In order to provide effective science teaching for students, we as teachers need to be aware that science has certain characteristics that describe it. These characteristics are known as the Nature of Science (NOS) and establish how science is different from other ways of knowing. Many people, including myself before taking this course, have misconceptions about what science is and how the field of science works.
The characteristics that distinguish science and that many people have misconceptions about are:
1. Science is a creative endeavor. Scientists have to come up with what needs to be investigated as well as possible solutions or explanations for the unexplained. Scientists must also come up with a way to investigate the facts in order to draw conclusions from those facts.
2. Science is social. Scientists do not work alone in a laboratory, but rather work together to engage in investigations, come up with explanations, and compare/contrast data.
3. Science is tentative. Because we are making inferences based on observation, we can not prove anything in science. Instead, it is heavily supported with evidence (see empirical below) and scientific ideas can change as new evidence comes about.
4. Science is empirical. This means that science is evidence-based and all conclusions should be supported by data. Along with science being evidence-based, it is important to note that evidence is not only found through conducting experiments, but can also be found through observations and other means of looking at what has occurred in similar situations in the past.
5. Science is limited. There are some things that we simply cannot investigate in a scientific way. An example of this would be the supernatural and religion. These are not natural phenomena that can be explained through science. Science is also limited in the sense that there are some things we can't observe - like what the very center/core of the earth looks like/what it is made of, but we can use inferences through what we can see to help us come up with explanations.
6. Science is theory-laden. There is a difference in law and theory. Laws are patterns in nature and theories are the explanations for why the laws are true. The explanations for why patterns in nature are occurring and determining what makes those patterns occur is the basis of what science is.
7. There is no one scientific-method. Scientists use a variety of ways to investigate, observe, and to develop understanding of scientific ideas. Because of this, teaching students that there is a step by step process that scientists go through with everything they do is an inaccurate portrayal of scientists. Because there is no one scientific method, science becomes a much more creative endeavor.
As teachers, we have to be aware how we are portraying science to our students and how that shapes their perceptions of what science is. By incorporating these ideas into our content instruction and through explicitly teaching students to recognize these ideas, we can give students a better understanding of science and can peak student interest in science. One way that we as teachers can actively ensure we are not contributing to students' misconceptions about the NOS is to what watch language we use in the classroom (saying investigations instead of experiments, being careful when referring to theories & laws...etc.), to plan decontextualized activities (like Dr. Kruse's tube activity) that lend themselves to conversations about the nature of science, to have students reflect about how what they are doing is like what real scientists do, and to plan activities and investigations that accurate reflect the key aspects of the NOS (allow students to come up with procedures for investigations, engaging students in collaborative learning, ensuring that students are using evidence to support claims...etc.) Students of all ages can engage in conversations about the NOS, it just depends on the context of that conversations and which aspects of the NOS that students are being asked to recognize. The NOS aspects being addressed with students should still be developmentally appropriate, as some of the aspects of the NOS are very abstract. For example, while a kindergarten student should probably be able to understand that science can and is social and that we have to use evidence (the 5 senses) in science, we probably would not have a conversation about theory vs. law or about how science is limited and tentative with kindergarten students.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Using Formative Assessment to Guide Lesson Planning
Past experiences and background knowledge are terms that get thrown around a lot when discussing getting to know your students and deciding how to teach them. There are a wide variety of ways to address students' prior knowledge. Today in my practicum classroom, I gave the 4th grade students a formative assessment to figure out where they are at in regards to the content I will be teaching them. Accounting for the prior beliefs, knowledge, and experiences of students in essential when determining how to best meet their learning needs. Without assessing this information, we cannot truly teach our students because we do not know what they have been taught before, what misconceptions need to be addressed in the actual lesson, or how to deepen their understanding of the concept we are teaching. Formative assessment can also be an indicator of what background knowledge you need to provide students with during the anticipatory set of the lesson. In science, this should be an engaging activity that promotes student inquiry or a concrete experience relating to the content that will be addressed in the lesson in order to get students actively mentally engaged with the material right away.
The formative assessment I gave today was focused on accessing students' prior knowledge and determining students' misconception in regards to weathering and erosion. Originally, I was going to just ask some open ended questions about the big idea that I was trying to address; however, it was brought to my attention that being that open-ended on a pre-assessment might cause students to give you responses completely unrelated to the content you are going to teach. Therefore, I changed my formative assessment. I gave each student a picture of a landform that was created through the process of weathering/erosion and asked students to describe to me how they thought the structure was formed or how it got to be the way it was. I chose not to use the terms weathering or erosion within the formative assessment because I did not want students to simply regurgitate a definition they had heard before; I wanted to know if they actually understood the process, not just the label. I allowed students to draw their ideas too if they were better able to explain what they knew in that way. I also asked questions about what they had written so that I could better understand what they were actually thinking. Students came up with a wide variety of answers from earthquakes to humans to rocks falling on top of each other. The various answers given indicated to me that I need to provide ways throughout my lesson to address each of these misconceptions, give the students something to replace the misconceptions with, and help them fit this new information into their existing schemas (Conceptual Change Theory).
Based on student responses, the formative assessment I used may have been too abstract because it was a picture of something that students had not seen before. However, after reading through student responses and talking to students about their ideas, it did allow me to get a general sense of what they knew about the processes of weathering and erosion - not much. I now know that when designing my lesson, I need to provide concrete experiences for my students so they can have some kind of background knowledge to link the actual content to (Developmental Learning Theory) and I need to be sure to address those misconceptions shown in the formative assessment (Conceptual Change Theory/Constructivist Learning Theory) through picture of actual erosion and weathering that causes change in the environment. Through the formative assessment, I also learned more about where students' ZPDs might be at, which will inform how I group students. I want students to be able to work together and discuss ideas so that they will be successful in their learning. I think that student conversations about weathering and erosion will help the students who may need more supports better understand the concepts if they can hear them described in the language of their peers (Social Learning Theory).
