How do you apply insight learning theory in the classroom?

Educational Implications:

(i) The teacher should present a topic as a whole, teaching the relationship between the

constituent parts so that understanding of the learning situation results: The learning

experiences should be so arranged that the learner discovers & generalises the

relationship by himself. The subject matter should be organised into larger units /

meaningful wholes. The concept of unit - planning is based on the gestalt psychology

of learning. The children should, at the end, be able to perceive the relationship

between different units taught. The teacher should maintain the continuity while

teaching a big unit in smaller parts.

While teaching Geography, parts of a flower, etc. the region / flower should be emphasized.

While reading the spelling should be read as a whole Word & not individual letters; in

Maths, the relationship between the different steps should be made clear; while teaching

grammar, the functional aspect is also to be emphasized.

Just definitions about nouns, pronouns etc, without showing how they are used, is going to

be of no value. In Biology different systems (respiration, degestion, circulation, etc.) should

be related into an organised whole - functioning of the human body.

(ii) The 'purpose' or 'motive' plays the central role in the learning process. Hence the

students should be motivated by arousing their interest & curiOSity.

(iii) Understanding, reasoning & such use of creative mental powers is needed rather than

rote learning or dirll / practice work. The learner should be given opportunities to use

thinking & reasoning powers. Instead of giving him re facts & figures, he should be

placed in the position of an independent enquirer / discoverer. Instead of spoon - 4

feeding the information, scientific & progressive methods like analytic & problem

solving which advocate learning by insight should be made popular.

However, it is difficult to rely exclusively on particular method to teach a topic. A

method cannot be based purely on stimulus response or field theories. This is because

all children are not equally intelligent nor have the required capacity for insight

learning at a particular moment. Hence, the whole - part - whole method is to be

emphasized, which in involves the giving of the general outline or broad features of

the topic; then analysis the various specifics through stimulus response associations,

then generalize & integrate into a summated whole unit / topic.