FACILITATING LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHINGMODULE 2: LEARNER-

CENTEREDPSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES (LCP)

NTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

In this module, challenge yourself to attain the following learning outcomes:

1. Explain the 14 principles,
2. Advocate the use of the 14 principles in the teaching-learning.

CONTENT
A. Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors
B. Motivational and Affective Factors
C. Developmental and Social Factors
D. Individual Differences Factors

Introduction

You, the learner, are the center of instruction. The world of instruction revolves
around you. This module is focused on the fourteen principles that run through the
Learner-Centered Psychological Principles.

The Learner- Centered Psychological Principles were put together by the

American Psychological Association. The following fourteen (14) psychological
principles pertain to the learner and the learning process.

The 14 principles have the following aspects:

● They focus on psychological factors that are primarily external 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
thatinteract with these internal factors.
● The principles are intended to deal holistically with learners in the context of
real-worldlearning situations. Hus, they are best understood as an organized set of
principles; noprinciple 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,
(4) individual differences factors influencing learners and learning.
● Finally, the principles are intended to apply to all learners – from children, to
teachers, to administrators, to parents, and to community members involved in our
educational system.

Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors

1. Nature 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 experience.
● There are different types of learning processes: for example, habit formation in
motor learning and learning that involves the generation of knowledge or cognitive skills
and learning strategies.
● Learning in schools emphasizes the use of intentional processes that students
can use to construct meaning from information, experiences, and their own thoughts
and beliefs.
● Successful learners are active, goal-directed, self-regulating and assume
personal responsibility for contributing to their own learning.

2. Goals of the learning process

The successful learner, over time and with support and instructional guidance,
can create meaningful, coherent representations 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 filling gaps, resolving inconsistencies and deepening their
understanding of the subject matter so that they can reach longer-term goals.
● Educators can assist learners in creating meaningful learning goals that are
consistent with both personal and educational aspirations and interests.

3. Construction of knowledge
The successful earner can link new information with existing knowledge in
meaningful ways.
● Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to build links between
new information and experiences and their existing knowledge base. The nature of
these links can take a variety of forms, such as adding to, modifying, or reorganizing
existing knowledge or skills. How these links are made or developed may vary in
different subject areas, and among students with varying talents, interests and abilities.
However, unless new knowledge becomes integrated with the learner’s prior knowledge
and understanding, this new knowledge remains isolated, cannot be used most
effectively in new tasks, and does not transfer readily to new situations.
]● Educators can assist learners in acquiring and integrating knowledge by a
number of strategies that have been shown to be effective with learners of varying
abilities, such as concept mapping and thematic organization or categorizing.

4. Strategic thinking
The successful learner can create a repertoire of thinking and reasoning
strategies to achieve complex learning goals.
● Successful learners use strategic thinking in their approach to learning,
reasoning, problem-solving and concept learning.
 ● They understand and use a variety of strategies to help them reach learning
and performance goals, and to apply their knowledge in novel situations.
● Learning outcomes can be enhanced if educators assist learners in developing,
applying, and assessing their strategic learning skills.

5. Thinking about thinking

Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring mental operations facilitate
creative and critical thinking.
● Successful learners can reflect on how they think and learn, set reasonable
learning or performance goals, select potentially appropriate learning strategies or
methods, and monitor their progress toward these goals.
● In addition, successful learners know what to do if a problem occurs or if they
are not making sufficient or timely progress toward a goal. They can generate
alternative methods to reach their goal.
● Instructional methods that focus on helping learners develop these higher order
(metacognitive) strategies can enhance student learning and personal responsibility for
learning.
6. Context of learning
Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture, technology,
and instructional practices. Learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers play a major
interactive role with both the learner and the learning environment.
● Cultural or group influences on students can impact many educationally
relevant variables, such as motivation, orientation toward learning, and thinking
strategies.
● Technologies and instructional practices must be appropriate for learner’s level
of prior knowledge, cognitive abilities and their learning and thinking strategies.
● The classroom environment, particularly the degree to which it is nurturing or
not, can also have significant impacts on student learning. Motivational and Affective
Factors
7. Motivational and emotional influences on learning
What and how much is learned is influenced by the learner’s motivation.