The formative assessment gave me a lot to think about in regards to how to approach the content I am going to teach. It also addressed some other issues that students had in regards to the nature of science. After giving the formative assessment and assuring students that they were not going to get a grade, that I just wanted to know what they were thinking, several students asked me if I would tell them the answer to the question when they were done. This indicated to me that students believe there is one right answer in science that the teacher can give them, so I am going to address this in my lesson as well. While, I plan to include other aspects of the nature of science within my lesson, this was the nature of science idea that presented itself through formative assessment.
Formative assessment can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom across content areas and grade levels. In this instance, I used formative assessment to figure out what my students' prior knowledge and experiences were in regards to erosion/weathering as well as their perceptions of the nature of science. Formative assessment can (and should) be used constantly before, during, and after teaching to provide the most beneficial learning environment for your students because formative assessments can allow you to figure out what students are thinking in their heads and whether or not they are understanding the content you are teaching. In regards to my formative assessment in particular, I plan to give students the same assessment at the end of our lesson in hopes that they will apply what they learned and be able to provide a more developed and accurate description of how the structure in the picture was formed.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Classroom Management Guiding Principles
Classroom Management Guiding Principles
Principle 1 - Establishing Routines
My first principle for establishing good classroom management is having a consistent daily routine that students can rely on to know what is coming during class and to keep order in the classroom. I think this lends itself, in part, to behaviorist learning theory because students will know how it is appropriate to behave during different times throughout the day and students are conditioned to behave in certain ways as well. Routines that I have considered implementing in my classroom are having a "turn in bin", utilizing student mailboxes, and having morning journal time.
My reasoning for having a "turn in bin" is so that students know exactly where they need to put their completed work. That way, they are responsible for being sure it is where it needs to be and it creates less of a hassle than collecting papers individually. Along the same lines, I plan to have a mailbox system so that each student has their own mailbox (or cubby, if space allows). I think that this will lend itself tremendously to classroom management because students can check their mailbox at the end of the day to get back any work, I can be sure that each student is receiving any important information that needs to go home, and students know how they will be getting their homework back instead of returning papers to the student at different times and fearing that they may get lost. When passing back papers, this system will also be beneficial because I can return papers during a break or lunch so that students are not losing any instructional or educational time because I have to pass back papers.
Finally, I plan to implement a journal time at the beginning of each day. Students will know that they are expected to journal for 10-15 minutes right when they come in so that I can take care of logistics like attendance and lunch count, while they are getting into an educational mindset right off the bat. Some days I will have specific topics for the students to write about in their journals, while other days I will let them write about what they would like, or even draw pictures, to illustrate their thinking. Aside from buying me a little bit of time at the beginning of each day, it also gets the students ready to learn by hopefully engaging them right when they walk into the classroom. These journals can also be used as formative assessment for a particular subject we might be starting so that I can gauge what prior knowledge each student has and use what they already know to create cognitive dissonance and to inform my lesson plans (CLT).
Overall, I think that routines are especially important to classroom management because we are all creatures of habit and if things are continually changing in the classroom, chaos will usually occur and the explanation of new things will ultimately result in the loss of precious learning time. Routines are also extremely important for diverse learners because the routine becomes one less thing for them to figure out when they are struggling with the content. Routine helps to make ELL students more comfortable in their environment because they are able to figure out what will happen next, and special education students often have a very difficult time functioning without any routine, as a part of their disability.
Principle 2 - Having Explicit Expectations
My next guiding principle for classroom management is explicitly addressing my expectations with my students and holding them accountable to those expectations. I believe that all students have the ability to learn and that a student is more likely to feel they are able to meet expectations if the teacher believes that the students are capable of doing so. Expectations can be taken from two related, but different, perspectives: how students are expected to behave in the classroom and what the students are held accountable for with their own learning.
Clear expectations go nicely with a set routine because students know what is going on in the classroom and how to act throughout the day because of the behavioral expectations put into place (BLT). It is important to note though, that after setting those expectations, teachers need to be sure that they are following through will them accordingly every time so that students know that they will be consistently upheld to behaving in a certain way. These expectations would make clear that certain behaviors that are disruptive to class are not ok, and that if a student is misbehaving, there will be certain consequences for their actions.
Not only will clear expectations make the classroom run more smoothly, but clear expectations will also set up how students will view learning within a certain teacher's classroom. For example, if a student knows that the teacher expects the class to know facts for a multiple choice test, the student, depending on their views of learning, is more likely to simply memorize the information in order to get a good grade on that test instead of spending more time to create a deeper understanding of the material. If teachers are promoting cognitive dissonance amongst students (CLT) and recognizing the process of learning more than the graded outcome, students are going to perform differently in the classroom.
Hopefully, by setting high, clear expectations for my students, they will be more likely to put forth more effort in their learning because they know that my expectations for them are high. That being said, I think it is also important to note that some students, particularly diverse learners, may need more scaffolding and support than others to meet those expectations, but that they will be held to the same standards to a certain degree. I think that having clear expectations is important at every age level, but that they need to be appropriate for the levels of the students and for what their capabilities are at the time (DLT). I am still wrestling with how I want to address students who are acting out of line and are failing to withhold any expectations I may have, but I am leaning most strongly towards, at least at first, just having a conversation with the student to determine why they weren't acting how they are expected to act, and to ask the student what he thinks he needs to do in order to meet those expectations (CLT).
