Abstract
Teachers are widely acknowledged to play an indispensable role in enabling learners to construct purposeful knowledge structures while being engaged in carefully structured learning activities. However, many studies have reported that learners’ understanding and construction of scientific knowledge at secondary school level is truly a challenging endeavour particularly when teachers themselves hold misconceptions that act as barriers for effective facilitation of knowledge. Although well-organised instructions from the teacher can support the learning process, instructional and learning theories from various theoretical perspectives have been developed to enhance the effectiveness of that process. The scope of this chapter is, however, limited to Gagné’s cognitive learning theory that can guide the instructional processes as learners develop understanding and skills to solve problems associated with a system of ‘connected particles’. Gagne’s theory includes a set of cognitive activities divided into five taxonomies: the use of verbal information, intellectual skills, motor skills, cognitive skills and attitude. In addition to these domains of learning, Gagné emphasises nine events of instruction that encompass all three of Bloom’s domains of knowledge. The nine events of instruction include gaining attention, informing objectives, stimulating recall of prior knowledge, presenting the materials, providing guidance, eliciting performance, providing feedback, assessing performance and enhancing retention of concepts. Basically, this chapter outlines how an in-service secondary mathematics teacher operationalises Gagné’s theory in a simulated classroom environment during the peer-microteaching course. Although the teacher planned and implemented her lesson guided by clear lesson objectives, it was observed that she did not manage to successfully accomplish the interplay among the cognitive activities and the events of instruction. Teachers, teacher educators and policymakers may find this chapter useful to inform implementation of Gagné’s theory in classroom instruction.
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Gagné, R. M., & Brown, L. T. (1961). Some factors in the programming of conceptual learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 313–321.
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Ramma, Y., Bholoa, A., Watts, M. (2020). Guided Discovery—Robert Gagné. In: Akpan, B., Kennedy, T.J. (eds) Science Education in Theory and Practice. Springer Texts in Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43620-9_14
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