Abstract:

Understanding learners’ minds has become one of the major issues of some methodologists in education system. The entire matter is learning.

It seems obvious to me it is necessary to explain what learning is in terms of knowledge, in the widest sense.

We should also try to find out what kind of cognitive structure is behind of it regarding all learning ways; such as learning by discovery, analogy, research, design, instruction, being taught, experience, repeating, e_learning, etc. These should be applied through a ‘creative’ learning and teaching style.

Could educators ever teach well enough unless they have a proper empathy for students? It is all known to us that common sense helps teachers without much effort to understand what’s on student’s mind; yet, it seems to me more fruitful if we understand what and how learners think.

It is also essential to create internal (eliminating emotional blocks, activating students’ knowledge, etc.) and external (richness of teaching material, environment, structure of education, easy access to learning materials, etc.) learning environment to free learners’ minds from blockings so that they and educators can have better understanding of mutual state of minds. What are these emotional blocks and how can they be minimized? Do learners need, necessarily, psychotherapists to get rid of those emotional blocks; or should educators be well-educated and trained to struggle with them?

Learners need clear representations. Well-representation of teaching material is the backbone of teaching method through Socratic interactive way so that learners can owe the knowledge.

Educators should act creatively to train and educate learners how to learn and think efficiently with a great pleasure. Creativity is a very complex mental act, it needs definitely, to be explained in terms of cognition. What is the cognitive structure of creative process? Can it be instructed up to a certain level?

Whatever ‘creative’ method, depending on subject, educators may use is plausible if they have a good enough empathy for learners in the course of Socratic behavior by taking emotional blocks of students into account.

Keywords:

learning, teaching, knowledge, cognition, empathy, creativity, socratic method.