Principle 3 - Building Strong Relationships
Perhaps the most important of my classroom management guiding principles is building strong relationships in the classroom. This includes my personal relationship with each student, as well as the relationships of other students to each other. This guiding principle focuses mostly on CLT because it is focused on social interaction and the learning that social interaction promotes. I will promote student/teacher relationships by personally getting to know my students. This includes what they are interested in, what their home lives are like, what they view their talents are, and so on. By getting to know each student on a personal level, I think that a better level of respect can be reached between my students and me. By knowing students individually, each student will hopefully feel as if he or she is a part of the classroom and is valued and important. If each student feels like he or she has a place in the classroom, I believe that student is less likely to act out, especially if there is a mutual respect between the teacher and the student. If a student is acting out, then knowing what is going on in his or her life may be helpful in finding the source of the problem and working towards fixing that issue. A lot of the time problems at home can be a huge factor for why students are acting out in the classroom, but if I, as the teacher, have a strong relationship with my students, I can talk to them and figure out what is going on and help the students to understand why it is important to act in a different way.
I also plan on fostering relationships amongst students to aid in classroom management. SLT tells us that students learn from modeling and from interacting with peers and adults. Because of this, I plan to have my students seated in small groups so that they are encouraged to bounce ideas off of their peers and can help each other when necessary. Having students discuss in small groups will allow me time for other things I might need to do like run to the bathroom, pick up some copies, deal with an individual students, or write something up on the board. Of course it will take time to get students comfortable with sharing with each other, but after doing this consistently, students will know what is expected of them when they discuss in groups. Without those relationships with their peers, students may not feel comfortable talking about issues in their learning, which could eventually lead to classroom management issues like acting out or simply not paying attention because the student doesn't understand what is going on.
Building strong relationships with diverse learners will be especially important because they are the individuals that are more likely to need a little extra help. Knowing a student's background, particularly for an ELL students, will be a tremendous help in determining what prior knowledge the student has (CLT), and ways in which you can make that student feel comfortable in the classroom. For students who may have disabilities, knowing what they are capable of and also what they particularly struggle with is going to be very helpful when planning lessons. Particularly with diverse learners who have behavioral disorders, knowing that student is going to contribute tremendously to how you react if they do act inappropriately during class and ways in which you should deal with that issue. Building strong relationships with your students is important because those relationships demonstrate that you care about them as a person and not just about what grade they get on a test. From those relationships, students will hopefully respect me as their teacher, as well as respect what expectations I have put into place for their benefit.
Principle 4 - Active Mental Engagement
Active mental engagement (AME) is my next guiding principle because if students are actively mentally engaged, there will be fewer opportunities for classroom management issues. AME, an implication from CLT, is especially important to classroom management because AME is the time that students are actively thinking about what the teacher wants you to think about. This mental state is what is going to keep students on task during a lesson because they will actually be engaged in the material instead of not paying attention or goofing around. To create AME, it is possible to approach learning as a puzzle to be solved or as an investigation so that the learning is more interesting that simply reading from a textbook. I believe that my plan for a daily journal beginning the day will be beneficial in creating AME because I hope to make the journaling something for students to use in order to explore new ideas and to critically think about what we have been talking about during class. If anything, the journals will serve as a "brain warm up" so that students are in the right mind set to learn.
If a lesson is too abstract, then a student is less likely to be actively mentally engaged in class. Therefore, it is important to make concepts more concrete when necessary, as implied from DLT. However, it is also important to challenge students with more abstract ideas within a concept if a student is ready for that next level. This goes along with the concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD), as implied from social learning theory, because if the material being presented is either way above or way below a student's ZPD, they will either become very frustrated with the material and give up trying to wrestle with the concepts, or they will become bored with the material because it will be way too easy for them to grasp, with little cognitive dissonance or AME required to understand what is going on. When a student is bored or is frustrated, it creates an opportunity for that student to act out or to be off task because they are not actively mentally engaged. If, as a teacher, I can keep my students actively mentally engaged at least for a vast majority of the time, I believe that the number of classroom management issues will be limited.
Principle 5 - Making Learning Relevant
My final classroom management guiding principle is making learning relevant to the student. By doing this, I hope to be able to motivate students and to reshape student views on learning so that the students are more excited about the process of learning and are more likely to be actively mentally engaged in the classroom. A lot of the time, I think that students are uninterested in what is being taught to them, so they do not put forth effort in the classroom and do not pay attention. It is these kinds of behaviors that seem to lead to classroom management issues. So, by making information relevant to them, students will actually be interested in what is being taught and want to know more. To do this, it is essential to know your students because you have to understand what they find to be important and where they might use information later on in life.
Hot conceptual change theory discusses the different factors of motivation (goal orientation, control beliefs, value, and self efficacy), which I find particularly useful when trying to address learning. I believe that by making students see how learning can be relevant to their lives, they are more likely to find more value in the information and are more likely to want to learn. This motivation is what will hopefully lead to a more well managed classroom because students will see why it is important to learn the things we are covering and thus, will pay attention to what is going on. I think that one of the huge challenges that teachers face in the classroom is when their students' view on learning is that they just have to know something for the class and then they can forget it instead of realizing that they need to deeply understand the material because they will use it later on in life. By making learning relevant to the student, I think they will be more motivated to focus on deeper understanding and will possibly change their view on how things should be learned.
All of these different guiding principles overlap in some ways, but I think that the overlap is important because it demonstrates that all of these guiding principles support each other and can be used together in order to create a well managed classroom. Because I have not had the chance to apply these principles to an actual classroom, I know there will be a lot of trial and error in developing how I actually manage my classroom; however, I believe that these five principles will be a good start in keeping students on task and engaged while they are in my classroom, as well as good ways to keep students from acting out.
Principle 1 - Establishing Routines
My first principle for establishing good classroom management is having a consistent daily routine that students can rely on to know what is coming during class and to keep order in the classroom. I think this lends itself, in part, to behaviorist learning theory because students will know how it is appropriate to behave during different times throughout the day and students are conditioned to behave in certain ways as well. Routines that I have considered implementing in my classroom are having a "turn in bin", utilizing student mailboxes, and having morning journal time.
My reasoning for having a "turn in bin" is so that students know exactly where they need to put their completed work. That way, they are responsible for being sure it is where it needs to be and it creates less of a hassle than collecting papers individually. Along the same lines, I plan to have a mailbox system so that each student has their own mailbox (or cubby, if space allows). I think that this will lend itself tremendously to classroom management because students can check their mailbox at the end of the day to get back any work, I can be sure that each student is receiving any important information that needs to go home, and students know how they will be getting their homework back instead of returning papers to the student at different times and fearing that they may get lost. When passing back papers, this system will also be beneficial because I can return papers during a break or lunch so that students are not losing any instructional or educational time because I have to pass back papers.
Finally, I plan to implement a journal time at the beginning of each day. Students will know that they are expected to journal for 10-15 minutes right when they come in so that I can take care of logistics like attendance and lunch count, while they are getting into an educational mindset right off the bat. Some days I will have specific topics for the students to write about in their journals, while other days I will let them write about what they would like, or even draw pictures, to illustrate their thinking. Aside from buying me a little bit of time at the beginning of each day, it also gets the students ready to learn by hopefully engaging them right when they walk into the classroom. These journals can also be used as formative assessment for a particular subject we might be starting so that I can gauge what prior knowledge each student has and use what they already know to create cognitive dissonance and to inform my lesson plans (CLT).
Overall, I think that routines are especially important to classroom management because we are all creatures of habit and if things are continually changing in the classroom, chaos will usually occur and the explanation of new things will ultimately result in the loss of precious learning time. Routines are also extremely important for diverse learners because the routine becomes one less thing for them to figure out when they are struggling with the content. Routine helps to make ELL students more comfortable in their environment because they are able to figure out what will happen next, and special education students often have a very difficult time functioning without any routine, as a part of their disability.
Principle 2 - Having Explicit Expectations
My next guiding principle for classroom management is explicitly addressing my expectations with my students and holding them accountable to those expectations. I believe that all students have the ability to learn and that a student is more likely to feel they are able to meet expectations if the teacher believes that the students are capable of doing so. Expectations can be taken from two related, but different, perspectives: how students are expected to behave in the classroom and what the students are held accountable for with their own learning.
Clear expectations go nicely with a set routine because students know what is going on in the classroom and how to act throughout the day because of the behavioral expectations put into place (BLT). It is important to note though, that after setting those expectations, teachers need to be sure that they are following through will them accordingly every time so that students know that they will be consistently upheld to behaving in a certain way. These expectations would make clear that certain behaviors that are disruptive to class are not ok, and that if a student is misbehaving, there will be certain consequences for their actions.
Not only will clear expectations make the classroom run more smoothly, but clear expectations will also set up how students will view learning within a certain teacher's classroom. For example, if a student knows that the teacher expects the class to know facts for a multiple choice test, the student, depending on their views of learning, is more likely to simply memorize the information in order to get a good grade on that test instead of spending more time to create a deeper understanding of the material. If teachers are promoting cognitive dissonance amongst students (CLT) and recognizing the process of learning more than the graded outcome, students are going to perform differently in the classroom.
Hopefully, by setting high, clear expectations for my students, they will be more likely to put forth more effort in their learning because they know that my expectations for them are high. That being said, I think it is also important to note that some students, particularly diverse learners, may need more scaffolding and support than others to meet those expectations, but that they will be held to the same standards to a certain degree. I think that having clear expectations is important at every age level, but that they need to be appropriate for the levels of the students and for what their capabilities are at the time (DLT). I am still wrestling with how I want to address students who are acting out of line and are failing to withhold any expectations I may have, but I am leaning most strongly towards, at least at first, just having a conversation with the student to determine why they weren't acting how they are expected to act, and to ask the student what he thinks he needs to do in order to meet those expectations (CLT).
Principle 3 - Building Strong Relationships
Perhaps the most important of my classroom management guiding principles is building strong relationships in the classroom. This includes my personal relationship with each student, as well as the relationships of other students to each other. This guiding principle focuses mostly on CLT because it is focused on social interaction and the learning that social interaction promotes. I will promote student/teacher relationships by personally getting to know my students. This includes what they are interested in, what their home lives are like, what they view their talents are, and so on. By getting to know each student on a personal level, I think that a better level of respect can be reached between my students and me. By knowing students individually, each student will hopefully feel as if he or she is a part of the classroom and is valued and important. If each student feels like he or she has a place in the classroom, I believe that student is less likely to act out, especially if there is a mutual respect between the teacher and the student. If a student is acting out, then knowing what is going on in his or her life may be helpful in finding the source of the problem and working towards fixing that issue. A lot of the time problems at home can be a huge factor for why students are acting out in the classroom, but if I, as the teacher, have a strong relationship with my students, I can talk to them and figure out what is going on and help the students to understand why it is important to act in a different way.
I also plan on fostering relationships amongst students to aid in classroom management. SLT tells us that students learn from modeling and from interacting with peers and adults. Because of this, I plan to have my students seated in small groups so that they are encouraged to bounce ideas off of their peers and can help each other when necessary. Having students discuss in small groups will allow me time for other things I might need to do like run to the bathroom, pick up some copies, deal with an individual students, or write something up on the board. Of course it will take time to get students comfortable with sharing with each other, but after doing this consistently, students will know what is expected of them when they discuss in groups. Without those relationships with their peers, students may not feel comfortable talking about issues in their learning, which could eventually lead to classroom management issues like acting out or simply not paying attention because the student doesn't understand what is going on.
