Video Post

  

  I found both of these videos to be very insightful and uplifting. I have never personally known or worked with someone who has autism; so, it was very beneficial to watch these videos. All of the information presented helped me to better understand what it really means to have autism. I felt that these videos really communicated the saying, 'don't judge someone unless you're in his/her shoes.' As with any individual, we need to be aware that everyone is different and has different needs.

    I really enjoyed watching the first video, Here We Are World. The real life footage and people made everything that was presented hit home. I learned a lot about facilitated communication that I did not know before, and watching these individuals with their facilitators brought new insight. I did not realize all of the different ways that facilitated communication can be used. It was inspiring that these individuals were able to show their competence, stay engaged in a discussion, and even be humorous with their friends. It did a good job of showing how real these individuals’ thoughts and feelings are, and this is something we need to remember when becoming a teacher. How our students feel when they are in our classroom can have an impact on their learning, as well as things like their self-esteem and self-efficacy.

   The second video I watched, Autism Teacher Please, was also very inspiring. I enjoyed hearing quotes from Barb Retenbach's book being stated from these individuals. One in particular that stood out to me was, “We are all diverse, yet all important to this world.” I felt that a lot of the information in this video would be beneficial to know when having my own classroom. One thing that really stood out to me was about how individuals with autism do not always like to be alone. I feel that this is a common misconception because individuals with autism can come off as very shy and to themselves at times. I also found it interesting to hear that school systems need to be more accepting of facilitated communication. The special education class that I took this semester really helped me to see how important it is to think about all of your students and how you can differentiate to meet everyone's needs. There are ways of doing this, whether it is peer assistance or allowing them to use resources to make sure that they feel engaged in the class and with their peers.

   I took both of these videos as another learning experience towards my goal of becoming a successful teacher. Being exposed to videos and information like this can help prepare teachers (and others as well) when they are working with children who have autism. 

Group Differences Forum-Gender

I really enjoyed completing my group differences forum and participating in the discussions today. I felt that it all went really well, and I learned a lot as well as had the opportunity to give my thoughts and opinions. Some of the points made and talked about have been addressed in my other classes, so I felt that most of us were able to bring many examples into the discussion. This helped me to see how gender, disabilities, and poverty could affect my classroom and the students in it. Being able to bounce ideas off of each other made our discussions meaningful and we were able to go more in depth. 

Focusing just on gender, I learned a lot from reading our article. It made me think about things that I had not previously thought about, like how we do not want to ignore gender just because we want a gender-free education. I liked having the opportunity to ask questions to get my peers' input on topics or statements that stood out to me. For example, should there be single sex classrooms according to subjects? If we were not cut short due to class time, I felt that our discussions could have gone on. 

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PLE 10

Theories in educational psychology promote the idea that language plays a critical role in cognitive development. Examine Table 2.2 (p. 51), paying particular attention to the age range that you are interested in teaching. Consider how you might incorporate or adapt the strategies presented for use with your own students.

Although I found all of the strategies to be useful, some that stuck out to me for the K-2 age range were:

• Read age-appropriate storybooks as a way of enhancing vocabulary
• Ask follow-up questions to make sure students accurately understand important messages
• Ask students to construct narratives about recent events

      In my Reading Education 430 class we discussed how reading, read alouds specifically, is the single most important activity leading to literacy achievement. Read alouds can be used across content areas to help children gain new vocabulary. It can also help the teacher to model behavior that he/she expects from their students. Read alouds, using quality literature, can help engage the students and keep them motivated in the content being taught. New vocabulary stemmed from read alouds can also assist the students in gaining a deeper understanding and constructing more meaningful questions and conversations.

    Follow-up questions allow the teacher to asses whether or not their students are coming to a full understanding of the material being presented. Teachers will be able to see if they can move on or if they need to review material again. Follow-up questions can come after reading a book, after a whole group discussion, after modeling a problem and/or material, etc. Questioning keeps both the teacher and students engaged and give the students an opportunity to also ask questions. 

    I also like the idea of asking students to construct narratives about recent events because it makes it more personable and meaningful. Students will be able to learn from their peers as well as work on other skills, like sitting quietly and listening. As we have talked about many times, students learn so much more when they find it meaningful to their own lives. 

Here are examples of different classrooms http://www.readingrockets.org/article/40991/

Chapter 10 (#9)

    There are a couple of ways that self-efficacy and self-regulation can be contributed to the intervention plans with Lisa. Since Lisa seems to not like to work with her group, she could be provided the opportunity to set her own goals for the activity or lesson. This would make it more meaningful for her, and she would hopefully want to strive to reach these goals. I would also provide Lisa the chance to monitor her own behavior. This puts it more in her control.


    In this situation, I believe it is important to build confidence with Lisa. If she is confident in the jobs and work of the group, she will want to be more active. It will help her to do a sufficient job in all of the different roles of the group. It is important to point out positive behavior and reinforce it. When she feels like she is making a difference and learning something meaningful, I feel that this will make a difference.

