L1: Final Paper

EDU 6132: Students as Learners

Personal Reflective Paper

Morgan Rost

Seattle Pacific University

March 1, 2010

Marker Event and Social Context:

As I started my 5^th grade year, my last year at View Ridge Elementary School, I was excited to see what the year was going to bring.  When November came around it was time for my yearly physical and everything was going well, until my doctor checked me for scoliosis.  After checking my spine for what felt like 10 minutes, my doctor called my mother into the room to talk to both of us.  My doctor explained to us that I had scoliosis and I needed to meet with a back doctor to find out the severity of the curvature of my spine.  At first I did not understand what this all meant, but my mother assured me that everything would be ok, and not to worry until we met with the back doctor.

My mother came and picked me up early from school a week later and we went to Children’s Hospital to meet with the back doctor.  Once I took a few x-rays the back doctor came into the room to explain to us that my spine was curved in a “S” shape, and that because I was still growing I would need to wear a back brace for 20 hours a day to hold my spine in place the curvature would not get worse.  When my mother and I both heard this news we began to cry.  So many questions were popping into my head: Would I still get to play soccer? What happens if the back brace does not work? Do I have to miss school?

Even though I missed school because of appointments, I passed 5^th grade and was nervous to enter a new school next year.  When I entered Eckstein Middle School for the start of my 6^th grade year I felt so embarrassed because I needed to once again explain to everyone why I had a back brace, and why I needed to miss school when all I wanted to do was to fit in with the other students.  I had no idea that the next doctor appointment would make things even worse.  At the next appointment my back doctor looked at my x-rays, as usual, only this time he told me that he had good, and bad news.  The good news was that I did not have to wear my back brace ever again; the bad news was that my spinal curvature got much worse and I needed to have back surgery to make it better.  My struggle to fit in with the other students was about to get much harder.

For the next few months I missed more and more school because I had so many appointments to prepare my body for the surgery.  I had appointments to get MRIs, more x-rays, and I had to give blood for my surgery.  If missing school was not hard enough, when I was at school I had to take a lot of vitamins and pills during the day, and spend a lot of time talking with my teachers to prepare my school work for my surgery.  Since I had so many other things going on, some of the other students made fun of me.  This only made me fall more behind in school because I felt so different and I did not want to do my work, I did not see the point. After my surgery I had a quick recovery and only missed two weeks of school.  During those two weeks I did not want to do my homework because I did not understand the material.

When it was time for me to go back to school at first I was excited because I thought things would be different.  I was not made fun of anymore because I did not have a back brace, and did not have to miss school as often.  My school work on the other hand was not so different.  I was falling more and more behind and did not understand the material, and I started to give up.  My teachers did not let me give up and took time out of their day to work with me so I would get back on track to succeed.

Theory of Development or Learning:

When students start school motivation is high, but as time goes on motivation declines.  One explanation of this phenomenon is the ideas behind the importance of self-efficacy.  Self-efficacy can be defined as “a learner’s perception of his or her capability of reaching a desired goal or a certain level of performance” (Pressley pg 292).  Students that have high levels of self-efficacy do better in school and are more likely to apply these feelings to future tasks.  There are four main components that can influence a students self-efficacy: 1. social models- when students see other students on the same level finishing a task, the student knows they can as well; 2. opinions of others- when students are encouraged by others they are motivated to do so; 3. feedback- seeing that the students hard work paid off; and 4. “big fish in little pond”- students that are surrounded by high achievers will lower self-efficacy.

All of these factors can be affected by peers, but teachers have a big impact on student self-efficacy.  Some things explained in lecture that can help to raise success of students are to provide opportunities of students to succeed.  Teachers can do this by assigning tasks that are not too hard for the students, or to change tasks for certain students that are falling behind.  Teachers can help students to set reasonable goals, and to let students assess their own work.  Helping students to make sure their goals are not set too high will help to make sure that those goals are achieved, and then to allow students to assess the work that they do helps them to see if those goals were met without comparison to the other students.  Showing students the relationship between their effort and the outcome received is important;  Brophy (1998) found a formula for motivation: expectancy x value = motivation if a student expects to succeed, and the value that the student places on the task is high, the student will be much more motivated to complete the task by doing their best work.  While it is important to let students assess their own work at times, it is also important for teachers to give informative feedback.  Feedback that is not all negative, and that shows the student how they can fix the problem to make it better encourages the student to not give up.  Lastly, teachers should give special attention to students that are discouraged and give them special motivational support.  (Gritter)