Building strong relationships with diverse learners will be especially important because they are the individuals that are more likely to need a little extra help. Knowing a student's background, particularly for an ELL students, will be a tremendous help in determining what prior knowledge the student has (CLT), and ways in which you can make that student feel comfortable in the classroom. For students who may have disabilities, knowing what they are capable of and also what they particularly struggle with is going to be very helpful when planning lessons. Particularly with diverse learners who have behavioral disorders, knowing that student is going to contribute tremendously to how you react if they do act inappropriately during class and ways in which you should deal with that issue. Building strong relationships with your students is important because those relationships demonstrate that you care about them as a person and not just about what grade they get on a test. From those relationships, students will hopefully respect me as their teacher, as well as respect what expectations I have put into place for their benefit.
Principle 4 - Active Mental Engagement
Active mental engagement (AME) is my next guiding principle because if students are actively mentally engaged, there will be fewer opportunities for classroom management issues. AME, an implication from CLT, is especially important to classroom management because AME is the time that students are actively thinking about what the teacher wants you to think about. This mental state is what is going to keep students on task during a lesson because they will actually be engaged in the material instead of not paying attention or goofing around. To create AME, it is possible to approach learning as a puzzle to be solved or as an investigation so that the learning is more interesting that simply reading from a textbook. I believe that my plan for a daily journal beginning the day will be beneficial in creating AME because I hope to make the journaling something for students to use in order to explore new ideas and to critically think about what we have been talking about during class. If anything, the journals will serve as a "brain warm up" so that students are in the right mind set to learn.
If a lesson is too abstract, then a student is less likely to be actively mentally engaged in class. Therefore, it is important to make concepts more concrete when necessary, as implied from DLT. However, it is also important to challenge students with more abstract ideas within a concept if a student is ready for that next level. This goes along with the concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD), as implied from social learning theory, because if the material being presented is either way above or way below a student's ZPD, they will either become very frustrated with the material and give up trying to wrestle with the concepts, or they will become bored with the material because it will be way too easy for them to grasp, with little cognitive dissonance or AME required to understand what is going on. When a student is bored or is frustrated, it creates an opportunity for that student to act out or to be off task because they are not actively mentally engaged. If, as a teacher, I can keep my students actively mentally engaged at least for a vast majority of the time, I believe that the number of classroom management issues will be limited.
Principle 5 - Making Learning Relevant
My final classroom management guiding principle is making learning relevant to the student. By doing this, I hope to be able to motivate students and to reshape student views on learning so that the students are more excited about the process of learning and are more likely to be actively mentally engaged in the classroom. A lot of the time, I think that students are uninterested in what is being taught to them, so they do not put forth effort in the classroom and do not pay attention. It is these kinds of behaviors that seem to lead to classroom management issues. So, by making information relevant to them, students will actually be interested in what is being taught and want to know more. To do this, it is essential to know your students because you have to understand what they find to be important and where they might use information later on in life.
Hot conceptual change theory discusses the different factors of motivation (goal orientation, control beliefs, value, and self efficacy), which I find particularly useful when trying to address learning. I believe that by making students see how learning can be relevant to their lives, they are more likely to find more value in the information and are more likely to want to learn. This motivation is what will hopefully lead to a more well managed classroom because students will see why it is important to learn the things we are covering and thus, will pay attention to what is going on. I think that one of the huge challenges that teachers face in the classroom is when their students' view on learning is that they just have to know something for the class and then they can forget it instead of realizing that they need to deeply understand the material because they will use it later on in life. By making learning relevant to the student, I think they will be more motivated to focus on deeper understanding and will possibly change their view on how things should be learned.
All of these different guiding principles overlap in some ways, but I think that the overlap is important because it demonstrates that all of these guiding principles support each other and can be used together in order to create a well managed classroom. Because I have not had the chance to apply these principles to an actual classroom, I know there will be a lot of trial and error in developing how I actually manage my classroom; however, I believe that these five principles will be a good start in keeping students on task and engaged while they are in my classroom, as well as good ways to keep students from acting out.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Learning Theory and Lesson Planning
So now that we know all about the learning theories and what implications they have for teaching, it is important to note how we can put these theories to use when creating lesson plans and activities for the classroom. There are so many different factors to consider when creating lesson plans, but most importantly, teachers have to take a look at how their students learn in order for the lesson plan to be successful. Sometimes, it may even take sacrificing some content in order to teach students how to learn. In the long run, this will fall naturally into a lesson and the content that may have been skimmed over because of it will be made up for when students learn the content more deeply in their future learning.
Something that I think is essential to lesson planning is engaging students in the content. By posing an interesting question, challenging students to investigate a problem, or by giving them some sort of puzzle to solve, they will be actively mentally engaged in the learning right off the bat. This comes from constructivist learning theory (CLT). Through formative assessment, the teacher must figure out what students already know about a particular topic so that they will be challenged in further investigations. Active mental engagement contributes to a student's zone of proximal development (ZPD), coming from social learning theory (SLT), because students will not be actively mentally engaged if the material they are being taught is too easy. Students will also get frustrated and stop engaging in the material if it is too difficult for them to grasp. Teachers need to take into account how to scaffold students based on where their ZPD is so that they can be successful.
Also beneficial in planning a lesson are the implications that developmental learning theory (DLT) offers. As students continue along in their cognitive development, they will become more and more capable of using abstract thought; however, it is still important to make a lesson concrete to help students create an understanding. Once students are capable of more abstract thoughts, teachers can create the link between abstract ideas and concrete experiences in order to create a deeper understanding of material. An example of this would be a lesson on gravity. The concept of gravity is very abstract, but through a concrete experience, the teacher can allow their students to grasp the concept in a more hands on way. By having students drop things from different heights, they can see the affect that gravity has on an object so that when they discuss the concept as a whole, the students know what gravity might look like.
Another implication from SLT is that students learn from others, so lesson planning should include a group component where students are allowed to discuss with their peers what they are learning, and to share ideas with the class. Along with that, interaction with the teacher is also important in case students have questions. The teacher should facilitate discussion, but also let students learn from each other. Because of this, lecturing is not always the best approach when planning a lesson.
