This morning, I took my 5 year old son for his swimming lesson. He joined his swimming teacher along with 3 other children. They were very happy and excited to see each other. They were standing in the pool and chatting with each other. To grab their interest and start with the lesson, teacher asked them to stand in a line. The teacher gave them the instructions that he will sing the song ‘five little speckled frogs’ and every time he will say one jumped into pool, one of them will jump into the pool. This is where I witnessed Jean Piaget’s social constructivist theory where children were engaged socially through conversations and were engaged in an activity where they had to collaborate with each other (Churchill et al, 2013, p86) Social constructivism Learning at the Swimming lesson

It seemed they all were aware of the song and every time he said ‘one jumped into pool’, one of the children jumped into pool. They all did the same. Watching them imitating each other made me to relate it to Bandura’s Social learning theory where people learn by observing the behaviour or outcome of the behaviour of others (Churchill et al, 2013, p84) (Ms. Smith's Blog, 2014) (Can Stock Photo, n.d)

Once, the song finished, teacher instructed them to swim from one end to the other end while holding the swim float. Here I could relate this task to Piagets’s theory of cognitive development where the learning experience was designed to meet the current stage of the children and teacher was aware that the children at the current stage needs swim floats for swimming (Edwards, 2009, p9). Developmental stage

While they were swimming from one end to the other, teacher was using lots of positive reinforcement by verbally praising them. My son reached his goal of reaching the other end and he looked at me. I gave him a smile and thumps up for doing a good job. Later, I observed, every time my son reached his goal, he was looking at me seeking praise for me. This was where learning was happening through behaviourism. Both the teacher and I were rewarding the desired behaviour through positive reinforcement and this guided him to focus on his task and repeat the positive behaviour (Churchill et al, 2013, p80). According to Austin et al (2001) the environment that provides stimuli and response to learner’s efforts supports learning to occur.

Next, teacher asked them to float on their back. While one of the boys was very good at floating on his back but my son was not quite confident with it. Teacher gave him verbal instructions but he still was not ready to do it. Then, the teacher demonstrated it to him by himself floating on his back. Here I witnessed Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development in which the child is achieving the goal with the help of a more skilled teacher (McLeod, 2012). Children needed different level of support during back floating; my son needed lot more than the other. The teacher reduced his scaffolding, once he became independent in back floating (Kids Matter, 2013). I was quite amazed to see that after couple of practices, he did it.

As they were practicing back floating, couple of boys got distracted by a boy, who arrived crying at the pool for his swimming lesson. To, gain their attention back, teacher asked them, if they would like to play a game, they all said a ‘yes’ for it. The teacher here was working collaboratively with children and providing them opportunities, engaging environment, support, guidance, information as well as resources for effective learning (Touhill, 2012). Teacher threw some foam letters in the pool and instructed them to find the letters of their name. They brought back letters to the teacher at different rates. Some of them were too quick and others were bit slow. During the lesson, I could relate the experience to Gardner’s idea in which he mentioned that “children are individuals with different cognitive strengths in different domains and who have different ways of learning” (Clarke et al, 2011, p47).

They finished their lesson but I noticed the little boy in the other pool was still crying. The teacher was trying to convince him to follow the teacher’s instructions and do the same what other children were doing but he was still not ready to jump into the pool. Here I witnessed the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where before going to the next level it is important for the teacher to meet the lower level basic needs (love and safety) of the child (Churchill et al, 2013, p83).

My own personal experience at school informed my views during the observation where both me and my son started learning a subject as an obligation but the positive reinforcement and reward from parents and teachers helped us to learn new skills (Thomas, 2005). But I studied in a dehumanized classroom where the teacher used ‘one size fits all’ model for our learning whereas his swimming teacher is responding to the individual learning styles of the children.

During the observation, my views were informed by my own life experiences and the literature I have read during the study of this subject. I learnt that ‘learning is both a process as well as a product’. It begins at birth and we continually learn throughout our lives (Churchill et al, 2013, p76). Learning is both external (something that happens as a result of an experience) and internal (something an individual does in order to understand the world) (Churchill et al, 2013, p78).

There are different ways children learn and the knowledge of a child’s individual learning styles can help a teacher or a parent to make his/her learning more effective (Baker, 2014). From the literature I studied, I found that none of the theories consider children as an empty vessel and considered children as passive learners (University of Technology, 2012). All children as well as adults can learn and an environment that stimulates learning helps children to reach their learning potential (Kidsmatter, n.d). In those 40 minutes while sitting and watching children learning to swim, I was learning about learning too and it helped me to deepen my understanding of learning, what is learning and how it happens