This document discusses the author's students' approaches to learning, what they bring to learning, and how the teaching environment can impact them. It finds that approximately 50-70% of students use strategic learning, 20-30% use surface learning, and 10% use deep learning. In terms of cue-consciousness, 30% are cue-seeking, 50% are cue-conscious, and 20% are cue-deaf. The author also discusses how student characteristics, intellectual development, and engagement can influence learning. A student-oriented teaching approach that promotes independence, applying knowledge in different contexts, and reflection is encouraged to help students develop deeper learning approaches.

1. Synthesis of theoretical foundations in my
students learning and how I teach
Learning Activity 4.3
Nature of Learning & Teaching
Robert Puffett
s0228768

2. How my students learn
Strategic learning – ‘deliberate’ surface learning,
learning for the test, making informed decisions about
when to go deep or when to stay on the surface.
Approximately 50 – 70% of my students.
Surface Learning – low level of cognitive engagement,
rote learning of content, fit-for-purpose.
Approximately 20 – 30% of my students.
Deep learning – higher level of cognitive engagement,
make meaning of content, ‘real understanding’.
Approximately 10% of my students.

3. Cue-consciousness
Cue-seeking learners – go out of their way to ask the
teacher about the exam. Approximately 30% of my
students.
Cue-conscious learners – listen and pay attention to
the what the teacher says about the exam.
Approximately 50% of my students
Cue deaf learners – don’t ask or listen to the teacher,
information goes straight over their heads.
Approximately 20% of my students.

4. What my students bring to learning
Student
characteristics
From
‘Teaching as a
design
science:
Building
Pedagogical
Patterns For
Learning and
Technology’
by Diana
Laurillard
Previous knowledge, self-confidence, abilities and motives
– English language learning in home country, use and
practice of English, issues of emigration
Conceptions of knowledge and learning – Home country
education system vs. Australian education system, Eastern
thinking / Western thinking, behaviourist / constructivism
Approaches to learning and studying – teacher centred vs.
student centred, support mechanisms – family, community
& society
Expectations – Societal, Family and personal

5. Student Engagement
Self-efficacy Teacher to foster a context of independent learning that will develop students self–
efficacy beliefs, provide challenging academic tasks that can be reached with effort by
most students, foster belief that ability can be improved,
Motivation Intrinsic – study for its own sake, to gain a deeper understanding, not relevant to my
students
Extrinsic – focus on rewards, vocational or social, that result from academic study i.e.
degree, work in a developed nation, prestige, permanent residency
Emotional
engagement
Clarity of communication – expectations, outcomes
Modelling – formal academic learning
Support – teaching style, individual, peer to peer, institutional
Engagement
and learning
Constructivist view – students construct their own knowledge, and we have to generate
the conditions that stimulate and encourage
What works – team /project work, peer to peer, repeated drafts, appeals to critical
thinking, real life contexts, co-curricular activities, high level interactions (email, 1 on
1’s)

6. Intellectual characteristics
Dualistic
position
• Knowledge is right or wrong
• It is the responsibility of an authority
Open view
• A multiplicity of positions
• All of equal value
Relativistic
view
• Knowledge is contextualised
• Requires alignment with personal values
This journey from teacher dependency to independency is a reflection of how the
students perceives learning, a body of knowledge to be acquired, a struggle that the
teacher can minimise. Or knowledge as a means for acting in the world, where the
student takes responsibility for their actions and the teacher is more a guide.

7. The Role of the teaching environment
A student-oriented approach and a focus on
student learning (as opposed to a transmission
model) leads students to describe themselves as
deep approach learners. This is done when the
teacher:
• Promotes independent learning
• Applies knowledge in different contexts
• Exposes students to different styles of learning
and teaching
• Encourages personal responsibility and reflection

8. How I teach (A wolf in sheep’s clothing)
Behaviourist
ConstructivistConnectivist