Chapter 7 Learning Log

What

Reconstruction error: Construction of a logical but incorrect “memory” by combining information retrieved from long-term memory with one’s general knowledge and beliefs about the world.

Individual constructivism: Theoretical perspective that focuses on how people, as individuals, construct meaning from their experiences.

Social constructivism: Theoretical perspective that focuses on people’s collective efforts to impose meaning on the world.

Distributed cognition: A process in which learners think about an issue or problem together, sharing ideas and working together to draw conclusions or develop solutions.

Script: Schema that involves a predictable sequence of events related to a common activity.

Theory: Integrated set of concepts and principles developed to explain a particular phenomenon.

Worldview: General, culturally based assumptions about reality that influence understandings of a wide variety of phenomena.

Conceptual understanding: Meaningfully learned and well-integrated knowledge about a topic, including many logical connections among specific concepts and ideas.

Community of learners: Class in which teacher and students actively and collaboratively work to help one another learn.

Conceptual changes: Significant revision of an existing theory or belief of an existing theory or belief in such a way that new, discrepant information can be better understood and explained.

Confirmation bias: Tendency to seek information that confirms rather than discredits current beliefs

Summary: Students continually add to their understanding of the world around them in and out of the classroom. This is very individualized because each person develops their own views on the world around them. At the same time, each person develops these views and the views are molded considerably by their social and cultural environments. They learn things from their ancestors, their parents, their teachers, and their peers, which help them construct their views of the world around them. Each student is unique in how the see and interpret the world around them.

So What?

This information in important to know as teachers because it helps us learn and understand what strategies are appropriate in teaching our students. There are misconceptions about what students know or believe and it is important to know what the misconceptions are so they don’t interfere with our teaching. There are many things that young students might believe about the world that are not correct and it is important to know how to show them that what they believe might be incorrect instead of just tell or teach them about it. By understanding how students construct information, it can help us teach them in a way that they will be able to apply what they are learning to real life which should be one of the goals of any teacher in any subject.

Now What?

As a future teacher it is important to know how students learn and comprehend things. I think that I will try to understand how my students gain their views on the world and by doing this, will be able to better understand not only why they learn or believe the things they do but also, understand them better as a person. I believe that relationships are the key to having success in most things in life and knowing how my students might construct their view on the world will help me in my relationships with them. I think that it is important for students to understand why and how things happen. This will help with misconceptions and with the students accepting new information. The 5 E's wold help with this.

I would have a lesson on the Stanford prison study and talk about the theory of cognitive dissonance and be able to critically analyze situations using this theory.

Engage: I ask the students if they thought that they would ever teat someone else, a peer in an inhumane way, just because they could.

Explore: I would have the students discuss the question and have them explore different situations where they might for some reason treat someone else inhumanely.

Explain: I would then show the Stanford prison study and we would analyze why the guards fell into an authoritarian role and the guards fell into a passive role, allowing the guards to treat them inhumanely.

Elaborate: We would then talk about how people build morals and how those morals change when their environment changes and we would talk about other situations when people have changed their morals because of a specific situation that they were placed in.

Evaluate: Have the students have the students write down an example of when someone did something morally wrong because of an authority figure or situation they were in that they wouldn’t normally have done in every day life. Connect to theory of cognitive dissonance.