based on Schunk’s Application 2.1

 

Reflection Based on Schunk’s Application 2.1

Author: Santosh Kumar Biswa, Sr. Teacher, Damphu CS, Tsirang, Bhutan

 

My Thoughts on the Passage

After going through Schunk’s (2012) Application 2.1, it is realized that the left hemisphere of the brain processes academic content, and the right hemisphere of the brain processes context. He pointed out rightly that most of the teaching focuses more on the content than the context for rapid syllabus coverage. Most teachers give very little effort to the process of learning the context from the text. Students are mostly taught to pass the exam rather than learn about life events due to the focus given more to content teaching (Schunk, 2012). Schunk’s text “Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective (6^th ed.)” made me realize that teachers should be teaching in their classrooms with more emphasis on the context part than the content.

How do I manage to appeal to both hemispheres? Are some units more left-brain-centric while others are more right-brain-centric?

My students experience 21st-century learning in the classroom because, more than giving the lecture, I engage them through group or peer activities. Mostly, my teaching is based on the process of learning, where students themselves discover new knowledge by the means of collaborating, researching, discussing, etc. To make my students learn the content with the use of their left hemisphere, I engage them through various activities and make them think logically. It is because the left brain is responsible for logical functions whereby students are engaged in verbal and analytical processes (Gallagher, 2005). On the other hand, while making them use the right hemisphere for contextual learning, I engage them to think creatively by means of comparing, contrasting, analyzing, making connections, discussing, etc. I believe that teaching is not only about making students know how to write and read, but should prepare students for life. I never limit their creativity and narrow their interests but always welcome them to try new things during the learning process so that learning becomes meaningful (Coch, 2021). For instance, in class twelve in our education system, students are taught how to write an argumentative essay because they study how to write a persuasive essay in class eleven. So, in class twelve, I never teach them the features and format of the argumentative essay. Instead, I encourage them to explore and come up with the differences between argumentative and persuasive essays. During the presentation in class, we compare and contrast two essays and derive our own features and format, after which I direct them to again compare with an existing format and features readily available on the internet. This process helps students learn the content as well as the context together. 

My lessons are neither more left-brain-centric nor more right-brain-centric. All the time, the content and the context are always balanced because I believe that spoon-feeding never helps students learn and we always need to balance our teaching to produce lifelong learners. It is often seen that teachers who provide vast notes in the classroom and make their lectures interesting often fail to achieve the expected results from their students because it is often noticed that students struggle and end up memorizing the text at the end (Gallagher, 2005). Thus, I encourage learning by doing processes in the classroom with maximum interactions so that we contextualize the content for better understanding and output. 

Reflect on the factors that might influence why you might focus more on content rather than process or process over content. What determines your focus?

Because of a variety of factors within the student, I occasionally find myself in the classroom needing to focus more on content than process. Some students are slow learners, and their mental levels are low due to their own intellectual disabilities. The other factor is the physical factor of the students. There are some students with health issues that hamper their learning because such health factors affect their ability to learn and concentrate (Mondal, n.d.). On the other hand, mental factors have a significant impact because the majority of children in our school come from broken homes and are mentally unbalanced as a result of being socially and emotionally abused, as well as being unmotivated to learn well. I also believe that sometimes a teacher’s personality, behavior, and motivation also influence learning, whereby students show less interest and the teacher has to switch to content learning.

 

References

Coch, D. (2021). Brain hemispheres and education: Left, right, and wrong. https://solportal.ibe-unesco.org/articles/brain-hemispheres-and-education-left-right-and-wrong/

Gallagher, S. H. (2005). Left-Brained Versus Right-Brained: Which is Best for Learning? https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/632

Mondal, P (n.d.). 7 Important Factors that May Affect the Learning Process. https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/learning/7-important-factors-that-may-affect-the-learning-process/6064

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6^th ed.). Pearson.  https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id=53ad2847cf57d75c068b45c5&assetKey=AS%3A273549456019456%401442230680395