Manuel Tzul

Psychology of learning
July 18, 2016
The classroom observation took place on Tuesday July 19, 2016 at the Corozal
Community College. The classroom was a reading summer class that was offered to
the upcoming first form students entering in the high school. The class observed
was a 40 minutes session in the class 1Y; during the times of 11:10 a.m to 11: 50
a.m. The students in the class was very diverse; it was noticeable due to their
uniforms. Their behaviour also displayed that these students were from different
areas and households. The classroom setting was chosen to observe and record the
behaviour displayed by students. Moreover, the students are undergoing a process
of adaptation to the new environment and new classmates.
Introduction
The students were a little late because of their previous subject teacher. Upon
their arrival the classroom was opened, there were 5 columns and 6 rows of chairs
in the class making up seats for 35 students.

We could notice one student in

particular that was misbehaving and was going to give trouble in the class. However
the other students went in the class in an orderly manner and prepared for the
lesson.
The students were ready to being the class the instructor greeted them in a polite
manner. The same individual continued to talk and making noise. This person heard
the teacher giving the instructions; he started to mimic the words of the teacher.
Eventually he noticed that all of the students in the class were focused on what the
teacher was saying and he decided to pay attention.
The students were then given hand-outs for them to read. The teacher gave the
students their instructions for the lesson and were told to group. The students were

Manuel Tzul
Psychology of learning
July 18, 2016
prompted before and knew to what group they belonged and the execution was
orderly.

Development
After the students were grouped the teacher assigned the different groups
with paragraphs in the hand-out. Each group was to practice their assigned
paragraph that was to read during the final reading. All groups started to read
loudly at once; this caused the class to become noisy. Some students were reading
and others were just talking to each other, and few were just not interested in the
class.
The readings started with the first group, and other groups were not ready as yet.
Students were still distracted chatting with each other and doing their own thing as
the first group read. Others in their groups were still practicing their own reading
and were not paying attention to the other readers.
There was a student during this point of the lesson that seemed not interested in
the class. This students was slouching and writing on his arm and was also
distracting another student of the group. The students that were distracted and not
paying attention to the readings were the same ones that had trouble with reading.
We noticed that when it was time for them to read they refused to do so and were
forced to participate. These students when reading mumbled, had trouble with
fluency and pronunciation. Hence we can say that they refused to learn because
they dont want to feel embarrassed as these students need to be coached to
participate in reading.

Manuel Tzul
Psychology of learning
July 18, 2016
The class continued with the same practice with the readers just reading by
themselves and others focusing on practicing of just not paying attention. The
teacher noticed of the mismanagement of the activity and approached the class to
correct their behaviour. Skinner theory of operant conditioning says that an
individual can be conditioned to do a certain task. (McLeod, n.d.)

Behaviour Theories and Theorist:

In the 40 minutes session we observed at the C.C.C we can say that the class
was very full of different behaviours. The first behaviour we noticed was even before
the lesson started a particular student was behaving too hyper. He was talking to
other classmates and was trying to be the centre of attraction. As the lesson started
the teacher was giving out the instructions for the class this individual tried to
mimic the teacher but as the other classmates were not paying attention to him;
then he decided to just focus on the teacher. The management of the teacher was
very effective and it was noticeable that the students are being conditioned. The
students got into groups, they already knew where to go to and with who they will
work. This scenario is a very good example of the skinners operant conditioning.
The group of student are already conditioned or taught where they need to go and
with whom to group up as soon as the teacher gives the instruction to make groups.
Bandura social learning theory suggests that children are surrounded by
many influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on childrens
TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school. These models provide

Manuel Tzul
Psychology of learning
July 18, 2016
examples of behaviour to observe and imitate, e.g. masculine and feminine, pro
and anti-social etc. (McLeod, SImply Psychology, 2011) We can say that the
different behaviours displayed in the class can be from home, or other
environmental influences. These students come from different families and areas of
Corozal. This is the cause of the diversity of behaviour in the class. As we notice the
operant conditioning worked for some students but for others they just refused to
focus and show interest into the class. Moreover, the participation the class is also a
very important to their behaviour as they adapt to the new environment. Hence
students that are actively participating in the activities are more likely to have
higher performances in school as for others that refuse to participate and are not
interested.
Lastly we have the classical conditioning (Pavlov conditioning). This theory is
divided into two and unconditioned stimulus and an unconditioned response. The
theory suggests that involves learning to associate an unconditioned stimulus

that already brings about a particular response (i.e. a reflex) with a new
(conditioned) stimulus, so that the new stimulus brings about the same
response. (McLeod, Simply Psychology , 2007) . As an individual there has
been many different conditions that we have learned and we have an
involuntary reaction to it. The ringing of the buzzer for the end of the period
is one of the classical conditioning. This is because as the buzzer rings the
students know that it is time end of session. Another example is when the
teacher saw that the students were doing too much noise he changed his
tone of his voice and volume to gain the students attention; at that moment
involuntary the students knew that they needed to be silent. To conclude we

Manuel Tzul
Psychology of learning
July 18, 2016

can say that in a classroom we have students of different environments and

households as such we need to expect a variety of behaviours. As an
instructor we need to cater for all behaviours and personalities for us to have
effective teaching. It is very important to engage all students into our lesson
and condition interest into the subject.

References
McLeod, S. (2007). Simply Psychology . Retrieved from Simply psychology:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html
McLeod, S. (2011). SImply Psychology. Retrieved from Simply Psychology:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html
McLeod, S. (n.d.). Simply psychology. Retrieved from simply psychology :
http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html