Assessment task 2: Reflective Essay on Learning

Name: Emily Greenberg

Student number: 26005123
Unit code/title: EDF1303 Learning and Educational Inquiry 1
Tutor: Marc Pruyn
Tutorial day/time: Thursday 11am

Introduction:
Throughout life, it goes without question that individual people learn through experience.
These experiences allow us to grow, mature, evolve and learn. A personal learning experience
is one that is unique to the individual and that allows them to discover something that they did
not know prior to that experience. For example, learning how to tie shoelaces or learning how
to drive a car. There are many examples of personal learning experiences and many places in
which they can occur. School is an example of an environment where many children, from
ages as young as five, commonly develop learning experiences and episodes. This is because
children are exposed to so much information every day. These learning experiences hold sheer
significance across many different categories specific to education in schools. Throughout this
essay, I will be focusing on a personal learning episode of my own which is linked to social
and emotional development of students and how this development can have an impact on
ones motivation. Moreover, social and emotional development can be closely associated with
the importance of the peer group (particularly in upper primary years), social identity, family
relationships, social environments, adolescent grouping and self-esteem. All of these themes
will be discussed in detail throughout the latter paragraphs of this essay to depict how they
can each have an overall impact on effective learning. To conclude, an explanation will be
provided of what I have learnt from my personal experience and how this may effect my
decisions made in the future as a professional educator (McInerney, 2014).
Body paragraph 1: Emilys personal learning experience
As discussed above, school is a very typical environment for learning experiences to take
place. This was the case for me. Personally, I would describe myself as a motivated and hardworking individual who does not tolerate disruption to my work ethic. I have always been
someone who cares about my grades and who wants to succeed in life. Therefore, when I
made the challenging transition from primary school to secondary school, I decided to choose
my friendship group wisely. I wanted to ensure that I made friends with people who had a
similar work ethic to my own. This would guarantee achievement in making the most of my
studies. Obviously, throughout my entire high school career, I had friends with opposing
morals, however I tended to generally associate with people similar to myself, to avoid
clashes in personalities and beliefs. Because I was always very particular about whom I
wanted to surround myself by at school, I often felt as though I was being challenged to work
hard within my group of friends. For example, I often felt very guilty when my friends asked
me a question about the readings of which I had not yet completed. This put a sense of
motivational pressure on me to go home and catch up in areas where I was falling behind.

Sometimes, this competitiveness amongst my peers had its pitfalls; particularly when I would
receive a test result lower than everyone elses in my group. However, most of the time it
pushed me even harder to keep persisting. Moreover, my relationship with my parents was
another source of motivation for me throughout my secondary school years. I am very lucky
to have two supportive parents who have always been actively involved in my studies,
providing assistance and help where they could and always guiding me to accomplish my
best. I believe that this support is crucial for the majority of people in order to be successful.
When young children and adolescents lack support from loved ones throughout life events
such as school, it is often easy to develop an apathetic attitude towards study and hard-work.
Similarly, when students do not have a goal of which they are passionate towards and driven
to achieve, this can also contribute to difficulties in succeeding, as goal setting is an important
part of life. One should always have a clear vision of where they would like to be. Alongside
this, it is essential to set a number of smaller goals along the way as accomplishment drives
ambition. In the following paragraphs, I will be drawing on the relationship between my
personal learning experience and some theory based on motivation and what factors derive
from it.
Body paragraph 2: Links between learning episode and course material:
The social behaviour of children plays an important role in their overall cognitive
development. Children tend to model social and academic skills displayed by their
acquaintances and are generally rewarded for behaving appropriately by their teachers and
peers (McInerney, 2014). This can be highlighted through my own personal learning episode
in choosing to make friends with other determined and naturally smart individuals in the hope
of raising my own standard of work and achieving my goals. Motivation plays a key role in
the social and emotional development of children, particularly in adolescents. Motivation
refers to the internal state which drives an individual to carry out a particular task (McInerney,
2014). The two most recent theoretical approaches used to measure and investigate a childs
motivational processes include expectancy-value theory and goal-attainment theory (Xiang,
McBride, Guan, & Solomon, 2003). Firstly, the expectancy-value theory refers to the idea that
motivation and success go hand in hand (Wigfield, Tonks, & Klaudia, 2009). Within this
theory, individuals can be categorized in two ways, either as high-need achievers (where the
need to achieve outweighs the fear of failure), or low-need achievers (simply the opposite).
Personally, my desire to achieve has always been more substantial than the fear of failure, and
henceforth, I am a high-need achiever (Atkinson, & Raynor, 1975). Moreover, the goalattainment theory encourages individuals to set, and hopefully achieve, challenging goals in
order to fulfil their expectations. Due to the fact that I had intrinsically motivated and high-