Motivation to learn, in turn, is influenced by the individual’s emotional states,

beliefs, interests and goals, and habits of thinking.
● The rich, internal world of thoughts, beliefs and goals, and expectations for
success or failure can enhance or interfere with the learner’s quality of thinking and
information processing.
● Students’ beliefs about themselves as learners and the nature of learning have
a marked influence on 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 performance. Mild anxiety can also enhance learning and
performance by focusing the learner’s attention on a particular task. However, intense
negative emotions (anxiety, panic, rage, insecurity) and related thoughts (worrying
about competence, ruminating about failure, fearing punishment, ridicule or stigmatizing
labels) generally detract 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 learners’ intrinsic motivation to learn which is in large part a function of meeting
basic needs to be competent and to exercise personal control.
● Intrinsic motivation is facilitated on tasks that learners perceive as interesting
and personally relevant and meaningful, appropriate in complexity and difficulty to the
learners’ abilities, and on which they believe they can succeed.
9. Effects of motivation on effort.
Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and
guided practice. Without learners’ motivation to learn, the willingness to exert this effort
is unlikely without coercion.
● Effort is another major indicator of motivation to learn. The acquisition of
complex knowledge and skills demands the investment of considerable learner energy
and strategic effort, along with persistence over time.
● Educators need to be concerned with facilitating motivation by strategies that
enhance learner effort and commitment to learning and to achieving high standards of
comprehension and understanding.

Developmental and Social Factors

10. Developmental influences on learning

As individuals develop, here are different opportunities and constraints for
learning. Learning is most effective when differential development within and across
physical, intellectual, emotional, and social domains is taken into account.
● Individuals learn best when material is appropriate to their developmental level
and is presented in an enjoyable and interesting way.
● Because individual development varies across intellectual, social, emotional,
and physical domains, achievement in different instructional domains may also vary.
● Overemphasis on one type of developmental readiness – such as reading
readiness – may prelude learners from demonstrating that they are capable in other
areas of performance. The cognitive, emotional, and social development of individual
learners, and how they interpret life experiences 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 communications between adults and children can
influence 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 influences on learning Learning is influenced by social interactions,
interpersonal relations, and communication with others.
● Learning can be enhanced when the learner has the 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.
● Quality personal relationships that provide stability, trust, and caring can
increase learners’ sense of belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a
positive climate for learning. Family influences, positive interpersonal support and
instruction in self-motivation strategies can offset factors that interfere with optimal
learning such as negative beliefs about competence in a particular subject, high levels
of test anxiety, negative sex role expectations, and undue pressure to perform well.

Individual Differences Factors

12. Individual differences in learning
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 learners reach their learning goals.
● Educators need to help students examine their learning preferences and
expand and modify them, if necessary.
● The interaction between learner differences and curricular and environmental
conditions is another key factor affecting learning outcomes. Educators need to be
sensitive to individual differences, in general. They also need to attend to learner
perceptions of the degree to which these differences are accepted and adapted to by
varying instructional methods and materials

13. Learning and diversity Learning is most effective when differences in learners’
linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds are taken into account.
● The same basic principles of learning, motivation, and effective instruction
apply to all learners. However, language, ethnicity, race, beliefs and socio-economic
status all can influence learning. Careful attention to these factors in the instructional
setting enhances the possibilities for designing and implementing appropriate learning
environments.
● When learners perceive that their individual differences in abilities,
backgrounds, cultures, and experiences are valued, respected, and accommodated in
learning tasks and contexts, 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 –
are integral parts of the learning process.
●Assessment provide important information to both the learner and teacher at all
stages of the learning process.
 ●Effective learning takes place when learners feel challenged to work towards
appropriately high goals; therefore, appraisal of the learner’s cognitive strengths and
weaknesses, 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 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 assessments 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 enhance motivation and self-directed learning. Alexander and Murphy gave a
summary of the 14 principles and distilled them into five areas:

1. The knowledge base.

One’s existing knowledge serves as the foundation of all future learning. The
learner’s previous knowledge will influence new learning specifically on how he
represents new information, makes associations, and filters new experiences.
2. Strategic processing and control.
Learners can develop skills to reflect and regulate their thoughts and behaviors in
order to learn more effectively (metacognition).
3. Motivation and effect.
Factors such as intrinsic motivation (from within), reasons for wanting to learn,
personal goals and enjoyment of learning tasks all have a crucial role in the learning
process.
4. Development and Individual Differences.
Learning is a unique journey for each person because each learner has his own
unique combination of genetic and environmental factors that influence him.
5. Situation or context.
Learning happens in the context of a society as well as within an individual.