Chapter 9 Post #8

Through the case study with Lisa, there are many ways/tools from a behaviorist view that could encourage productive behaviors or discourgae undesirable behaviors. As a punishment (remove positive reinforcer) Lisa can be given less recess/free time. This would show that her behavior is unacceptable and has consquences. To encourage good behavior at the times she presents it, the teacher should give a positive reinforcement by praising her for her good work ethic.

From the cognitive viewpoint, the teacher's role is to focus on learning based on how people perceive, think, speak and problem-solve. Behaviorists do not take this into consideration. The teacher could take the time to talk to Lisa and understand what she is thinking. This would help the teacher to realize why she is acting the way she is. Certain factors could be causing her behavior, and talking about it or providing choices could help.

I believe both outlooks could provide benefits to the situation. I do not think that things should always be taken away from students, but sometimes just communicating with them does not work either. A balance of theories seem to be a good way of looking at this. The way we 'deal' with students depends on the individual. I do however find myself to lean more towards the cognitive theory when comparing these two.

http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/learningmap.html

PLE Post #7

Think of an activity or lesson component that explicitly teaches one or more metacognitive and one or more problem solving skills.

      I found there to be many skills taught in one of my lessons I did in my math and science methods classes. It was a lesson about an oil spill and how spills can affect our environment. The students are able to explore a real life situation through this hands-on activity and decide on the best ways that we could clean up the spills. We are able to get the students to start thinking before the lesson by questioning them. What happens to animals when oil gets on their skin/feathers? Do we think the oil will mix into the water? (some examples) The students are able to see where they stand with this knowledge at the beginning, and then at the end of the lesson they are able to reflect on what they learned. Children are able to reflect by both a journal entry as well as incorporating a whole group discussion. Students are able to think about their thinking. 

     This real world situation provided an ill-defined problem. The students can come up with many different solutions on what they think the best method of clean up would be, and then they are able to discuss this with their peers. I liked how this activity focused on a real world problem and allowed for social interaction. The students are able to problem solve by manipulating different tools/materials to see what works best to get the oil out of the water. I can see where these metacognitive and problem solving skills are essential in learning activities. 

 This link provides good examples of how to get children to think about their thinking.

Chapter 7

      We focused our lesson around Social Studies. Being in the social studies method section of our Elementary Ed 422 course, we have discussed the benefits of activities being hands on and collaborative for students. Social studies, as well as learning in general, is so much more than just memorizing names, facts, dates, etc. For our lesson we chose the topic of presidents. Whole group discussions would allow students to express what they already know as well as the chance to learn from their peers. This would also provide time for questioning from both the teacher and the students. The goal of social studies is to help students become aware of their society and to become better citizens. We would take this opportunity to discuss elections and assess prior knowledge of this topic as well.  

        Students would then be in groups to collaborate and design a campaign brochure for their president. Students would have prior knowledge of some presidents from discussion as well as our other activity of doing research. They would come together as a team to present a brochure and make a poster about their president. This would allow the students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the concepts. We also discussed the idea of incorporating a timeline. This timeline could be used to visually see when the presidents were in office, but could also be used for students' personal lives. We could have each individual student make their own life timeline or see how everyone in the class fit on one timeline. This can make everything more relatable. 

      I found this journal article to be an interesting read dealing with social studies and the constructivist approach..."I believe the importance of technology lies in its ability to leverage constructivist approaches to the teaching of social studies"  

Ch. 6 Question 2 Post

How might your knowledge of the memory process guide your instructional decisions?

     I learned a lot of useful information about the memory process last class. Everything from the information processing model to knowing that for individuals to retain information into their long term memory they have to rehearse and find meaning. I would incorporate all of this into my teaching. I have seen many teachers who review topics/content over and over again when they know it is something important for the students to know. I also like the idea of finding ways for students to find meaning behind things. Students have different interests, and I think it is important to incorporate those interests when giving assignments/projects. I also think it is imperative that we know our students can reach a cognitive load. Yes we want our students to learn as much as they can, but we do not want to overwhelm them. In classrooms I have worked in, you can see students start to shut down when there is too much on their plate. We can also make it better for our students by breaking things down and teaching in parts or sections. 

Chapter 6 Post

What are the essential skills and/or learning outcomes you want your students to know and be able to do that relate to cognitive learning? 

    From our dicussions in class, we have all seemed to agree on the importance of what students are learning in the classroom. Learning outcomes can be a useful guide both for the teacher and the students on what is expected. I would want to focus on the student-centered approach so that my students can show and explain what they learned instead of just memorizing facts to put on a summative test. I will want my students to be able to apply their learning to real world situations and find meaning  behind their new knowledge and/or assignments. I feel that a lot of this comes from performance based assessments and using formative assessments throughout lessons. When students can demonstrate or explain what they have learned, they have come to a deeper understanding of the content.
    When writing this blog I thought a lot of about the Science Methods course I just took. We discussed a lot about the objectives we put in lesson or activity plans, and how we can enhance these objectives with Bloom's Taxonomy. Certain words can completely change our objectives and outcomes of what we want our students to learn and can take learning one step further. For example, having students explain, identify, compare and contrast, demonstrate, etc. You can take your students' from the simplest behavior to the most complex.