These are just a few ways that learning theory should be taken into account when planning a lesson. Of course behaviorist learning theory will always play a part because it is how students will react to the lesson. As I continue to develop my understanding of the learning theories, I hope to be able to naturally link learning theory to my lesson planning so that I am creating the most effective lessons for my students' learning.
Something that I think is essential to lesson planning is engaging students in the content. By posing an interesting question, challenging students to investigate a problem, or by giving them some sort of puzzle to solve, they will be actively mentally engaged in the learning right off the bat. This comes from constructivist learning theory (CLT). Through formative assessment, the teacher must figure out what students already know about a particular topic so that they will be challenged in further investigations. Active mental engagement contributes to a student's zone of proximal development (ZPD), coming from social learning theory (SLT), because students will not be actively mentally engaged if the material they are being taught is too easy. Students will also get frustrated and stop engaging in the material if it is too difficult for them to grasp. Teachers need to take into account how to scaffold students based on where their ZPD is so that they can be successful.
Also beneficial in planning a lesson are the implications that developmental learning theory (DLT) offers. As students continue along in their cognitive development, they will become more and more capable of using abstract thought; however, it is still important to make a lesson concrete to help students create an understanding. Once students are capable of more abstract thoughts, teachers can create the link between abstract ideas and concrete experiences in order to create a deeper understanding of material. An example of this would be a lesson on gravity. The concept of gravity is very abstract, but through a concrete experience, the teacher can allow their students to grasp the concept in a more hands on way. By having students drop things from different heights, they can see the affect that gravity has on an object so that when they discuss the concept as a whole, the students know what gravity might look like.
Another implication from SLT is that students learn from others, so lesson planning should include a group component where students are allowed to discuss with their peers what they are learning, and to share ideas with the class. Along with that, interaction with the teacher is also important in case students have questions. The teacher should facilitate discussion, but also let students learn from each other. Because of this, lecturing is not always the best approach when planning a lesson.
These are just a few ways that learning theory should be taken into account when planning a lesson. Of course behaviorist learning theory will always play a part because it is how students will react to the lesson. As I continue to develop my understanding of the learning theories, I hope to be able to naturally link learning theory to my lesson planning so that I am creating the most effective lessons for my students' learning.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sorting out Learning Theory
I thought that I would take time to sort out my thoughts here pertaining to each of the learning theories so as to have a more concise description of each upon trying to write my learning theory paper. I am aware that each learning theory cannot be treated completely independently because all the learning theories offer implications for other learning theories. Here I am simply interested in classifying which things fall under each category so that connections can be made clearer later on.
Constructivist Learning Theory - The main idea of constructivist learning theory is that students use their prior knowledge and experiences to learn. They apply newly presented information into their current schemas. When their old ideas are inaccurate, it is up to the teacher to present the new information. This may create cognitive dissonance and cause the students to wrestle with the conflict of ideas further, which will, eventually, lead to a deeper understanding of the new material. As the student is processing the information they are receiving, he or she is actively mentally engaged. Another way to encourage active mental engagement is by having students make predictions so they are investigating the topic at hand. If content is approached as a puzzle, the students will remember the content more vividly than if they were to do something less engaging, such as reading about it. With constructivist learning theory, the big ideas are the most important and letting students explore things doesn't mean they will necessarily understand what is at hand; however, exploration will allow students to construct new ideas based off of their old experiences first. After this, the teacher can step in and offer new explanations and assist with directing the puzzle at hand so that the student can understand material at a more complete and complex level.
Social Learning Theory - The idea here is that students will learn from one another, whether it is through interaction, observation, or imitation. Students essentially rely on other people to help them learn or to encourage their learning. That being said, a very important part of social learning theory is that of zone of proximal development. This is a range between what the student is capable of learning on his or her own, without any help from others, and the point where a student can do something with the help of another person. Zone of proximal development (ZPD) has many different implications for learning because ZPD identifies what material the students are capable of learning and, as a result, what kind of thoughts students are capable of. From here there are implications in developmental learning theory with making lessons more concrete, and constructivist learning theory in regards to active mental engagement. School is a social environment so it is important that teachers encourage group work and allow students to bounce ideas off of one another because it helps them to learn. Often times, working with peers allows students to hear things in a different language than they hear it from the teacher which may make a concept easier to grasp. Overall, teachers should encourage collaboration and peer interaction in the classroom because it is a way in which students learn.
Developmental Learning Theory - Developmental learning theory is based on the idea that students have different capabilities based on where they are at in their development. As children get older, they are able to understand more complex ideas and abstract thoughts. Because of this, the biggest implication from developmental learning theory is that of teaching from concrete to abstract. If possible, instruction should begin with the most concrete representation of the information. If a students are not understanding a more abstract concept, then the teacher should go back to a more concrete example, eventually bridging the gap between the concrete and the abstract ideas. Also important is letting students do things on their own first in order to see what their capabilities and past experiences are. From this, there are implications in constructivist learning theory because prior knowledge is going to shape the individual's level of development, as well as from social learning theory because prior knowledge and development may be influenced by the interactions with peers.
Behaviorist Learning Theory - Of all the learning theories, we have spent the least amount of time on behaviorist learning theory, so I am just going to put down what I generally believe the theory to be saying in hopes that I can deepen my understanding of behaviorist learning theory later on. Generally speaking, behaviorist learning theory is based on the idea that people will respond to different stimuli in different ways. For example, if there is a task presented, the individual will react to that task in a way they deem to be appropriate. The big ideas here are those of reinforcement and how that reinforcement should be used in the classroom. Often times praise is dished out excessively to students so that they become trained to hear if their work is good or bad. Important to behaviorist learning theory is the idea of praising the process instead of the process so that students know that their learning experience is what is being valued, not necessarily the product they get from that experience. That being said, behaviorist learning theory has strong ties to classroom management because students will respond to a teacher in different ways. If the expectations are made clear in the classroom and there is a good relationship between the students and the teacher, students are more likely to behave appropriately during class and to participate more in their learning.
