Course Contract Review #4

Course Contract Review

1. I think that I did well on completing all of my assignment and doing very well on them. I currently have an A- and I hope that goes up after the final!

2. Well I don't remember very much from this semester so I am going to have to study a lot for this final to do a good job on it. I am going to go to the study session tomorrow to help get me started. I know that next semester I need to stay on top of things and make sure I keep that motivation up throughout the whole semester. I know that things are going to keep getting harder and harder so I just need to stay a head of the game and not get behind. I also need to remember to always be reviewing things so that I will remember them for a long time.

3. Well out of my three goals (to read my book each week, to not procrastinate, and to write in my blog each time) I slipped on all of them at some point. I but I came through and I think I made up for it in the end. I know that I am not perfect so I am not going to be too hard on myself and give myself a pat on the back for trying.

Next Semester I am going to make better goals that I can achieve. I am still going to try the make the goal to not procrastinate and I am going to challenge myself to meet it.

4. Well for next semester I think I need to write down a to do list each week and check it off so that I do not get behind. I did something similar this semester I just started to get lazy toward the end of the semester where it really count. So next time I am going to push myself to the end!

5. I stayed motivated to complete everything I was assigned. I only slacked on getting it done in a timely fashion. I only ever turned in a few things late but most of the time I would do things the night before no matter how big the assignment. I really lost my motivation after field. Maybe I was burnt out but that's when it seemed we had the most work. So next semester I am going to remember this and do better as not overwhelm myself.

Personal Learning Theory

What? Your Emerging Theory: B=43, C=46, H=42 I think this mean I am a pretty well rounded teacher.
The following is what I liked and what I need to work on to rememeber in each term.

• Piaget Cognitive Development: He talks about schemas, the mental network of information. He explains that Assimilation is where you take your understand and make it the same understanding as everyone else (bring someone in and making them the same). Where as Accommodation is changing the old to be consistent with the new. Then he create the stages of development: Senisory-Motor, Pre-concrete Operational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational.
  
• Vygotsky Cognitive Development: Vygotsky has a socioculture view of development. He said the socialization moves to internalization, the language and culture of one's community. You must understand those of student to help them. Then you can mediate, understand their behavior and change that behavior to something they can understand as well as everyone else. He said that students self-regulate themselves using inner speech, when you talk yourself through something out loud. He also developed ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development). Scaffolding is when you get your student to the right ZPD.
  
• Erikson's Psychosocial Development: He believed that everyone must go through these stages of development: Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation, Integrity vs. Despair.
  
• Kolhberg's Moral Development: 3 main levels: Prevconventional Reasoning (no internalization of moral values) there are two parts: Obedience and punishment, where they are just concerned with the punishment and Individualism and exchange where the rules are negotiated. Conventional Reasoning is the next level where you abide by the rules but they are the standards of others. 2 parts: it is called the nice girl/good boy stage because moral decisions are based on the approval of others. Second part called law and order because they abide the rules for their own sake and they believe order must exist. Postconventional Reasoning is where their own internal moral outweigh the rules of society. 1st stage is social contract because the moral reasoning is based on socially agreed principals. 2nd stage is universal principles because they are committed to rights like life, liberty and justice.
  
• Goleman's Emotional Intelligence: This is our understanding and regulation of emotion. 1- Recognizing one's own emotions. 2- Regulating one's own emotions. 3- Recognizing other's emotions. 4- Handling interpersonal relationships. 5-Motivating oneself.
  
• Information Processing: Incoming stimuli (new information) and if you are paying attention and your perception of the information will going into your working memory from there is can be stored and encoded and put into long term memory. Then when you retrieve the information it goes back into the working memory. The long term memory is made up of there parts: declarative (semantic or general knowledge), procedural (how to perform a task), and conditional knowledge(knowing when and why to apply declarative or procedural). Metacognition: knowing what you know.
  
• Knowledge Construction and Higher Order Thinking: Bloom's Taxonomy, 4 types of knowledge: Factual, Conceptual (grouping similar objects, ideas events, or people), Procedural, Metacognitive. Positive Transfer: when something learned in the past helping learning something new. Negative Transfer: when something learned in the past hinders learning something new.


• Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning is learning by associate to an automatic response to a stimuli, for example you are bite by a dog. The unconditioned stimuli is the bite from the dog and the unconditioned response is you being scared. Then when you see a dog again the condition stimuli is the dog and your conditioned response is to be afraid. Generalization would then be being afraid of all dogs. Discrimination would be if a Dalmatian bit you and then you were afraid of all Dalmatians. Operant Conditioning is your deliberate response to achieve a certain end. So for example teaching an animal to push a lever to receive it's food. Token Economies are positive reinforcements for a certain behavior. Negative Reinforcement is removing an adverse consequence for good behavior. Contingency contract is a written agreement between teacher and student where the student agrees to act one way and the teacher provides an acceptable incentive.


• Social Cognitivism: Is your own regulation of your learning and learning by observing others. Here are some terms I struggle to remember: Reciprocal Causation is their interrelationship between the student's environment, their personal beliefs and their behavior. Self-efficacy is the belief in one's ability to preform or achieve a certain goal. ARPM: Attention, retention, performance, and motivation.


• Group and Individual differences: learning differences are based on culture and their view of the world. When a teacher misinterprets a behavior due to the students background this is called a cultural mismatch. IRE cycle is where the teacher imitates a discussion in which the students respond to and then the teacher evaluates their response. Teachers needs to also beware of a students socioeconomic status which is based on their economic, educational, and occupational status. Gender differences are also something to think about.
• Motivation: There are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic is being involved in a learning activity for its own sake. Extrinsic is being involved in a learning activity for a means to an end. Students need to make goals to keep motivation. Mastery goal focuses on the improvement and understanding. Performance goals focus on the end result. Autonomy is the idea of having an internal locus of control. Attribution theory is relationship between student's explanation for success and failures.

So what?

My personal learning theory is probably mostly based on Vygotsky's theories. I believe that we are a tool to scaffold students to their right ZPD. I liked that he seemed to focus on the importance of social interaction because I think that is just as important as teaching cognitively. Students need to learn life skills early in life so they can have success for the future. I also really liked the concept of spiral learning because I never thought about how effective that could be. I want to be able to teach my students something and then throughout the year review it so that they can put all that information in their long term memory. I know that I have a hard time remembering what I learned in elementary school so that will be my goal to work to help them remember the things they learn for years to come.

Now what?
I really liked what my field teach would do to get her students in their ZPD. She would teach a concept to the whole class. Then she would have them do it groups and then they would do it individually. Then after they were graded she would give them a chance to fix what they did wrong. If they did not get it she would have a student who understands it better help them out. If they were still having problems she would sit down with them herself and work with them. This way I think that they students would really understand what they were learning. I really want to try and use this technique in my class someday.

I would like to learn more about the brain and how it effects learning. I thought it was really fascinating and I have always been interested in medical science. I thought about going to in a medical profession but I have a really weak stomach but still it would be interesting to take some classes to get a better understanding.

I think I need to improve reviewing over things over and over. I thought I understood things the first time learning them but now going over them I am forgetting stuff and not fully understanding things. So next time around I need to practice spiral learning myself so that I can remember things long term.

Social and Moral Development Case Study Analysis

Case Study:

1. I think I the strategy to have the more outgoing and socially confident students to go an ask the more reserved students to play. I know that I always feel more welcomed when someone asks me to do something and I feel like I am making friends that way. Also they can look to these students and learn from their examples and gain some more confidence.

2. Well depending on the type of book it can help any one of Erikson's psychosocial stages. For example if the story book talked about becoming self-sufficient, like learning to tie your show, it could help the students with Autonomy versus Shame.

3. I believe that children's literature is a great tool to help students learn moral reasoning. I know that there are many different books that could help. The book could go through a scenario of where the character made and choice and received a negative consequence, for example "The Three Little Bears". Goldie Locks did things when she did not have permission and the bears were unhappy.

4. I think the positive cognitive advantages to reading a letter from Mr. Stone is that they can discuss something that they might not ever learn in an environment where everyone can respond and help out. I know that by teaching something or by coming up with ideas for others I understand things better myself. The social aspects are great as well because they can see what their peers think and learn how to keep their friends in way that will not embarrass them. I also think the moral aspect is a good one because I don't like how they took Liam aside and had the whole class criticize them. That has the potential to back fire and make Liam feel pretty bad. This way they are inadvertently helping students understand how to make friends.