Reflection on my Teaching Practices or Beliefs related to the Three Learning Domains

 

Reflection on my Teaching Practices or Beliefs related to the Three Learning Domains 

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

        

 My understanding of the three domains of learning has gained its height and I realized that effectiveness in the classroom depends on how a teacher presents his lesson for the student’s development. We know that all students do not possess the same similar abilities and a teacher must best fit his teaching process according to the needs of the students.

Right from my bachelor's degree, I was made familiar with the importance of including affective, cognitive, or psychomotor domains in my lesson objectives. Even during my micro-teaching, it went well. However, during my teaching practice, I found it a bit difficult to inculcate all three domains in my lesson due to the time limit as I got three periods a week with 45 minutes per period. The time period limited me from using all those domains at a time. and then my first year of teaching Although I tried hard to include and use it, it was a difficult task for me because of the time frame and the time allotted for each teaching period. It was the point that really made me sit and reflect. I then realized to visit the curriculum and the instructional guide so that I could have a closer look at the suggested learning activities that I can use for teaching in the classroom. It made my planning and implementation easier and my understanding of the domains grew gradually. Thus, I started shaping my lesson objectives and lesson plans carefully by giving priority to the inclusion of affective, cognitive, or psychomotor domains based on the allotted time frame and the number of periods provided to me in a week. In addition, I also included a formative assessment to further strengthen learning in the classroom.

In the initial stage of my teaching career, I used to think that the psychomotor domain was meant only for PE, sports, or music classes. Later, having analyzed the definition of the psychomotor domain I realized that psychomotor domains encourage learning by doing that includes behavior, skills, physical movement of the body, good coordination, and other motor skills (Mubarok, 2019). It means any activities carried out in the classroom that have physical dexterity such as roleplay, writing legibly, creating any kind of graphic organizer, meeting with group members and discussing, etc. are psychomotor activities (Kozenieski, n.d.). Moreover, Dave (1970) stated that while performing psychomotor domain students are engaged in demonstration through the activity. Thus, I do not feel that Seifert & Sutton’s quote, “Taxonomies related to abilities and skills that are physical, or psychomotor, have also been used less widely than affective taxonomies, with the notable exception of one area of teaching where they are obviously relevant: physical education” (p. 223) as accurate sentiment in my classroom. For instance, as a language teacher, I should consider language as an art that includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing as the main areas of development that students need to improve and learn. I expect my students to be skillful learners both in verbal and non-verbal cues for better communication and comprehension. On the other hand, transferable skills to encode and decode ideas in a graphic form such as concept mapping, graphs, etc. for accurate information (O’Neill and Murphy, 2010) are some activities that I carry out to inculcate psychomotor domains in my classroom. In doing so, I also inculcate the level of psychomotor complexity in my lessons based on Simpson’s (1972) seven major categories that proceed from simplest to the most complex behavior.

Differentiate teaching is the extra effort utilized by teachers in the classroom to provide support variance in learning among the students (Tomlinson, n.d.). In other words, different content is taught to different groups of students based on their abilities by keeping them in small groups (Lindemann, 2013). On the other hand, learning styles are the strategy whereby students are involved in learning through different means using different teaching materials. To make my teaching more effective, based on the learning ability of my students I sometimes group my students based on their achievement and acquisition level whereby I use the VARK model such as using visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading and writing to differentiate teaching (Team, 2020). But now, after going through this course, I really feel that differentiated teaching should be my goal for effective teaching in my classroom so that I would be able to reach every individual student and meet their needs based on their ability. Such strategies reflect the learning style because learning style has a direct impact on the learner’s sense and effect on them based on the process in, which they acquire the information.

 

References

Dave, R.  H. (1970).  Developing and Writing Behavioral Objectives.  Tucson: Educational Innovators Press.

Kozenieski. (n.d.). Psychomotor Learning. https://sites.google.com/site/mrskozenieskisclass/my-calendar/psychomotor-learning

Lindemann, R. (2013). Learning Styles, Differentiated Instruction, and Interactivity in Education. https://www.readspeaker.com/blog/learning-styles-differentiated-instruction-interactivity-education/

Mubarok, Z. (2019). Psychomotor Domain of Speaking Activity in The English Textbook for Malaysian Primary School Grade 4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335347912_PSYCHOMOTOR_DOMAIN_OF_SPEAKING_ACTIVITY_IN_THE_ENGLISH_TEXTBOOK_FOR_MALAYSIAN_PRIMARY_SCHOOL_GRADE_4

O’Neill, G., and Murphy, F. (2010). Guide to Taxonomies of Learning. https://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/ucdtla0034.pdf

Seifert, K., & Sutton, R. (2009). Educational psychology. The Saylor Foundation. licensed under CC BY 3.0. https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Educational-Psychology.pdf 

Simpson E.J. (1972). The Classification of Educational Objectives in the Psychomotor Domain. Washington, DC: Gryphon House.

Team, S. (2020). 4 Types of Learning Styles: Explaining the VARK Model. https://sphero.com/blogs/news/learning-styles-for-kids

Tomlinson, C. A. (n.d.). What is Differentiated Instruction? https://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction