CYCLE 2

2nd Semester | A.Y. 2021-2022

MODULE 6
Becoming a Better Student

Week 6

SOCSCI101
Understanding the Self

Edmon Y. Sampana, LPT,MAGC, Phd

Instructor

Institute of Arts, Sciences and Teacher

Education
BSA1A,1B,1C,1D,1E,1F

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Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this module, you are expected to:
1. Define learning and explain the characteristics of learning;
2. Identify the changes that happen during learning, and
3. Develop ways on how to become an effective learner.

What Happens during Learning?

Brain Changes
When a person takes in food, he or she acquires the nutrition necessary for his or her
growth, particularly of the body. As for the brain, it takes a set of knowledge and skills for
its development.
When a person learns something new, the brain undergoes changes. The changes in the
brain during learning are (1) new nerve cells may grow and new neutral networks will then
be formed; (2) the strength of existing synaptic connections changes, thus functionally
changing the connectivity within the existing neural networks in response to a sensory
stimuli; and (3) new synapses are formed between neurons that were not connected
before, thus effectively creating new networks of neurons that, when active, represent a
new memory.
With the advent of modern technology, almost everything is possible for human to decode
and unlock, even the most complicated hardware-like brain which is composed of more
than 85 billion neurons and 10 trillion dendrites and synapses.
Behavioral Changes
A toddler who was scalded when touching a hot pan will definitely not repeat the same act.
A child will not attempt to put his finger in the chicken cage again if he was pecked before.
A driver will not drive too fast on a slippery highway if he had an accident before. Similarly,
a student who ignored his or her minor subjects and got a failing grade will take the minor
subjects seriously the next time he or she enrolls in these subjects. One professor tells his
student’s, “At the time you begin to dislike me and even hate me, that is the time you start
to learn. It is because you are forced to go out of your comfort zones. You are doing
something that is not convenient for you, something that was not done to you by your
previous teachers.”
Certainly, a student who was required to memorize and recite a poem in front of the class
will have a negative reactions at first. But by doing this frequently, the student will be able
to find ease and master the art of spoken poetry. What behavior was changed? It is stage
fright. At the start, a student of an argumentation and debate class will have so many flaws
in his or her reasoning and might commit some fallacies in his or her first participation in a
debate activity, but he or she will eventually master the art of debate. What behavior was
changed? It is false reasoning. A student who received zero grade and counseling from his
or her Technical Writing teacher after submitting a plagiarized paper will more likely not
plagiarize again. What behavior was changed? It is dishonesty.
Learning has been defined as permanent change in behavior as a result of experience.
Thus, if a student still applies some fallacies on argumentation or plagiarizes an article
taken from the internet again, then, based on the definition, there is no learning because
the change is not permanent. Learning requires continuity of behavioral change.

Becoming a Self-regulated Learner

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Self-regulated learning refers to the learner’s ability to regulate or control one’s own
learning and behavior. This entails that one’s acquisition of knowledge and skills does not
require external intervention. Barry Zimmerman, one of the researchers on the topic,
emphasized that self-regulation is not a mental ability or skill but a self-detective process
whereby learners transform their mental abilities into skills.
An effective learner regulates one’s own learning by (1) planning and setting goals, (2)
using strategies and monitoring performance, and (3) reflecting on one’s own performance
and adapting strategies to achieve the goals (Sage 2YC, 2018). Students must first analyze
the learning task so they can strategize or develop the best approach. Then, students apply
chosen strategy and monitor their own performance as they carry out the task. Finally,
students must reflect on the effectiveness of their strategies and use these reflections to
plan on the next learning task.

Learning Defined
Learning involves change. Changes in one’s behavior mostly occur through experience.
Once you learned to sing nursery rhymes as a kid, singing becomes a natural activity. Once
you learned how to play guitar, you do not have to go through the same process of fretting
and strumming at later time. When learning martial arts, you may be injured along the
process, but at some point, you will learn the ways to avoid injury. Generally, learning
involves acquiring changes in the present knowledge, skills, habits, behaviors, or tendencies
through experiences, practice, or formal education.

Characteristics of Learning
1. Learning is Purposeful
Every human action is motivated or inspired by one’s aims, goals, or
intentions. Goals can be short-term or long-term. Reviewing lessons in order
to receive high grades and avoid reprimand from parents is an example of a
short-term goal. On the other hand, enrolling in graduate studies and
spending ten more years in formal education in order to receive higher salary
and be promoted is an example of long-term goal. Learning occurs because it
is planned, desired, or even forced. But no matter what the case, there is
always a purpose why a person seeks more knowledge. Research shows that
students who set goal tend to be more persistent and are more likely to
achieve their goals.
2. Learning is a Result of Experience
Learning is often associated with a change in behavior as a result of
experience. This entails that learning comes with one’s interaction with the
environment.
Learners may be able to define particular terms, explain specific concepts,
state general principles, or recite certain provisions of law. However, they can
make them meaningful only if they understand them well enough and be able
to use and apply them in real-life situations. Through on-the-job training
(OJT), the learners are exposed to actual application of what they have
studied for 16 or more years, thereby allowing them to experience the task
done by professionals in their chosen field. Therefore, OJT is considered as
significant learning experience that learners must undergo.
3. Learning is Multifaceted
The famous quotation “a sound mind in a sound body” exemplifies the
connection between the physical and mental well-being of a person. In order
to produce well-rounded graduates, education institutions must hone not only
the intellectual but also the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual potentials
of learners. This is the reason why in every curriculum, the learning outcomes
are not purely confined to the development of the inculcation of nationalism

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 and patriotism. Another example, in physical education, the objectives are not
solely focused on the psychomotor domain; the affective domain is also
developed by instilling teamwork and sportsmanship. The focus of learning is
not on the course alone. Incidental knowledge, skills, and attitudes are also
taught and developed.
4. Learning is an Active Process
Learners should not be mere passive receivers of information. Teacher should
not assume that learners can remember all the terms, concepts, theories,
laws, principles, etc. that they teach their students. Learning is not rote
memorization. Teachers are also advised to involve the students in the
learning process. The principle of teaching states that the student should be
the center of the learning process. Their active participation in class activities
must be solicited in order for them to fully grasp certain concepts.
Since part of the process is evaluation of learning, teachers should have
effective assessment tools or instruments to measure the learners are meeting
the learning objectives. Once a learner becomes a good self-regulator, he or
she develops a set of skills and habits to be an effective learner. Teachers
must train learners to regulate their own learning by self-regulated strategies
that will help them for life-long learning (Shuy,2010).

Learning to be a Better Student

Pat Riley, one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, once said, “If you are not
getting better, you are getting worse.” This mantra or perspective can be applied to any
context, whether in the field of medicine, industry, sports, or academe. Riley is the head
coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s Showtime era. His team won championships
and dominated half of that decade.
In medicine, what does not cure you actually makes you sicker. More often than not,
complications transpire, sickness and disease mutate, making the patient worse than the
initial diagnosis of his or her ailment.
In the competitive world of business, the concept “survival of the fittest” comes into play. If
a businessman is not equipped to compete, his or her business will lose its profit and will
be left behind in relation to other similar industries which take over the market. The
business industry has a dog-eat-dog situation. If you are a businessman, it is either you
survive or you perish for the next calendar year. That is the reason why out of 100 new
businesses with granted permits from the business processing and licensing office, only 10
go back the following year to renew their license. That is a mind blogging 90 percent
attrition rate.
In any sports competition, there is only one champion. There is only one person or team
that dominates; the remaining participants are labeled losers and are sometimes relegated.
The story is more often focused on the winners, seldom on the losing side. Though the
stories of losing have their own sets of valuable lessons t be learned, the story of winning is
oftentimes considered as more inspiring than the story of the second or third placer.
The aforementioned situations are related with the topic of becoming a better student. The
biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. There are numerous skills which
necessitate improvement or calibration. How does one improve? How does a student
become better?
The Philippine educational system is embracing outcome-based education wherein the
premise of instructions is based on what the students can do, as opposed to what the
students know.
James Spady is considered the father of outcome-based education (OBE). In one of his
talks, he asserted that, in OBE, what matter are the skills of the students. It deals with
what the students can do after the program or after the lesson. It assesses the student

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learning through requiring the learners to perform a set of tasks. In the nutshell, OBE is
performance-based and action-based. It is not only about what the students know, but
what the students can perform or do. This is regarded as revolutionary because the
Philippine educational system is seemingly leaning towards the Jonathan Bloom educational
advocacy and his taxonomy which is entirely knowledge-based.
Essentially, the shift from knowledge-based education to skill-based education will take
years to be fully implemented in order to develop a system which is suited to the condition
of the country. It is important to ask, who claims that the Philippine educational system
needs transitioning? The best features of knowledge-based and skill-based education make
up the Philippine version od educational system. However, the journey is long and may be
filled with pitfalls. The crucial question is what makes a student a better student?
Traditionally, in order to be a better student, one should read more books. No aspiring
achiever can be labeled as such if one is not a reader. If he or she wants higher education,
he or she must read, analyze, and learn ideas relevant to his or her profession since not all
the existing ideas are practical and applicable to his or her chosen field.