Contradictions to Theory:

When I came back to school after my surgery and my teachers saw that I was struggling, they tried to help.  While some of these techniques worked for my situation, some did not.  The social models and “big fish in little pond” do not fit into my situation because the other students were, for the most part, on my level.  There were students that were a little higher than me, but some students were also below my intellectual level.  It is easy to see, now looking back, that the other students were not smarter than I was, but at the time, I thought all of my peers were much smarter than me which made me feel discouraged.

When I did meet with my teachers, and we talked about different ways to get me to understand the material again, almost all of my teachers suggested different projects that I could come up with.  I turned this idea down because I was already feeling like such an outsider, and that I was different from my peers.  If I had other projects and assignments to do, I thought that this would only make the situation worse for me.

Connecting the Dots: Connecting Real Life with Theory:

While I knew I was struggling in school for a long time, I thought I was doing a good job of keeping it from my teachers.  I found out that I was wrong when each of them came to me to try and work out a way to make sure that I succeed.  I did not ask my teachers for help, they asked me to let them help me.  After school I met with each of them individually to discuss how to make sure that I would pass their classes.  Each teacher was a little different in the way that we worked out a plan, but each of them started with helping me to set reasonable goals for myself.  In doing this, the work that I needed to complete became much less stressful because my teachers were encouraging me and it felt like they were on my side.  My teachers also helped me by sitting down with me and explaining to me why I was getting the grades I was; by giving me informative feedback I was not as hard on myself as I was when I got bad grades.

Having my teachers help me out so much made me realize that I was not alone in this process.  My surgery was hard enough on other aspects of my life, so when my teachers gave me the motivational support I needed to succeed, I started to see results.  After a few months of working closely with my teachers and taking much needed time to get back on track, I started to see a rise in my grades as well as my self-efficacy.

How My Experiences Will Shape My Teaching:

In my own classroom, I would like to show my students why assignments and tasks are important so they stay motivated.  Through my experience I did not see the reason for the certain homework assignments and how they were going to help me in the future.  I want to make sure that this does not happen in my own classroom so to prevent that I will not only tell my students why they are important, but also what steps they need to take to succeed.  I would also like to give my students more options when I can so they stay as excited about the topic.  When I can I would like to give my students open guidelines within certain topics because then they stay motivated.

The biggest lesson I learned from my experience that I will take with me into the teaching world is that when I see a student begin to struggle I want to take some extra time to figure out if as a teacher I can help in any way.  Through my experience it did not take very long for my teachers to meet with me, it was only about 10 minutes after school, but to me as a student it meant a lot more to me.  I would like to be able to be there for my students the way my teachers were there for me.  Unlike my situation, I may not already know why a certain student is struggling in my classroom.  If I take some time and find out what is bothering that student, and find out why they are having a hard time succeeding, I can help the student to get back on track.

Work Cited

Gritter, Kristine PH.D. (2010). SPU. EDU 6132 Students as Learners. Lectures January-

February.

Pressley, Michael, & McCormick, Christine. (2007). Child and Adolescent Development for

Educators. New York: Guilford.

Milestone 3

Field Notes:

When everyone was finished with the test, Jill started with a review of the letter E and the review of the other vowels that they have worked on as a class.  The students got a worksheet that will help them learn the letter E and they are told to start by putting check marks over all of the Es so they remember.  Then Jill reviews homework.  The students pull out their homework and read out loud with Jill the questions and they discuss the answers.  Then it is time to bring out the Pink/ Green papers and Jill asks question and the students yell out the answers.

The students were taking a test and they did not need a lot of help.  I looked at the test and it was questions about families.  There were parts about who is in a family and male/female people in the family.  The students also had to fill out a family tree and answer questions about it.  There was also a medical form to fill out for a family member that was sick.  Jill came and told me that the students can understand when these parts of the test are read aloud, but sometimes copying and putting the correct words in the correct boxes can be really difficult for these beginning students.  She also said that western culture orders things more regularly than other cultures and this can be a hard task to translate.

