R- Final
Question: What can be said for intrinsic motivation where the social cognitive theory is concerned?
"The knowledge and skills that individuals possess will certainly play critical roles in what they choose to do and not do. But it is important to emphasize that people must invariably interpret the results of their attainments just as they must make judgments about the quality of the knowledge and skills they possess"
Both articles do a great job of presenting the information on the reciprocity of learning. Self-efficacy; the persons belief in their ability to perform a certain task or learn seemed to be important to learning. I want to reflect on my question here. The social learning theory emphasizes a model where the environment is changing the individual and the individual changes the environment. If the individual does not believe in his/her ability they cannot motivate themselves and thus there is a need for the external influence of the social environment such as that of the teacher to help in the process. Dweck (2005) emphasized that the students have got to participate in the process. I have read in the Chicago Tribune a couple of years ago where there was a discussion on performance based salary increases for teachers. This phenomenon was strongly being opposed at the time by the Chicago Teachers Union. The union believed that there should be some accountability for the student in the school's performance and the ownership of the performance should not be the teacher's alone.
The self-efficacy and the belief have to be the same for a student to perform the tasks needed to be successful (Pajares 2005, pg. 342). Going back to Bruner's article The Culture of Education (1996) he stated, "culture shapes minds ......... and construct not only our worlds but our very conception of ourselves and our powers". He went on to say that acquiring knowledge becomes more meaningful when the individuals cognitively discover it for themselves. It is only then that they can use it and add it to the things they already know (Bruner 1996, pg. 11). The social cognitive theory can definitely be related to Bruner's culture of education in that they both emphasize the influence by the environment. On the surface we may think that they are different but I can see where they may be the same. Social cognitive theory involves reciprocity. The culture of education can relate because we are influenced by our culture and at the same time we influence our culture. Culture is a set of shared social norms. These norms are in fact actions and beliefs that the group of people themselves has established and later these actions become norms, and thus a reciprocal change.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
R10 Multitasking/Minimal Guidance/Cognitive Load
"When we talk about multitasking, we are really talking about attention: the art of paying attention, the ability to shift our attention, and, more broadly, to exercise judgment about what objects are worthy of our attention. People who have achieved great things often credit for their success a finely honed skill for paying attention" (Rosen 2008, p. 109). This particular quote sounds pretty close to constructivist theory of learning. This art of multitasking outlines that the individual decides what is important and what is attention worthy. In essence the person gets to decide which tasks they should or would pay attention to. To this end, he or she is moving from one task to the other based on what they feel is important to attend to. Thereby, constructing their task attentiveness.
Both of the articles for this week's reading were very interesting. We can all admit to multi-tasking. The fact of the matter I always felt that it was a good skill to be able to attend to so many tasks at the same time. Rosen (2008) presented a new perspective for me. His article introduced the term "task shifting". I had never really thought about multi-tasking in this way ever before. However, it did make me re-evaluate whether I was actually performing more than one task at the same time. His label of Attention Deficit Trait was again kind of funny because I was thinking during the reading and before that the quick movement from task to task was quite similar to Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Inattentive Type. The only difference between the two is the fact that individuals with AD/HD Inattentive Type and multi-tasking is that in the AD/HD Inattentive Type individuals do not follow through with instructions and do not completing tasks. They constantly move from one task to the other without completing anything (American Psychiatric Association [DSM-IV-TR], 2000).
Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006) in their article discusses the constructivists approach to learning and its impact on students. One of the things that stood out to me was their discussion of the times in which minimal guidance could work. They stated in the article that novice and intermediate learners would not benefit from this self-guided instruction. The reason they gave was that students learn the wrong information and they overload their working memory causing cognitive load that is not conducive to learning. This stood out because it made me think of its relation to Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. In other words, it is the range of abilities that a person can perform with assistance, but not independently. So, finding the point in which an individual can learn without assistance or minimal guidance is important for determining whether they can guide or design their own learning experiences. According to the article this constructivist approach or minimal guidance is not effective because it does not allow the information to be stored for long-term memory usage (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark 2006).