Good Study Habits

To be a successful student, you must establish good study habits to learn effectively. Study
Habits refer to the attitudes and behaviors of students when preparing for tests or any
learning assessment. Below are some of the ways to develop good study habits.
1. Get organized. Plan ahead of time. Allot time to read everyday in order not to
cram days before the exam. Make a study plan. Make an outline to organize
thoughts and ideas. Fix your study area and eliminate all distractions such as
cellphones and other gadgets and keep away from the television.
2. Prepare your review materials. Make review notes. Create flashcards. Make
mind maps and mnemonic patterns to easily recall terms and concepts. Read and
record important terms and concepts. Play the recordings before sleeping or
while on the road.
3. Ask Help. If you do not understand a particular lesson or topic, seek help
from your teacher, your classmates, your parents, or your older brother or
sister.
4. Test yourself or ask someone to test you. This can be done by simply
recalling your lesson and writing them on a piece of paper or by asking someone
to throw questions and answering as many questions as possible.
5. Allot time to take a break and eliminate stress. Allot break time. During
breaktime, short physical activities can be done such as stretching, listening to
music, or drinking coffee.
6. Create or join a study group. This enables you to take notes, discuss
thoughts, brainstorm ideas, and tutor concepts. This helps you to calibrate
your understanding of certain concepts, rules, principles, and theories.
7. Teach what you have learned. This can be done by sharing what you have
learned to your younger brother or sister, neighbors, or to any other people.
As they say, practice makes perfect.
8. Study to understand, not to remember. Memorizing what you read is not a
very effective habit because the brain cannot make sense of information
quickly and thus will not form strong connections. Understand the ideas,
concepts or principles; do not just memorize them verbatim.
Meaningful Learning
In a traditional or teacher-centered approach, the students are passive and are expected to
be receptive as the teacher gives instructions. The teacher is the sole speaker throughout
the class period although he or she may solicit short-answer responses. When the teacher
asks questions, he or she not does allot ample time for the students to express their ideas

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and opinions. Before the bell rings, he or she will verify learning by asking, “Did you
understand the lesson?” Students are expected to say “Yes, Ma’am or “Yes, Sir.” That
basically signals class dismissal. The learning process should not end with students
perceiving that they are prisoners who are serving their sentence for a term on a certain
duration of time in a specific place, and that after listening passively for almost five months,
they are free men- free from confinement in the classroom and to the teachers but not
from ignorance. If that is the student’s perception on the end result of learning, them
something has to be done to improve it.
What is then expected after staying inside the classroom for an hour or more? As discussed
previously, learning is a process of acquiring changes in the present knowledge, skills,
habits, behaviors, or tendencies through experience, practice, or formal education.
Although there is no one-size-fits-all effective teaching methodology, there are some ways
to ensure meaningful learning after the lesson such as (1) asking the students about the
practical application of their learning, particularly what they can do for their family, school,
government, and community; (2) allowing students to demonstrate a new skill acquired
from the lesson; (3) requiring students to write an essay or a reflective journal of what they
have learned; (4) asking students to relate the lesson to other sciences or fields of
knowledge; or (5) helping students find the relevance of the lesson to their lives. Through
these ways, the students can reinforce their learning, empower themselves, express their
thoughts, and make sense of those lessons to their lives and to their world-and these
exemplify meaningful learning.

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Worksheet 6:
A. Enumerate 10 ways to become an effective learner.

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B. How to become a self regulated learner?

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C. Explain briefly, “Learning is an Active Process.”

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References:
Macayan, J.V., Pinugu, J.N., Castillo, J.C. & Ofalia, B. (2019). Understanding the Self
(Outcome-Based Module). C & E Publishing, Inc. 839 EDSA, South Triangle, Quezon City.
ISBN: 978-971-98-1071-1CE.

Corpuz, R. M, Estoque, R. S. &Tabotabo, C. V. (2019). Understanding the Self. C & E

Publishing, Inc. 839 EDSA, South Triangle, Quezon City. ISBN: 978-971-98-1184-8.

Corpuz, B. B., Lucas, M. D., Borabo, H. L. &Lucido, P. I. (2015). Child and Adolescent
Development: Looking at Learners at Different Life Stages. Lorimar Publishing
Incorporated, Quezon City. ISBN 971-685-721-4.

Estrada, A. T. (2011). Developmental Characteristics Of Young Children. REX Bookstore Inc.

(RBSI), First Edition, Sampaloc, Manila. ISBN 978-971-23-5917-0.

Milagros, F. F. , Mores, E. T. &Mogol, M. A. (2009). General Psychology Simplified. Books

Atbp. Publishing Corporation, Mandaluyong City. ISBN 971-0388-63-9.

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