A final note to make about learning theories is that they are not teaching methods, but they have implications for teaching methods. Knowing how people learn is the most powerful tool that a teacher can have for their classroom because from that, they can identify so many other things. Taking into account if students are actively mentally engaged, where students' zone of proximal development are, and making material more concrete before bringing in the abstract will help the teacher to better facilitate learning. These learning theories also offer implications in classroom management and assessment, as a result of the learning processes.
Social Learning Theory - The idea here is that students will learn from one another, whether it is through interaction, observation, or imitation. Students essentially rely on other people to help them learn or to encourage their learning. That being said, a very important part of social learning theory is that of zone of proximal development. This is a range between what the student is capable of learning on his or her own, without any help from others, and the point where a student can do something with the help of another person. Zone of proximal development (ZPD) has many different implications for learning because ZPD identifies what material the students are capable of learning and, as a result, what kind of thoughts students are capable of. From here there are implications in developmental learning theory with making lessons more concrete, and constructivist learning theory in regards to active mental engagement. School is a social environment so it is important that teachers encourage group work and allow students to bounce ideas off of one another because it helps them to learn. Often times, working with peers allows students to hear things in a different language than they hear it from the teacher which may make a concept easier to grasp. Overall, teachers should encourage collaboration and peer interaction in the classroom because it is a way in which students learn.
Developmental Learning Theory - Developmental learning theory is based on the idea that students have different capabilities based on where they are at in their development. As children get older, they are able to understand more complex ideas and abstract thoughts. Because of this, the biggest implication from developmental learning theory is that of teaching from concrete to abstract. If possible, instruction should begin with the most concrete representation of the information. If a students are not understanding a more abstract concept, then the teacher should go back to a more concrete example, eventually bridging the gap between the concrete and the abstract ideas. Also important is letting students do things on their own first in order to see what their capabilities and past experiences are. From this, there are implications in constructivist learning theory because prior knowledge is going to shape the individual's level of development, as well as from social learning theory because prior knowledge and development may be influenced by the interactions with peers.
Behaviorist Learning Theory - Of all the learning theories, we have spent the least amount of time on behaviorist learning theory, so I am just going to put down what I generally believe the theory to be saying in hopes that I can deepen my understanding of behaviorist learning theory later on. Generally speaking, behaviorist learning theory is based on the idea that people will respond to different stimuli in different ways. For example, if there is a task presented, the individual will react to that task in a way they deem to be appropriate. The big ideas here are those of reinforcement and how that reinforcement should be used in the classroom. Often times praise is dished out excessively to students so that they become trained to hear if their work is good or bad. Important to behaviorist learning theory is the idea of praising the process instead of the process so that students know that their learning experience is what is being valued, not necessarily the product they get from that experience. That being said, behaviorist learning theory has strong ties to classroom management because students will respond to a teacher in different ways. If the expectations are made clear in the classroom and there is a good relationship between the students and the teacher, students are more likely to behave appropriately during class and to participate more in their learning.
A final note to make about learning theories is that they are not teaching methods, but they have implications for teaching methods. Knowing how people learn is the most powerful tool that a teacher can have for their classroom because from that, they can identify so many other things. Taking into account if students are actively mentally engaged, where students' zone of proximal development are, and making material more concrete before bringing in the abstract will help the teacher to better facilitate learning. These learning theories also offer implications in classroom management and assessment, as a result of the learning processes.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Learning Styles and Classroom Management
There are many different factors that contribute to classroom management; however, after reading the "Classroom Management 101" blog, it really is as simple as fostering relationships and keeping your students engaged. Creating relationships with your students is pretty self-explanatory. Talking to them outside of class, getting to know what their interests are, and generally just being a friend instead of just the teacher can be an easy way to show students that you care. What becomes seemingly more complicated is all the different ways to engage students, or rather things that will prevent the students from becoming engaged in the material being presented.
Something we recently addressed in class, and that was addressed in Dr. Kruse's article "That's Not My Style: the Myths of Learning and Teaching", is the idea that students have different learning styles. Often times, teachers give their students tests to find out if they are audio, visual, or kinesthetic learners. I know that this was the case in not only my elementary, middle, and high school years, but even within the School of Education here at Drake. I have always had an issue with testing for these so called learning styles because I never really clearly fit under a particular category. Yes, over the years I noticed that I preferred to see things when learning them but that didn't mean that I couldn't take in and process information by hearing it, or by doing it. In fact, it was the combination of those things that really made the material click. So this is where I really connected with our discussion of "learning styles" in class.
Because these learning styles essentially label students, it allows the students to give an excuse for not learning something. If I am told to read a chapter in a text book, I can then go on to say that I won't learn the material that way because I am a kinesthetic learner. It is true that I may not remember everything that I read, but the reality is, text is often a reinforcer for the information being learned. That being said, developmental learning theory tells us that all students benefit from a more concrete, often a more hands-on, demonstration before building that bridge into abstract thinking about the topic. That means that everyone is essentially a kinesthetic learner.
The problem arises when students use their supposed learning as an excuse. If a student believes they are an auditory learner and knows that they are going to be listening to a lecture, they may pay less attention to the material because they believe they will acquire the information easily through just hearing it. This lowers their active mental engagement and when a student is not mentally engaged in the classroom, that is when classroom management issues start to arise.