Some students finished much quicker than other students, so I worked with two students that were finished quickly.  We worked on the story that Jill would talk about later.  The students liked when I read first, and they repeated.  When we finished with the story once, the students each read it aloud, then they asked me to repeat certain words that they were having trouble with.  Some examples were, work, working, miles, bank, take, and compound words.  When Jill starts she talks about the new unit: time.  She gives the students paper that has different questions that they are to ask each other.  How do you get to school? How long does it take?  Before the students are to walk around, Jill reminds them of questions they might need to know for doing this exercise: How do you spell that? Can you repeat that please?  Then they all get back as a class and start to read about Mary and how she gets home.  They read aloud with Jill and Jill acts it out and points to the pictures.  Then the students read the story in a group.

Milestone 2

1. I met Jill outside of her classroom before the class started and walked in with her.  The second she walks in her students are speaking English to her, asking her how she is, and she is asking them questions as well.  She starts out with a spelling test and on her overhead she writes out the heading that her students should use as well.  As Jill is giving the spelling test she is saying each word slowly and clapping out the syllables as she says them to help the students.  While the students are taking the test, you can hear them sounding out the words themselves, and listening closely to how Jill says each one.  After the spelling test was over Jill put up a picture of Obama and his family.  Jill and the students discuss the picture, talking about how he has daughters, and that they are a family.  Jill puts up the names of the family and as a class they listen and repeat what Jill says.  Then Jill puts up the verbs “have” and “has” and they discuss how that can relate to the picture of Obama and his family.  Then there is a paragraph about the family and Jill says the paragraph and the students repeat, and then read it on their own and with a partner.  Then it is time for the students to create their own family story.  Jill starts out by explaining her own story.  After the students are finished it is time for a break.  After break, Jill shows a youtube video of a Gorilla and begins talking about the zoo.  She asks the students if they have been to the zoo, if they have seen Gorillas, etc.  Jill then passes out a story about a boy that falls into a Gorilla cage at the zoo.  As Jill reads the story she acts it out and the students point to the pictures.  Jill then has the students read the story out loud as she reads it, and then they break into their partners and read to each other again.  Near the end of class Jill passes out pink and green papers and tells the students that pink means no, and green means yes.  She asks the students different questions about the story that they read earlier.  When Jill asks a question that is a no, the students get very excited and laugh at the question.  The students really seem to like to hold up different papers and answering those questions.
2. Our group picked the “Five Phases of Professional Development” framework because it works well with the brain rules that we are going to be working with.  This framework will help us because it will show us what is working best, and then how to fix it next time to make it even better next time.  Since it will be during a workshop, this framework works by having time to discuss with others and gain their insight, as well as being able to share your own.
3. We would like to use the computer lab inside the SPU library.
4. The topic of our workshop is: The value of teaching to memory using associated senses and its relation to students successfully learning of a foreign language.  Also how these techniques and some others help to make the lessons “stick”.
1. Building a Knowledge Base:

i.     It would be helpful to start by saying what we are going to talk about in the workshop so that everyone understands what to expect and why it is important to ELL teachers to know.

ii.     We should also start with a small background about the brain rules that we are going to focus on, so everyone understands what the basis of the brain rules are when we use them as apart of our framework later.

iii.     Do some examples of the brain rules we are going to use.  Like some short term and long term memory exercises.

2. Observing Models and Examples:

i.     Talk about some examples that Jill does in her classroom and explain how the help the students learn English better.

ii.     Discuss how important it is to keep the lessons from going too long by switching topics about every 20 minutes to keep the students focus.  An easy way to do this is to keep discussing the past topics from the week, bring up topics that were discusses earlier will help with memory as well.

iii.     Talking about how to incorporate all of the senses while teaching.  As Jill does in her classroom, when she is explaining things she acts them out as well.  For example, if the work is open, then while saying the word open a door, or let the students open their books.  Doing this will help to keep the word in the student’s memory better, as well as keeping the students active.