achieving friends at school, my goal was to keep up with them at their scholastic level
(Maehr, & Zusho, 2009). This leads to the focal point of this essay: the impact that peer group
pressure, ones social identity and family relationships have on an individuals levels of
motivation.
Conformity and peer influence on academic achievement:
Conformity refers to the changes in ones behaviour in order to match the socially appropriate
behaviours and attitudes of another particular person or group (Cialdini, & Trost, 1998). The
most common reason that explains why individuals conform to group pressure is due to the
perceived rewards (Bandura, 1968). In my case, I conformed to my friendship group by often
displaying behaviours indicative of consensus among the group. The reward gained from this
conformity was one that was in sync with my goals of self-concept and achievement:
affiliation with the group. This led to feelings of belongingness and inclusion. Another reason
individuals adopt certain behaviours and attitudes in order to conform to others is the idea of
self-concept (Masland, & Lease, 2013). Self-concept refers to the written descriptions about
oneself, such as age, height, gender, likes and dislikes and self-concept often goes hand in
hand with self-esteem which is the evaluative component as it refers to judgments about ones
feelings and emotions (McInerney, 2014). Relatedly, self-concept can be controlled by peer
groups and so conforming to these groups assists in reinforcing the appraisals that individuals
have towards themselves (Cialdini, & Goldstein, 2004). Moreover, research has revealed that
children often conform to both negative and positive behaviours of a peer group. Negative
domains tend to be more likely to be followed when the peer group is of a high social
standard and, in turn, the group ultimately have more rewards to offer in terms of popularity
and self-approval from others. Positive domains, on the contrary, are reinforced, often by
academic success (Sage, & Kindermann, 1999). This can be reflected in my own personal
learning episode.
The importance of ones social identity:
Social identity refers to that part of an individuals self-concept which derives from his
knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the emotional
significance attached to that membership (Tajfel, 1978). The individual as a person
(personal identity) differs from the individual as a member of a group (social identity)
(Abrams, & Hogg, 1990). The transition from personal identity to social identity can lead to
depersonalisation of an individual in favour of the overall group purpose. This, however,
should not be perceived in a negative light as often an individual is gaining an additional

identity on top of their own personal identity (Korte, 2007). Ultimately, individuals will
choose to portray behaviours that fortify group norms, and thus, their own individual norms
(Terry, & Hogg, 1996). For example, I was a part of a peer group that was academicallyinclined and therefore based on the social identity theory it can be assumed that positive
academic behaviours were deemed normative by all group members. Therefore, when some
members of the group began doing the readings for a certain subject of importance, other
members would generally copy these behaviours because this leads to reinforcement of the
peer group norm (Masland, et al., 2013).
Family relationships and the impact of socio-economic status:
The social and emotional development of an individual with regards to motivation and
determination can often be explained by the nature of the relationship with their family. It is
crucial, particularly throughout adolescence, that individuals have the opportunity to seek
assistance and guidance from their parents (Eccles, & Harold, 1993). Findings have found
that secure family relationships result in higher social competence, self-esteem, emotional
adjustment and overall wellbeing of an individual. Furthermore, children who are connected
to their parents generally have a more supportive base which allows them to roam and explore
the physical world around them and mature socially. In comparison, since connectedness to
parents promotes secure peer relations and positive relationships outside of the family,
adolescence who are not as connected with their parents are often withdrawn and socially
isolated (Dishion, Nelson, & Bullock, 2004). For example, I am fortunate enough to be a part
of an inclusive and loving family who are continually offering their support throughout my
life. As a result, I have never been afraid to ask for help when I required it and this assisted
me throughout my years of schooling to receive grades that I was often very proud of.
Moreover, the social economic status (SES) of a family has a huge impact on an adolescents
development. In general opportunities are greater for families of a high SES compared to
those of a low SES. This includes educational opportunities, social opportunities, physical
health opportunities and financial opportunities (Luo, & Waite, 2005). Due to the fact that my
parents are categorised in a medium-high SES bracket, I was sent to one of the best public
schools in Victoria and this opened up many opportunities for me. These opportunities
involved teachers who pushed me to achieve my best, friends who motivated me to study
hard, and learning programs suited to my personal preferences. Overall, these opportunities
led to goal attainment and success.
Body paragraph 3: Explanation of what I have learnt from my learning episode and what this
means for me as a teacher:

The reason that I chose to share this particular learning episode is not only because it held the
most significance for me throughout my entire secondary school career, but also because it is
from this learning episode that I have gained some valuable life skills increases in self
esteem, motivation, and overall physical and social growth, for example. I will keep this
learning episode close with me throughout my years as a professional advisor and aim to
promote social, emotional and behavioural development through various techniques including
teaching effectively, providing constructive feedback, setting goals and promoting positive
interactions within the classroom through peer tutoring and cooperative behaviour. Effective
teaching involves addressing social, emotional and behavioural domains. In doing so,
academic success can be achieved. Teachers should aim to prove to students that they are
capable of learning and succeeding because once children know their aptitudes, the
opportunities are seemingly never ending. This can be done through providing feedback. It is
important that the feedback provided by the professional educator is reflective of the students
performance. In saying this however, it is also crucial that the feedback is not too harsh in that
it damages a students belief that he or she is able to be successful. Feedback should be
constructive, and should be provided to all students, both high achieving and low achieving to
provide an indication to the class that every individual can always do even better in every
aspect of work they carry out. Overall, this improves the self-concepts of students and leads to
more resourceful and effective learning. Another method used in effective teaching to
improve self-concept is goal setting. Students are satisfied when they finally reach their
challenging goals that have required a lot of effort, detail and time to achieve. According to
Ampofo, & Osei-Owusu, 2015, goal ambitiousness is linked with academic success. Teachers
should ensure that the goals set by individuals are challenging ones, as it has been proven that
easy, non-thorough goals leads to student belief that the teacher does not obtain a potential to
learn and are not capable of achieving highly. Arguably, the most important aspect of
promoting social, emotional and behavioural development in the classroom is the
endorsement of positive interactions among students. When students interact with their
classmates in a positive manner, opportunities arise for students in relation to group work.
Group work enables students to learn from their peers and consider the views and experiences
of other people. Through peer tutoring, highly academic students are often paired with
students who tend to be struggling to provide guidance and assistance throughout the
particular task. This can be extremely beneficial in boosting the self-esteem and confidence of
the less academic individual as they are likely to model the behaviour of their peer tutor, and
also in practicing explanation and patience of the more academically inclined individual.
Finally, cooperative learning encourages students to work together in collaborative groups to
achieve team success, however, this success can only be reached from each individuals

learning. This enforces individual and group responsibility and leads to positive achievements
for all students across the board, whether they are high achieving or the contrary, such as
improved grades, intergroup relations and personal self-esteem (McInerney, 2014).

Conclusion:
It can be concluded that social, emotional and behavioural development is an extremely
significant aspect of maturity. As we grow, we need to develop skills in order to be able to
socialise, understand, and act appropriately to certain scenarios. Often, our social, emotional
and behavioural development can have an impact on our levels of motivation and ultimately,
our overall academic success. Motivation is often influenced by a want or need to conform to
social or group norms, family relationships, the socio-economic status of an individual and
ones self-concept. Therefore, it is important for teachers to acknowledge these influential
factors and enforce classroom tasks and behaviours in particular manners so that they promote
motivation in order to improve the overall social, emotional and behavioural aspects of an
individuals learning.

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