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