In my personal experience I tend to feel overwhelmed when I am faced with attending to many tasks at once or as the article refers to it "task-shifting". It is as if I am all over the map with the things that I am doing. Many times I end up getting frustrated and quit, leave the tasks and coming back later after a break or work myself into a migraine like headache. This is very typical of what Rosen (2008) stated in his article. The constant multitasking even though we think we are getting numerous tasks completed we are often wasting lots of time in between each task shift. I know I always intend to get certain things done in my multitasking quest but almost always only end up getting one or two things done, which is the only thing that separates me from the DSM V-TR diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Inattentive Type. I can see how the number of adults being diagnosed with this disorder can increase. There is an increase in demand on our time as we perform our jobs in careers and as students. We want to be able to get large amounts of information and productivity in the least amount of time. To this end, I sometimes feel as if I am a Jack-of-all-trades but master of none. "When people do their work only in the “interstices of their mind-wandering,” with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom" (Rosen 2008, p. 110).
Question: With this constant "Attention Deficit Trait" related to multi-tasking, can this soon become a diagnosis of a disorder? Or is the fact that new technologies allows us to use so many gadgets, fooling us into thinking that we are multitasking, when in fact we are only running so many programs at once on our computers and moving from task to task that really the computer is multitasking and we are not?
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (Revised 4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41, 75-86.
Rosen, C. (2008). The myth of multitasking. The New Atlantis, 64, 105-110.
Both of the articles for this week's reading were very interesting. We can all admit to multi-tasking. The fact of the matter I always felt that it was a good skill to be able to attend to so many tasks at the same time. Rosen (2008) presented a new perspective for me. His article introduced the term "task shifting". I had never really thought about multi-tasking in this way ever before. However, it did make me re-evaluate whether I was actually performing more than one task at the same time. His label of Attention Deficit Trait was again kind of funny because I was thinking during the reading and before that the quick movement from task to task was quite similar to Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Inattentive Type. The only difference between the two is the fact that individuals with AD/HD Inattentive Type and multi-tasking is that in the AD/HD Inattentive Type individuals do not follow through with instructions and do not completing tasks. They constantly move from one task to the other without completing anything (American Psychiatric Association [DSM-IV-TR], 2000).
Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006) in their article discusses the constructivists approach to learning and its impact on students. One of the things that stood out to me was their discussion of the times in which minimal guidance could work. They stated in the article that novice and intermediate learners would not benefit from this self-guided instruction. The reason they gave was that students learn the wrong information and they overload their working memory causing cognitive load that is not conducive to learning. This stood out because it made me think of its relation to Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. In other words, it is the range of abilities that a person can perform with assistance, but not independently. So, finding the point in which an individual can learn without assistance or minimal guidance is important for determining whether they can guide or design their own learning experiences. According to the article this constructivist approach or minimal guidance is not effective because it does not allow the information to be stored for long-term memory usage (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark 2006).
In my personal experience I tend to feel overwhelmed when I am faced with attending to many tasks at once or as the article refers to it "task-shifting". It is as if I am all over the map with the things that I am doing. Many times I end up getting frustrated and quit, leave the tasks and coming back later after a break or work myself into a migraine like headache. This is very typical of what Rosen (2008) stated in his article. The constant multitasking even though we think we are getting numerous tasks completed we are often wasting lots of time in between each task shift. I know I always intend to get certain things done in my multitasking quest but almost always only end up getting one or two things done, which is the only thing that separates me from the DSM V-TR diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Inattentive Type. I can see how the number of adults being diagnosed with this disorder can increase. There is an increase in demand on our time as we perform our jobs in careers and as students. We want to be able to get large amounts of information and productivity in the least amount of time. To this end, I sometimes feel as if I am a Jack-of-all-trades but master of none. "When people do their work only in the “interstices of their mind-wandering,” with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom" (Rosen 2008, p. 110).
Question: With this constant "Attention Deficit Trait" related to multi-tasking, can this soon become a diagnosis of a disorder? Or is the fact that new technologies allows us to use so many gadgets, fooling us into thinking that we are multitasking, when in fact we are only running so many programs at once on our computers and moving from task to task that really the computer is multitasking and we are not?
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (Revised 4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41, 75-86.
Rosen, C. (2008). The myth of multitasking. The New Atlantis, 64, 105-110.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Long-Term Memory
https://exchange.uky.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=b5cf33532cff41cca6ac9178f127e7af&URL=http%3a%2f%2fvideo.google.com%2fvideoplay%3fdocid%3d-602962800234523793%26hl%3den
This presents information about memory. It talks about the complexities of how memories work. It also gives information on when memory is at its peek in humans as well. It gives information on good memories and bad memories and how we remember thing that we would most likely want to forget. It also talks about treatment of memory disorder.
This presents information about memory. It talks about the complexities of how memories work. It also gives information on when memory is at its peek in humans as well. It gives information on good memories and bad memories and how we remember thing that we would most likely want to forget. It also talks about treatment of memory disorder.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Sensory registers, perception, attention, and learning
doi:10.1016/S1053-8119(02)00030-7
The attached article is related to the use of Cognitive Behavior Therapy to change the perception of spider phobias. I used this article to illustrate that the way a person perceives a situation can be changed and diminish certain phobias or anxieties. An example of mind over matter. The title of the article is "Change the mind and you change the brain”: effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the neural correlates of spider phobia. This article was very interesting to me as a future school psychologist as an approach to mental health treatment for anxieties.
The attached article is related to the use of Cognitive Behavior Therapy to change the perception of spider phobias. I used this article to illustrate that the way a person perceives a situation can be changed and diminish certain phobias or anxieties. An example of mind over matter. The title of the article is "Change the mind and you change the brain”: effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the neural correlates of spider phobia. This article was very interesting to me as a future school psychologist as an approach to mental health treatment for anxieties.
R9 Long-term Memory and Retrieval
Quote:
"Again emotions add the adrenaline that will mark that will mark these memories as important and worth saving" (King-Friedrichs, p. 78).
With the buzz in education on differentiating instruction, can we say that educators have recognized the need to connect with students in areas that are nativeor have an emotional connection to? Also can this differentiation lead to improvement of long-term memory functioning?
The thing that makes me wonder about long-term memory and retrieval, is whether it all leads to learning. In King-Friedrichs' (2001) article the teacher was able to use what the students experienced in their travels to make connections in the lesson. She got the students to visualize the longitudinal line and latitudinal lines in relation to the trips that they had taken.This article emphasized that the students would be more likely to store the geographic information in their long-term memorey as a result of the connection. To this end, I wonder if the students would be able to apply the information or just remember the definition of the terms. It would be important to remember the definition of the terms for testing but it is unclear to me if the storage of the information can ensure application at a later date. James (2001) in his chapter on memory stated that " .........the art of remembering is the art of thinking; .................. The connecting is the thinking; and, if we attend clearly to the connection, the connected thing will certainly be likely to remain within recall" (p. 70). Even though James emphasized that something is remembered when it is connected to prior experiences and stored until it is needed, does the need manifest itself in regurgitation or application?
The movie Race To Nowhere outlined that students in AP programs are remembering lots of information but they are only remembering it for testing and then they no longer remember the information. It also outlined that even though these students in high school have passed the AP tests they are still less prepared for college level subject matter. I guess with these individuals the information is short-term memory and not long-term memory storage. This was so clear in the Foer (2011) article when the reporter was able to come up with connections to remember the order of the decks of cards. This was clearly just regurgitation. These kinds of skills are wonderful for factual information but would not it translate to its use for solving problems.
I taught resource classes of high school students with mild intellectual disabilities. One of the classes was split by a lunch period and halfway through the class my students would go to lunch and come back to the second half of the class. I would always have to reteach the information from the beginning of the class because by the time these individuals returned they would often lose most of the information. For this population their are problems with some short-term and almost all long-term memory storage. When I taught them I would use connections to their interests but the problem still existed. When it comes to long-term memory for this population it is very difficult to retain information and repetition is key. Even with the repetition it's still a problem because it is a manifestation of their disability. What would King-Friedrichs, Foer and James suggest to address improving the learning of this population understanding their difference?
