TEACHING OLD DOGS NEW TRICKS: A PARADIGM OF LIFELONG ...

submits. In brief, learning to learn (otherwise, prompting old dogs to learn how to learn)
involves:
• understanding the demands that a learning task makes;
• knowing about intellectual processes and how they work;
• generating and considering strategies to cope with the task;
• getting better at choosing the strategies that are the most appropriate for the
task; and
• monitoring and evaluating the subsequent learning behaviour through feedback
on the extent to which the chosen strategies have led to success with the task.
Boosting Academic Commitments through Delayed Utterances
Prominent in academic behaviour is that learners learn differentially even under similar
conditions. But the dimension on how socio-environmental situation impact on the
learners’ ability to acquire and use generated and created information is a constant
research focus. Under the circumstance therefore, teaching-learning environment
should be so arranged that learners of multiple background would have the
opportunities to be assisted to learn. While emotion is involved in the learners’ abilities
to articulate learning materials to a beneficial level, the PFs should delay their
unbecoming utterances in order to facilitate adequate and expected learning. Many of
today’s DLs may be completely nonplussed due to negative and derogatory statements
either from their peers or their academic mentors.
In the contribution to the sustainability of learning effectiveness and in particular,
facilitating how human emotions can be directed in the achievement of meaningful
academic results (i.e. research behaviour), Dunn & Dunn (1978) said that learners are
affected by their:
i. Immediate environment;
ii.
iii.
iv.
Own emotionality;
Sociological needs; and
Physical needs. Other studies implicating the beneficial effect of learners’
emotionality and how it could be harnessed in boosting academic behaviour
include that of Osiki (2008).
The learner’s emotional status is a combination of four indices which include:
i. Presence of environmental stimulus;
ii.
iii.
iv.
Sense of heightened physiological arousal;
Personal idiosyncrasies; and
Cognitive appraisal of any given situation.
For the professional teacher to acquire information germane to their individual
development, the state of their mental stability and happiness should be congenial as
Osiki, (2008) posits. Learners academic/professional behaviour and, in particular,