Final Learning Log

What?

The theory that I scored the highest on in my quiz and thus am most closely aligned was humanism, which makes sense to me because I am so big on the relationships that I want to build with my students. Social interaction is a key part of children’s cognitive and linguistic development, as well as their personal and social development. It is important to set clear guidelines for appropriate behavior and when the rules are broken, instead of just punishing the child, teach them why what they did was wrong and help them see different perspectives so they can better understand why their behavior was unacceptable. It is important to have a warm, supportive environment but with expectations that are firmly held. Children need positive feedback to help their development of their sense of self. Students create their own personal social, and moral understanding so as teachers it is important to allow them to examine and reexamine what they believe and their understanding of themselves and others. I believe that students wont succeed if they don't know how to have good healthy relationships and as their teacher, I can model that for them and help them develop a good sense of self and help them figure out who they are and who they want to be. The can learn to practice good relationships with others because they have learned how to have a healthy relationship with me as their teacher and now can apply it to other relationships and situations they might find themselves in. 

Right behind humanism was cognitivism. Cognitivism studies the mind and how it works and obviously as teachers it is important to know how the minds of the students we will be teaching work so we can help them understand and retain new information. We need to know how they process information so we can help them with the process to help them succeed in any area of life but especially in your classroom. I think that it is important to understand how students learn, process, understand, and remember information. It is important to understand how the memory works so as teachers we can focus on how to get the students to understand the material and commit it to their long term memory. Knowing this information can help us better understand what teaching styles to use to help students not only learn the material but remember it and also to understand what teaching style might work best for a particular student.

Behaviorism, while important and I think that everyone uses it in one way or another throughout their lives, especially when they are in a leadership role, I think it is important not to go crazy with this theory and it's practices. I think that just trying to condition responses based purely on positive or negative consequences kind of robs students of the ability to think and decide for themselves what is appropriate and what they like to do or what works best for them. This theory can be helpful while practiced with other theories but if used on its own, can cause children to never develop to their fullest potential because everything they do would be purely external and they wouldn't know how to think for themselves. 

I think that the biggest weakness for each theory is that each theory only encompasses a  part of what makes students develop and that it is important to understand that you don't have to pick one theory and stick by it, but you can take bits and pieces from each theory and kind of make your own. Any theory standing on it's own, is not enough to help us as teachers be the best we can be to help our students.

So What?

I think that learning these different theories is so important for future teachers. I think that each theory has it's strengths and weaknesses which is why I think that it is good to have an understanding of each theory so we can draw on the things that we think will help us as teachers and help our students develop cognitively, as well as socially and emotionally. It is important as teachers to understand the whole development of the students we are going to be teaching because we are going to be an active participant in their development whether we want to be or not, so it is good to know how we can help our students succeed in all aspects of their development. 

While I believe that I will incorporate bits and pieces of every theory, I think that I lean most towards humanism. I think that this is because I believe that the student and the relationship that you have with the student is so incredibly important. I feel like that needs to be the foundation to their learning because if they don't have a relationship with you or trust you, then the learning place will not be one that is conducive to them really learning and retaining the knowledge that you are trying to guide them to. I believe that learning is important and along with that, I believe that there are many things that need to be going on the outside of a teacher just standing at the front of the room lecturing, for the students to feel like they are in a safe nurturing environment and thus can really learn and experiment with what they learn and with themselves as individuals. 

Now What?

I think that the biggest area that needs improvement for me is giving assessments. I know that it is important to know all the theories that we learned in educational psychology because that will help us in working with our students but it will also help us in working with ourselves to come up with lesson plans and assessments that are appropriate for our students. While I feel much more comfortable with writing lesson plans and I can write objectives that I want my students to reach as a result of that lesson plan, I am still a little shaky on assessments and how to adequately assess every lesson. This is something that I think I need to practice but also I think it would be helpful to get out there and talk to other teachers and learn from them how they assess their own lessons and students. 

I also think that I need to practice differentiation more. I understand the theory behind differentiation and I can incorporate it into my lesson plans, but this is another area where I feel I need to get out in the classroom and interact with students who need to be differentiated for, so I have a better understanding of what differentiation can do and does do for some students. I think that differentiation is important and helpful for both teacher and students, but I feel I need more active practice with differentiation in the classroom. 

Overall, I think that I have a pretty good understanding of the psychological theories and I will constantly be mixing and matching theories to kind of mold my own theory that works best for each class and/or each student that I work with. I also know that it is important to keep myself up to date on these theories and review them every once in a while to see if there is something I need to change in the way I conduct my classroom. 

Chapter 4 Learning Log

What?

Group differences: Consistently observed differences (on average) among diverse groups of students (eg. Students of different backgrounds).

Equity: Absence of favoritism or bias toward particular individuals or groups of students.

Culture: Behaviors and beliefs systems of a long-standing social group.

Ethnic group: People who have common historical roots, values, beliefs, and behaviors and who share a sense of interdependence

Cultural mismatch: Situation in which a child’s home culture and school culture hold conflicting expectations for the child’s behavior.

Standard English: Form of English generally considered acceptable at school as reflected in textbooks and grammar instruction.

Dialect: Form of English that has certain unique pronunciations and grammatical structures and is characteristic of a particular region or ethnic group.

African American English: Dialect of some African American communities that includes some pronunciations, idioms, and grammatical constructions different from those of Standard English.

Personal space: Personally or culturally preferred distance between two people during social interactions.