3. Reflecting on Your Practice:

i.     Give the people in the workshop time to think about what was discussed earlier, then in groups discuss what they think will work and what they have ideas about to add on to.  After some time sharing ideas with the whole group so we can all share ideas.

4. Changing Your Practice:

i.     Brainstorm ideas as a group to have an “English only day” once a week.  During this one day, English can only be spoken inside the classroom so the words being learned can be used in better real world ways.  This can help the students when they are outside of the classroom and need to use English in other settings.

5. Gaining and Sharing Expertise:

i.     Wrapping up what was discussed earlier during the whole workshop first just the presenters to refresh memory, then as a group as a whole.

ii.     During the group discussion encourage people to give real life examples to show how these ideas have worked in their own classrooms to share knowledge bases.

Quiz 2: Students as Learners

1. 1.     Does intelligence change across the lifespan?
   1. a.     Yes, Intelligence chances across the lifespan.  As people age, they encounter different cultural and educational experiences that change their performance levels.  Cattell and Horn found that there are two different factors of intelligence: crystallized which is measured by intelligence tests; and fluid intelligence which is measures resonating, and inductive and deductive reasoning.  By studying these two different types of intelligence they discovered that though neuron loss continues through life, so do life experiences and both of these factors help to see that knowledge increases with age. 
2. 2.     Is giftedness a blessing or a curse?
   1. a.     I see giftedness as both a blessing and a curse.  Our book defines giftedness as an IQ score that is higher than 130, and a student that is much smarter in certain areas of study above their peers.  Gifted students do excel in certain subjects and this can come to a great advantage over other students.  These students have also found to be happier, and not struggle with money issues.  Being able to understand material more quickly and not struggling with motivation on subjects are both ideas of why giftedness is a blessing.    Giftedness can also be seen as a curse because it can sometimes equal more amounts of advanced homework, and some gifted students struggle socially.

 

Chapter 9

1. 3.     How can you create a motivating classroom?
   1. a.     In the book, and discussed in lecture there were many ideas of how to create a classroom that motivates students to want to learn about the material.  In my classroom I want to keep self-efficacy high in my classroom by not giving punishments and challenging my students but not too much so they do not succeed.  I also want to give my students choices when learning new material so they are excited to learn and share their knowledge.  I see peer tutoring as another great way for students to stay motivated by helping each other out.  The main way I see making a motivating classroom is to keep the topics interesting to the students, as well as you as the teacher.  Teaching new ways, and letting the students voice their opinions on what is interesting and what they would like to learn about helps to keep the motivation high in the classroom. 

Chapter 5

1. 4.     Your sibling just dropped the bombshell that he or she has recalled early memories of sexual abuse while undergoing therapy.  What is your informed response?
   1. a.     My first response would be to ask my sibling how these memories were recovered.  As stated on page 136, there are many techniques to bring these memories out of the subconscious.  If the memories were brought to the conscious by hypnosis or free association, I would tell my sibling that many times the findings when using these techniques are a therapists interpretation of what they think the patient is stating, not actual memories of sexual abuse.  While Freud thought that recovering these memories and addressing them could help the patient in the future, the memories most of the time are not actual accounts of true experiences, especially when the patient had no memory of sexual abuse before therapy.

Chapter 5 and 6

1. 5.     Whose theories of development did you find more useful as a classroom teacher: Erickson or Vygotsky? Why?
   1. a.     I think that Vygotsky’s theory of sociocultural approaches to the mind was more useful for a few reasons.  One reason is because of his idea behind seeing the culture that one comes from is very important when trying to understand development.  When students are coming from cultures that are different from our own it can be hard to teach them, but once understanding of that culture happens teachers can help change their teaching to better suit the students.  Another reason I think Vygotsky’s theory was more applicable to teaching was because of section about scaffolding and a guided apprenticeship.  Both of these ideas are important when teaching because as a teacher it does not help students when they are just given the answers, but when scaffolding occurs the students will learn more.  Scaffolding is defined in our book as teachers giving help on an needed basis.  Letting students struggle to figure something out on their own is a much better way of teaching then giving the answers.  I also see apprenticeship as another great idea because sometimes teachers are not reaching certain students because of an age gap, or because they cannot relate well to the student.  When students can talk with mentors that are a little older can really help students excel especially when they are struggling. 

