ABSTRACT
Learning
fundamentals of the learning process
Motivation
Concepts of need and drive.
Classroom motivation – social relationships in the classroom, incentives, attitudes, interests, personal involvement, the creative effect of mild emotional tension.
Goal-directed activity
Form of activity – trial and error behaviour, insight, reasoning, imagining, thinking, problem solving.
The teacher’s role in directing activity and organizing the total learning situation so as to facilitate learning.
Reinforcement
Satisfactions of needs – social approval, satisfaction from success.
factors influencing learning and retention
The nature of the material to be learned
Level of difficulty, length, relevance for the learner, meaningfulness, interference with previous learning.
Method of presentation
Adequacy of motivation.
Teacher’s technique – rapport with class, method of organization of lesson, audiovisual aids, distribution and types of practice, degree of involvement of the learner.
Teaching for transfer to other situations.
Individual differences of learners
Age, sex, developmental level, experiential background, intellectual capacity, structure of the mind, motivational differences.
Emotional factors in learning.
The concept of readiness.
learning difficulties in school
The characteristic attitudes of failing children.
Main causes of failure.
Value of early recognition of failing children.
Readjustment of failing children to the school learning situation.
Remedial teaching.