Ch. 14 PLE

Think of a lesson plan from your licensure area.  Knowing that assessment is an integral part of teaching, explain at least four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning.

       When I was in a Kindergarten classroom, we worked on adding and subtracting smaller numbers in one of the units of math. Throughout the combined lessons, I saw many ways of assessing. I liked the hands- on approach my mentor teacher took when teaching math. An example of formal assessment was the worksheets that the students would turn in at the end of each lesson. The lessons however did not just consist of the students filling out a worksheet. We were able to walk around and see the students manipulating cubes to show what they were adding or taking away, an example of informal assessment. My mentor also did a very good job of asking engaging questions to see where the students were. She allowed them opportunities to come up to the smart board to answer questions (they LOVED being able to use the pen), and we also made KWL charts to show what we knew and what we learned. Of course at the end of the units the children were to take tests with the teacher, and she then could record what they knew. Although, it was not until she felt that most of her students had a good grasp of the material that she tested them. I felt that it was overall a very good way of going about assessing these students, and they really learned the material. 

     On days when we would observe the students manipulating cubes and other materials, she would ask me if I could tell who was grasping the concepts and who was not. I found myself really being able to see who was catching on and who was having a harder time. We were able to see this just by observing and not handing them a test. 

http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/jwbates/Alternativeassessment.htm

Ch. 13 PLE

     It is important to allow your students the time to interact within the learning process. Through my education classes and experiences I have already have, I have been able to see the benefits of having an interactive classroom. I enjoy the thought of allowing students the opportunity to learn from each other as well as their teacher. Going along with the theme of interaction, I also think it is important to establish positive relationships. Whether these relationships are between the teacher and student or between student and student. I want to be engaged with my students and help them to feel that they are in a safe environment to express their thoughts and/or concerns. 

     I really liked the classrooms that I have been in that displayed the student's work. I feel that it showstheir hard work pays off and is of true importance. I am a very visual person, and although not everyone is, I think that it is beneficial to have visual aids around the classroom. Whether it is for directions or for vocabulary words. Our excitement as teachers when bringing in new and various topics/concepts goes a long way with our students. All and all I want the environment of my classroom to be of excitement/challenges and not stress. 

http://schoolimprovementnetwork.blogspot.com/2012/04/necessity-of-environment-conducive-to.html

     Based on the Elementary Education Case Study, I found a few responses to deal with this misbehavior. This is not a behavior that should just be ignored. I like how the groups and responsibilities are changed because this gives the students an opportunity to work with different people. When doing group projects I find that is important to account for both group and individual accountability. Lisa should be aware of the importance of her accountability in both parts, and I feel that explaining to her why you  need cooperation in groups would be beneficial. You could also talk to her one on one to see why she does not like to do certain jobs and what makes her angry. There may be underlying problems causing this behavior like she does not feel that she can perform other tasks. Regular communication and encouraging Lisa of her abilities may help. You could also incorporate the if/then statement with the roles of the groups. If she does this one role now and completes the task then she can do the other role next time. 

Motivation

Consider the theories of motivation that we discussed in class.   Which theories of motivation are most helpful and instructive for you?  How can they enhance motivation and affect your students?  

  From the classes that I have previously had experience in I saw the benefits of extrinsic motivation and goal oriented theories. In one Kindergarten class that I was in, the children would receive stickers on their work if it was the 'star work' of the day. The children were motivated to do their best work so they could get that sticker and have their work hung up on the board. It got to the point that the students did their best work without asking about the stickers even though we still did them. We also had a jar of marbles in the classroom that the children were able to put a marble into if they received good marks in their encore classes. The children had a goal of filling the jar to have a celebration. Both of these motivational factors worked in this classroom. Depending on what grade I end up teaching, I will use extrinsic motivation sparingly because I feel this provides the best results. I am personally motivated by grades, and I was also motivated by the social cognitive theory as I was going through grade school. My parents were not too harsh on me, but the consequences of not making good grades motivated me to do well in school. Everyone is motivated by different things, but a little motivation can go a long way. 

h        http://www.education.com/reference/article/extrinsic-motivation-children-education/

PLE Post 1

  The first class got me excited about what this course will provide. So far the class seems very open to discussion and learning from everyone's experiences and insights. With the Praxis exams vastly approaching, knowing this course will help us prepare was definitely a positive to hear. I am interested to go deeper into classroom management and motivating my students when I am in my own classroom. We have learned a lot through our coursework and now that our internship year is coming up, I believe it is important to also be able to implement effective management. I also find it very beneficial to be able to motivate your students throughout the school year. As a student myself right now, I know it is only human nature to lose motivation at times. Although I do not have any concerns or questions at the moment, I am anxious to see how the CSEL Artifact unfolds. All in all, I am excited about this course.