"Again emotions add the adrenaline that will mark that will mark these memories as important and worth saving" (King-Friedrichs, p. 78).
With the buzz in education on differentiating instruction, can we say that educators have recognized the need to connect with students in areas that are nativeor have an emotional connection to? Also can this differentiation lead to improvement of long-term memory functioning?
The thing that makes me wonder about long-term memory and retrieval, is whether it all leads to learning. In King-Friedrichs' (2001) article the teacher was able to use what the students experienced in their travels to make connections in the lesson. She got the students to visualize the longitudinal line and latitudinal lines in relation to the trips that they had taken.This article emphasized that the students would be more likely to store the geographic information in their long-term memorey as a result of the connection. To this end, I wonder if the students would be able to apply the information or just remember the definition of the terms. It would be important to remember the definition of the terms for testing but it is unclear to me if the storage of the information can ensure application at a later date. James (2001) in his chapter on memory stated that " .........the art of remembering is the art of thinking; .................. The connecting is the thinking; and, if we attend clearly to the connection, the connected thing will certainly be likely to remain within recall" (p. 70). Even though James emphasized that something is remembered when it is connected to prior experiences and stored until it is needed, does the need manifest itself in regurgitation or application?
The movie Race To Nowhere outlined that students in AP programs are remembering lots of information but they are only remembering it for testing and then they no longer remember the information. It also outlined that even though these students in high school have passed the AP tests they are still less prepared for college level subject matter. I guess with these individuals the information is short-term memory and not long-term memory storage. This was so clear in the Foer (2011) article when the reporter was able to come up with connections to remember the order of the decks of cards. This was clearly just regurgitation. These kinds of skills are wonderful for factual information but would not it translate to its use for solving problems.
I taught resource classes of high school students with mild intellectual disabilities. One of the classes was split by a lunch period and halfway through the class my students would go to lunch and come back to the second half of the class. I would always have to reteach the information from the beginning of the class because by the time these individuals returned they would often lose most of the information. For this population their are problems with some short-term and almost all long-term memory storage. When I taught them I would use connections to their interests but the problem still existed. When it comes to long-term memory for this population it is very difficult to retain information and repetition is key. Even with the repetition it's still a problem because it is a manifestation of their disability. What would King-Friedrichs, Foer and James suggest to address improving the learning of this population understanding their difference?
Foer, J. (2011, February). Secrets of a mind-gamer: How I trained my brain and became a world-class memory athlete. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/20/magazine/mind-secrets.html?hp.
James, W. (1899/2001). Talks to teachers on psychology and to students on some of life's ideals. Mineola, NY: Dover. ISBN: 0486-41964-9.
King-Friedrichs, J. (2001). Brain-friendly techniques for improving memory. Educational Leadership, 59(3), 76-69.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
R8 Reality (Pinker 2002)
"Pinker (2002) stated that "....people's ability to set aside stereotypes when judging an individual is accomplished by their conscious deliberate reasoning. When people are distracted or put under pressure to respond quickly, they more likely to judge that a member of an ethnic group has all of the stereotyped traits of the group. .............. Our network of fuzzy associations naturally reverts to a stereotype when we first encounter an individual. But our rule-based categorizer can block out those associations and make deductions based on the relevant facts about that individual. It can do so either for practical reasons, when information about a group-wide average is less diagnostic than information about the individual, or for social or moral reasons, out of respect for the imperative that one ought to ignore certain group-wide average when judging an individual" (p. 205). This quotation I feel was so true when we completed the Harvard quiz online. When we were under pressure to quickly associate people or certain things into categories. We were most likely to go with our stereotypical views because we were not given the time to use the rule-based categorizer where we would required more time to consider other things such as facts about the items or individuals. Our rule-based categorizer seems to be a sort of filter for our fuzzy associations.