 

Chapter 10

1. 6.     Describe ideal parenting.
   1. a.     I think that on the basis there is no “ideal parenting” but after reading sections in our book I think that an authoritative parenting style has been tested to be most effective.  Authoritative parenting has been seen to have benefits because the children are more responsible, cooperative and higher self-esteem.  Along with an authoritative parenting style, having a secure base is important.  A secure base includes letting children try out new things on their own, and discovering/testing different things with a lot of support from the parents.  This helps students have healthier relationships with parents because the parents are always there to talk through problems, and help to find solutions.  Another important parenting technique is to include induction when children get in trouble.  Induction is explaining to the child why their actions are not appropriate instead of just giving a punishment.  Explaining to the child why their actions are not suitable is important when they get older and need to make their own decisions because they will most likely choose the right one.  Children growing up in these sorts of settings are friendlier, have better peer relationships, and succeed more in school.

Brain Rule 4

1. 7.     Describe how you might create a humane emotionally charged classroom learning event.
   1. a.     Making a certain learning event emotionally charged can be difficult because not every student is emotionally charged in the same way.  John Medina gives great ideas on how he used to make his learning events more emotionally charged.  One idea he suggested is to trigger an emotion of the audience, this can be done by telling a funny/sad story that the audience can either relate to, or at least have emotions attached to it.  Another idea Medina gives is to make sure that it is relevant to the material being taught.  When telling a story to create a ECS make sure the story can be applied to the material.  The last idea that Medina used was to use them about every 10 minutes, and place it either at the beginning or the end of the lesson.  At the beginning the students are excited, and placed at the end the students can apply it to the lesson taught.  Within my own classroom, I want to try and find ways to get the students excited about the material, and to explain it in a way that makes them remember it. 

Brain Rule 8

1. 8.     What are the three parts of stress? Are you stressed right now? How do you know?
   1. The three parts of stress are: 1. aroused physiological response that is measured by an outside party; 2. the stress must be seen as aversive; and 3. the person cannot feel in control of the stress.  When reading these three parts of stress I see that I am not stressed right now because I feel in control of my stress which means I can turn down my stress, and even though I do not have someone to tell me if they are perceiving me as stressed out, all three must be present to make the moment stressful.

Quiz 1: Students as Learners

Chapter One

 

1. What’s the difference between a dependent and independent variable in an experiment?  What is an effect size and how does one determine the effect size of an experiment? What is a large effect size versus a moderate effect size? Why is this important to you as a teacher anyway?

The independent variable is the factor that is being changed in the experiment, and the dependent variable is the variable that is measured to see the change that the independent variable is making.  An effect size is the difference in averages between the experimental and control groups so it is easier to compare across studies.  To determine an effect size, is to take the difference in means between the experimental and control groups.  If the effect size is larger than 0.9 then it is a large effect size, 0.4-0.9 is considered a moderate effect size, and 0.4 and lower is a small effect size.  As a teacher it is important to know about experiments like this because there are many different ways to teach and it is important to see if the changes make a difference in the classroom.  It is important to conduct your own classroom experiments to see what methods are working for your students.

Chapter Three: Cognitive Development

3. What are the four stages of Piaget’s theories? Name one specific developmental milestone that a teacher could use to place a child in a stage.  How does learning occur according to Piaget? Describe one way that neo-Piagetians have built on his original theory.

      Piaget has 4 stages of development which are: 1. Sensorimotor stage, 2. Preoperational stage, 3. Concrete Operational stage, 4. Formal Operational stage.  Piaget states that the stages do not have a certain time in which they happen, but one cannot occur before the last.  For a student to move into a new stage there must be a state of what Piget calls disequilibrium, which is a realization that two contradicting ideas about something cannot coexist, so the student must work through the disequilibrium to make it though to the next stage.  Teachers can facilitate a change in stages many different ways, but one way is to encourage students to explore new situations on their own, or with their peers.  Taking out all of the teacher pressure and instruction can help the students reach the next stage on their own.  In doing this, the students will reach the next stage on their own in a more natural setting, which will make it stick.  Many other theorists have taken Piget’s theory and built upon it, one group, Posner, Strike, Henson, and Gertzog, found that there is more to disequilibrium.  They believed that instruction needs to: 1. produce clear dissatisfaction with the errant belief, 2. provides an intelligible and plausible alternative conception and 3. provide an alternative that has obvious intellectual power not permitted by the prior conception.