IRE cycle: Adult-child interaction marked by adult initiation (usually involving a question), child response, and adult evaluation.

Wait time: Length of time a teacher pauses, after asking a question or hearing a student’s comment, before saying something.

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

Multicultural education: Instruction that integrates throughout the curriculum the perspectives and experiences of numerous cultural groups.

Stereotype: Rigid, simplistic, and erroneous, caricature of a particular group of people.

Visual-spatial ability: Ability to imagine and mentally manipulate two-and three-dimensional figures.

Gender schema: Self-constructed, organized body of beliefs about the traits of males and females.

Socioeconomic status (SES): One’s general social and economic standing in society; encompasses family income, occupation, and education level.

Resilient student: Student who succeeds in school and in life despite exceptional hardships at home.

Student at risk: Student with a high probability of failing to acquire minimal academic skills necessary for success in that adult world.

Summary: Students draw on prior knowledge and experiences to interpret their world and the interactions they have with their peers, and you as their teacher. It is important to take in many different factors when working with your students to be able to understand why they are the way they are or why they think the way they do. You need to take into account cultural background and not judge them according to your own cultural background. It is important to understand that our students are coming from many different cultural, familial, and socioeconomic situations. 

So What?

It is really important to understand the different backgrounds of the students that we will be working with. We need to know how to encourage every student to succeed, not just the ones who come from good backgrounds and who seem to have the potential to do well. We can encourage students to be resilient students by being a dependable source of academic and emotional support. Focusing on the students strengths and building on them. Helping the students identify missing resources and help them be able to find resources that might help them. It is important to be aware of your students so you know when it might be helpful for you to be a little more involved in their lives to be helpful to them.

Now What?

I think that having a background in working with troubled teens will really help me in this area. I have worked with at risk youth for the past 4 years or so and it sometimes takes a while to be able to feel comfortable working with them and to feel like you are helping them or making a difference. I think that one thing that we need is patience and understanding. These students can tell with you are fake or judgmental and they wont be able to succeed at all if they don’t think that you believe in them. We have to believe that our students can succeed no matter what backgrounds they come from or how difficult they might be. Only if we believe in them, will they want to work with us and allow us to help them succeed and that is what I want to incorporate into my classroom. 

Chapter 5 Learning Log

What? 

Spearman’s g  Intelligence comprises both (a) a single, pervasive reasoning ability ( a general factor) that is used on a wide variety of tasks and (b) a number of narrow abilities (specific factors) involved in executing particular tasks.	Catell’s Fluid & Crystallized Fluid intelligence: the ability to acquire knowledge quickly and adapt to new situations effectively Crystallized intelligence: the knowing and skills they have accumulated from their experiences, schooling, and culture.
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory  Environmental Context: Adapts behavior to fit the environment, adapts the environment to fit one’s needs, selects an environment conducive to success. Prior experience: Deals with a new situation by drawing on past experience, deals with a familiar situation quickly and efficiently. Cognitive Processes: Interprets new situations in useful ways, separates important information from irrelevant details, identifies effective problem-solving strategies, finds relationships among seemingly different ideas, makes effective use of feedback, applies other cognitive processes.	Distributed Intelligence People are far more likely to think and behave intelligently when they have assistance from their physical, cultural, and social environment.
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences  Linguistic Intelligence: Ability to use language effectively. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: Ability to reason logically, especially in mathematics and science.  Spatial Intelligence: Ability to notice details of what one sees and to imagine and manipulate visual objects in one’s mind. Musical Intelligence: Ability to create, comprehend, and appreciate music. Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence: Ability to use one’s body skillfully. Interpersonal Intelligence: Ability to notice subtle aspects of other people’s behaviors. Intrapersonal Intelligence: Awareness of one’s own feelings, motives, and desires. Naturalistic Intelligence: Ability to recognize patterns in nature and differences among various life-forms and natural objects.

Students with Special Needs 

IDEA : Individuals with Disabilities Education Act- US legislation granting educational rights from birth until age 21 for people with cognitive, emotional, or physical disabilities. 
 

IEP: Individualized Education Program – written description of an appropriate instructional program for a student with special needs. 
 
 Inclusion- Practice of educating all students, including those with severe and multiple disabilities, in neighborhood schools and general education classrooms.
 
 Least restrictive environment – Most typical and standard educational environment that can reasonably meet the needs of a student with a disability. 
 
 Retarded -  generalized disorder, characterized by sub average cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors with onset before the age of 18.
 
 Gifted – usually high ability or aptitude in one or more areas, to such a degree that students require special educational services to help them meet their full potential. 

So What?

I think that this information is really important to know and understand because there are going to be students with disabilities that we are going to be working with and it is important to know not only the laws that are associated with working with them. It is also important to know and understand that exceptional students also include students who are gifted and it is important to know how to work with them in a way that will help them continue to succeed. It is also important to continue to talk about these topics on a regular basis because I feel that the training in this area is minimal. 

Now What?

I think that I need to study this topic more. I think that I need to take the initiative to make myself more knowledgable with this area because I feel that although I have taken the exceptional students class, I am still unprepared to teach  class that has tons of different variations of students, whether they have disabilities or are gifted. I have learned different teaching strategies and differentiation skills but I feel like I just need to get into a classroom to have experience and practice with this. Or another thing I can do is talk to teachers or observe teachers more that work with classes that have students of many different abilities and find out ways that they work with these students to be able to reach all of them and teach them all in a way that will be helpful for them individually.