When I have my own classroom, I will not support the idea of learning styles. I will encourage learning is a variety of different ways because that is what has been proved as effective. I want my students to get the most out of their school experience, at least while in my classroom, so I do plan to take the advice of the blog I mentioned earlier and foster deeper relationships with my students as well as provide them with diverse learning opportunities that with get them engaged. If students have previously been told they have a particular learning style, I will work to show them that it is simply a preference of how they acquire the information and that they really can learn in all different ways. Without learning styles inhibiting their thinking, I am hoping that small part of classroom management will be resolved. There are many other things that contribute to the aesthetics of the classroom like what policies are put into place and the personalities of the students themselves, but I am hoping that those things will become insignificant by putting these two practices into place.
Something we recently addressed in class, and that was addressed in Dr. Kruse's article "That's Not My Style: the Myths of Learning and Teaching", is the idea that students have different learning styles. Often times, teachers give their students tests to find out if they are audio, visual, or kinesthetic learners. I know that this was the case in not only my elementary, middle, and high school years, but even within the School of Education here at Drake. I have always had an issue with testing for these so called learning styles because I never really clearly fit under a particular category. Yes, over the years I noticed that I preferred to see things when learning them but that didn't mean that I couldn't take in and process information by hearing it, or by doing it. In fact, it was the combination of those things that really made the material click. So this is where I really connected with our discussion of "learning styles" in class.
Because these learning styles essentially label students, it allows the students to give an excuse for not learning something. If I am told to read a chapter in a text book, I can then go on to say that I won't learn the material that way because I am a kinesthetic learner. It is true that I may not remember everything that I read, but the reality is, text is often a reinforcer for the information being learned. That being said, developmental learning theory tells us that all students benefit from a more concrete, often a more hands-on, demonstration before building that bridge into abstract thinking about the topic. That means that everyone is essentially a kinesthetic learner.
The problem arises when students use their supposed learning as an excuse. If a student believes they are an auditory learner and knows that they are going to be listening to a lecture, they may pay less attention to the material because they believe they will acquire the information easily through just hearing it. This lowers their active mental engagement and when a student is not mentally engaged in the classroom, that is when classroom management issues start to arise.
When I have my own classroom, I will not support the idea of learning styles. I will encourage learning is a variety of different ways because that is what has been proved as effective. I want my students to get the most out of their school experience, at least while in my classroom, so I do plan to take the advice of the blog I mentioned earlier and foster deeper relationships with my students as well as provide them with diverse learning opportunities that with get them engaged. If students have previously been told they have a particular learning style, I will work to show them that it is simply a preference of how they acquire the information and that they really can learn in all different ways. Without learning styles inhibiting their thinking, I am hoping that small part of classroom management will be resolved. There are many other things that contribute to the aesthetics of the classroom like what policies are put into place and the personalities of the students themselves, but I am hoping that those things will become insignificant by putting these two practices into place.
Monday, September 26, 2011
A Closer Look at Social Learning Theory
Upon reading the two articles provided in class about social learning theory (SLT), there are a few main concepts of the theory that seem to be essential to its understanding. The most important concept that I believe SLT conveys is that people learn from one another, whether that is through observation, imitation, or modeling (Bandura's Theory). The argument presented in the article about Vygotsky discusses that social interaction precedes development, and that consciousness and cognitive processes are a result of social behavior. This is important because it indicates that students will gain their current knowledge through socialization, which has implications in constructivist learning theory (CLT) as well. Students are constantly revising their own theories about concepts and constructing their own meaning of content. SLT implies that learning from others would shape the knowledge that a student constructs.
Also a theme credited to Vygotsky is the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD is essentially the ability of a student to learn without aid from others and without the material being too difficult to grasp on his or her own. Each student's ZPD shows what they are capable of learning as well as what thoughts they are capable of. ZPD involves the role of other people in a student's learning, which is why it falls within SLT.We have discussed this idea many times in class and I have found that it has many implications throughout the learning theories, though it most directly applies to SLT. What was confusing to me when reading the article on Vygotsky was that is said his theory is one of the foundations of constructivism, when it seemed that his theories applied mostly to SLT. However, this just furthered my understanding that all the different learning theories lead to different implications of ideas in other learning theories. SLT and ZPD can be applied to CLT because active mental engagement (AME) is influenced by where a student's ZPD is in relation to what material is being presented and in what way. AME also has implications in developmental learning theory (DLT) because if an idea is presented in a more concrete way, a student is more likely to be actively mentally engaged.
All of these ideas are just the beginnings of the implications that learning theories offer about how students learn. Social learning theory is just one way to look at the learning process, and it can be readily applied with other learning theories as well. I think it is important for educators to be aware of learning theories so that they know how their students are processing (or not processing) information and how they can make the information easier to learn.
Also a theme credited to Vygotsky is the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD is essentially the ability of a student to learn without aid from others and without the material being too difficult to grasp on his or her own. Each student's ZPD shows what they are capable of learning as well as what thoughts they are capable of. ZPD involves the role of other people in a student's learning, which is why it falls within SLT.We have discussed this idea many times in class and I have found that it has many implications throughout the learning theories, though it most directly applies to SLT. What was confusing to me when reading the article on Vygotsky was that is said his theory is one of the foundations of constructivism, when it seemed that his theories applied mostly to SLT. However, this just furthered my understanding that all the different learning theories lead to different implications of ideas in other learning theories. SLT and ZPD can be applied to CLT because active mental engagement (AME) is influenced by where a student's ZPD is in relation to what material is being presented and in what way. AME also has implications in developmental learning theory (DLT) because if an idea is presented in a more concrete way, a student is more likely to be actively mentally engaged.
All of these ideas are just the beginnings of the implications that learning theories offer about how students learn. Social learning theory is just one way to look at the learning process, and it can be readily applied with other learning theories as well. I think it is important for educators to be aware of learning theories so that they know how their students are processing (or not processing) information and how they can make the information easier to learn.
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