 

Chapter Four: Cognitive Development: Information-Processing Theory

 

4. Discuss a strategy that would be appropriate to teach to the following students so they could be more metacognitive in learning: a kindergartener, a fifth grader, and an eleventh grader.

      A kindergartener could work on their rehearsal strategies by working on labeling different objects, and putting them in order.  This would be the beginning of simple rehearsal strategies.  A fifth grader could work on their organization strategies by having a binder that they need to have organized.  Doing this would help to use their organizational skills that are being built upon, and this would help a lot later in life.  An eleventh grader could also work on their organizational strategies by organizing their classes so they can graduate on time and maybe their college information as well.

 

Chapter Five: Language Development

Answer in one developed paragraph.

 

5. What does Genie, “the girl in the box”, teach us?

Genie taught language theorist a lot because she missed many critical stages.  Most language theorist believes that language occurs in critical stages, and if any of these stages are missed there is no way to make them up.  Children like Genie, that were not exposed to language at all, missed all of those critical stages.  Genie taught us that there are critical stages of language.  She missed the most important ones because no one had ever spoken to her before.  While she did learn a tiny bit of sign language, she could not get those critical stages back.  Genie could still learn, and wanted to learn, but because no one had spoken to her early enough in life she could not use speech as a way to communicate.

 

6. Would it be a good idea for the United States to have mandatory bilingual education.  Explain, citing from our texts.

      I think that it is important to teach all students proper English because when in professional settings and most other settings outside of school English is going to be used.  I do not think that subtractive programs are a good idea though because it has been proven that the students do not develop well into the mainstream with programs like that (pg 215).  Additive programs that show students that their home language is not devalued, and that there is a time and a place to use both of them.  Students that enter a United States school will not excel if they do not know English because tests, books, and most teachers only know English.  If those students are taught English, they can still use their home language when it is appropriate, but they will be able to function better once out of school if they know English.  There are many programs that United States schools can adopt, but unless they are additive programs, students will not be as willing to learn English because of the way they are brought into the English language (pg214).

 

Brain Rules 1, 3, 7, 11, 5, 6, 9, 10.

 

7. In your opinion which brain rule is underutilized in American schools? What can teachers do to better teach to the brain?

There are many brain rules that are underutilized in American schools, but if I have to pick one it would be brain rule 1, exercise.  I would like to teach primary elementary school and after spending many hours in the classroom observing, I think that it is asking too much of a classroom of 35 second graders to sit still during a 30 minute explanation.  Like I said, I think that a lot of the brain rules are underutilized, but if the students I observe got time to walk around the classroom, or got to have longer recess time, I believe that they would work much harder when they were in the classroom.  It does not matter how many times you separate the students, they still want to talk and fidget as much as possible because they have so much stored energy.

I think that there are a few things that teachers could do to help teach to this brain rule.  One thing I think that would help a lot would be to have longer, and more often physical education classes.  Going to gym class once a week, for a 20 minute lesson is not long enough for students.  Especially if it is a new lesson because it takes about 10 minutes just to explain what the students will be doing that day.  Making gym classes longer and more often would make the students more productive once they get back to the classroom.  Students need to release energy, just like the rest of us, to be more productive.  Keeping a student that got in trouble inside for their recess time is only going to perpetuate the problem because they do not get that release.  If a student is starting to act up I think that they should be able to get up and walk around the classroom, or install treadmills like Medina states.  If the student does this quietly, and is not taking this time to disturb the other students then it could be a very productive way for the student to release a little bit more energy and to be calmer for when they are ready to return to their work.  I think that there are small easy tricks that could work to teach better to this brain rule, and most of them would not cost any more money for the school system, and would raise productivity.