Reflections on Week 6 Reading and Discussions

Constructivist theory was the focus of this week's reading and discussions.  Learning in this mode requires students to discover their own information, which takes the focus off the teacher and places it on the student. Social interaction is important in this type of learning; students are able to work together to solve problems, exposing them to their peers' thought processes.  Teachers become facilitators instead of lecturers.

The goal of constructivist learning is to produce students who self-regulate.  Self-regulation moves students from dependence on the teacher for feedback and direction to self-reliance.  This is "taught" by modeling the thought processes for solving problems--either by the teacher or peers.  Once students get used to "thinking about how they think," they become more adept at seeing logical steps in their own problem solving.

In my classes, I allow for a lot of group discussion.  I think it is very important for students to hear the opinions of their fellow students, and smaller groups allow students that are not normally outspoken in whole-group discussion to be more vocal.  History is sometimes easier to understand when students can discuss events with their peers.  Discovering patterns in historical events is also easier to do when students are able to talk about these events.  Group projects are the closest thing to discovery learning that I have used in my classroom. I give each group a different topic to research and teach to the rest of the class.  Usually, however, I have already given preliminary information on the topic, so I am not sure if that can qualify as true discovery learning.

It was interesting to read what some of my classmates wrote on the topic of student-centered learning this week. I remember one post in particular where a teacher was reluctant to give up control over her classroom in order to allow for group activities. I replied that you can still have control over your class while they work cooperatively.  As long as you have set behavior guidelines, and have been firm and fair in dealing with problems, your class is still well under your control when they work in groups.  I think it's very important for students to take more responsibility for their learning, and if that means less "stage time" for me, then that is how I need to teach!

Reflections on Week 5 Reading and Discussions

This week's reading focused on planning and carrying out effective lessons.  In order to plan effective instruction, teachers should incorporate direct instruction and small group discussions into their lessons. Direct instruction is more teacher-focused; the teacher gives information to the class that they will need in order to learn the focus standards for the lesson.  Direct instruction should include opportunity for students to participate, such as teacher questioning.  Teachers should be sure to give examples for every concept that they teach, in order to make the information relevant to their students. Variety in direct instruction keeps the students' attention, which is important in making sure students learn.  Independent practice is especially important for students who are learning skills, like how to work out a math problem, or identifying parts of speech.

In my classes, I teach my opening lessons using a direct-instruction approach.  Since I teach history and government, a lot of the information my students need comes from my lectures.  I use learning probes to make sure my students understand what I am teaching them--sometimes in the form of direct questioning, sometimes through finishing a KWL chart that they began before I presented the material, and sometimes through short quizzes at the end of the class.  I really like to use small-group discussion sessions, because I find that some students open up more freely in a small group, and discussing historical events with their peers leads them to understand the events better.  As some classmates and I talked about in our discussions this week, peer explanations are usually easier to understand than teacher explanations.

I think it's really important to teach history in relation to what is happening in the world today.  I try to incorporate current events whenever I can so that students can see that history actually does repeat itself. For example, wars are usually fought over religion or money, and these age-old concepts can be taught in relation to the conflicts in the Middle East today.  This allows students to see that history is relevant; the lessons we as a people don't learn from our past are doomed to be repeated.

I found it interesting to read what my classmates said about preparation and participation this week.  Even teachers of the youngest grades agreed that participation increases in small-group work, even though we ask questions of our students all during lecture sessions.  I would have thought that younger students would be eager to discuss what they know more openly than my high school students (who are so worried about what other people think), but I guess that's not true.  I also found that my classmates agreed that the preparation for delivering a small-group discussion lesson is a little lower than preparation for a lecture, at least with regards to the topic information.  Preparation for small-groups or one-on-one lessons involves more logistics--how I group my students, which objectives I want them to master, how they show their work.  As my preparation decreases, the preparation and participation that the students have to show increases.

Reflections on Week 4 Reading and Discussions

This week's study and discussions reminded me that not all of my students will be able to learn in the same way.  I have to vary my teaching to accommodate the needs of my learners.  In teaching history, I have to meet my children where they are, knowledge-wise, in my topic, assess what they need to know, and rebut what information they may have heard that was false, so I can build a plan to get them all to the final knowledge which is required by the curriculum.  I learned that I have to reach students though implementation of teaching styles that correspond with their preferred learning styles.  And I also learned that teaching the same way every time can get boring, and I might need to change up my classes to keep them interesting. 

I also read that students tend to retain information at the beginning of class and at the end of class due to the primacy effect (former) and the latency effect (latter), so I should not be planning my lessons like a hamburger...fluff, then the meaty details, then more fluff, but more like a huge garden salad...meat and seeds and cheese and dressing on top of the green "fluff." If my kids get to dig into the meat of the lesson, while getting some fluff, they will retain more of the information they need. (Sorry about the burger analogy! Cooking burgers for Father's Day supper tomorrow night...just made sense!)

In my interactions with some discussions this week, I learned about VAKT, which I had been doing in my class, except for the tactile piece.  I really think I will have my students construct a model of something as we learn about the history of a period (such as the Coliseum).  I think that will help my tactile learners in a way that my visual, auditory, and kinesthetic teaching didn't always reach them.

Reflections on Week 3

This week's study focused on behavioral theories of learning.  I reviewed Pavlov's and Skinner's theories on what makes a person learn, how behavior can be shaped through reinforcement of desired behaviors and how a teacher should aim to teach the students to be self-regulating.  According to Pavlov's studies, a trigger can be used to condition a response from a subject.  In my classes, I notice that when I stand at my podium, most of my students will open their notebooks and get ready to take notes from our discussion.  This is an example of classical conditioning. Like the dog that salivates when he hears the ringing of the bell, because he has associated the bell with being fed, my students pay attention to me when I stand at the podium.  I see Skinner's principles in my classroom when I reinforce behavior with good grades or praise.

Discussion posts helped me to remember that there are some time-tested, proven techniques to help mold my students' behavior in positive ways, such as using praise when a student performs as I expect them to, and ignoring negative behavior as much as I can.  Also, the office should be used as a last resort for behavior problems, because some students will misbehave just to get out of class, which is a positive reinforcement of their bad behavior.  I was also reminded that I should make more positive calls to parents, and that having a good relationship with my students' parents will go a long way to help shape the behaviors I want in my classroom.

A good teacher needs to understand what drives the behavior of his or her students, and that's what this week's focus was all about. Through positive reinforcement, conditioning, and teaching my students to be self-regulating, I will ensure that they do well in my classroom.

Reflections on Chapters 1 and 2

To me, a good teacher is one who has a good rapport with his students, one who cares for the student as an individual. In my classroom, I think it's important to understand the differences between students so that I can teach effectively.  That's where I think understanding Piaget's developmental stages comes in.  I have students that think more concretely than others, so I know that I need to teach abstract concepts in a way that will reach those students. I can know everything about a topic, like WWI, but if I don't know how to get through to all my students, and how to use teaching effective teaching strategies, it doesn't matter how much I know.

Working with high school students, you would think that I would be dealing with students who have progressed through most of Piaget's moral developmental and Vygotsky's cognitive development stages, but I have found that I deal with a wide range of stages.  It is really obvious in my freshman classes.  I see students that are still in stages 1 and 2--only obeying the rules that serve them best, and ignoring the rules that I set to help the classroom run more smoothly as a whole. I know that puberty and peer pressure contribute a lot to this as well. In my more advanced upper level classes, some of my students have reached stages 5 and 6--having developed their own ideas of ethics, and performing the way they should with little need for my intervention. In those upper level classes, I am able to allow more group work, and can depend on students to help each other and stay on task.

With regards to Erikson's ideas of social and personal development, I think puberty plays a huge role in the characteristics my students display. Some of my freshmen seem to be stuck in stage 4, where they are still discovering where they rank academically in their peer group, but most of my students seem to be firmly planted in stage 5, where their biggest concern and need is to be accepted by their friends. I have seen so many bright students fail because of this concern, especially when all of the couple drama takes over their lives.

Understanding all of these theories makes it easier to help accommodate my students' needs in my classroom, as well as their needs as individuals.