Reality is in the eye of the beholder it seems. Ones reality according to Pinker (2002) seems to be based on our experience and affected very heavily by our perceptions of how we view or categorize external stimuli. Skinner (1987) in his article Whatever Happened to Psychology as the Science of Behavior? would agree with Pinker when he stated even though we are in touch with reality we have to recognize how this reality can be influenced and cause us to go against ourselves (Pinker 2002 p.217). Skinner repeated showed how all of our behavior as well as information that we selectively store are influenced by the external stimuli. As a result, the things that influence reality are things of our environment like Pinker (2002) stated i.e. the media and theory.
Pinker mentioned in this chapter that many stereotypes are statistically correct. Then would it mean that some stereotypes can be considered truth? If this is so, should we then say that it is a reality that some stereotype are truth?
Reality is in the eye of the beholder it seems. Ones reality according to Pinker (2002) seems to be based on our experience and affected very heavily by our perceptions of how we view or categorize external stimuli. Skinner (1987) in his article Whatever Happened to Psychology as the Science of Behavior? would agree with Pinker when he stated even though we are in touch with reality we have to recognize how this reality can be influenced and cause us to go against ourselves (Pinker 2002 p.217). Skinner repeated showed how all of our behavior as well as information that we selectively store are influenced by the external stimuli. As a result, the things that influence reality are things of our environment like Pinker (2002) stated i.e. the media and theory.
Pinker mentioned in this chapter that many stereotypes are statistically correct. Then would it mean that some stereotypes can be considered truth? If this is so, should we then say that it is a reality that some stereotype are truth?
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Constructivism
R7
The Behaviorists believe that all of our actions are guided by some external stimuli. Constructivism on the other hand is just a theory on how a "learner comes to know" and it is based on the "interaction between their existing knowledge or beliefs and the new ideas or situations they encounter" So, can we then assume that constructivism is a subset of behaviorism?
"Since individuals make their own meaning from their beliefs and experiences, all knowledge is tentative , subjective and personal. Knowledge is viewed not as a set of universal "truths," but as a set of "working hypotheses." Thus constructivists believe that knowledge can not be justified as "true" in an absolute sense" (Airasian & Wlash 1997, p. 445)
Instruction in the classroom is guided by the standards set forh by the Local Education Associations. We are bound to follow these standards because it is widely accepted that the student should know X, Y, and Z at each grade level. I cannot see how this is possible in the constructivists approach where the teacher is guiding the student through each 'milieu' and the student is determining their own truths and thus constructing their knowledge based on what is meaningful to them. In my classroom teaching experience I have heard students say over and over again that the information that they are learning is not useful or meaningful. I have also often been asked the question, "When will I ever use this information?" I bring these examples up to point out that in the constructivist's approach the teacher has to determine how much emphasis to place on the student's truth and what is meaningful. However because these two things are subjective their is no uniformaity and therefore no way to evaluate them as the article stated (pg. 448). To this end, such an approach would be detrimental to a teacher and a student in todays schools because we would have to hope that the student's truth and that which he or she deems meaningful encompasses what the student needs in order to be successful in a standards based classroon setting. Also, the objectivity of the teacher's role in determining how much "emphasis" to place on the students truth and meaning can be lost because the teacher is held accountable for the student's performance on skills set forth in the curriculum.
It is quite a task to reconcile the constructivists view of education to the educational legislation Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This legislation and its predisessor or previous form; No Child Left Bhind (NCLB), are heavily rooted in assessment, teacher accountability and bringing each child to grade level by a predetermined date. This kind of information puts pressure on educators and in some cases schools and teachers are teaching the tests and not the skills. So looking at schools performance on state assessments may not mean that the students are at grade level. It could simply meaning that the student is a good memorizer and can only regurtitate information but has no clue what the infomation means or how to begin to apply it.The constructivists view appears to come across a bit like the Montessori schools. The only exception is the fact that the constructivists approach encourages teachers to critique the student's work. The Montessori school teacher doesn't correct a sudent's work but merely guides the students to new areas of discovery. However such an approach is so contrary to the mantra, "data driven decision making" that is hammered into our heads from the teacher preparation programs and straight into the classroom.
The Behaviorists believe that all of our actions are guided by some external stimuli. Constructivism on the other hand is just a theory on how a "learner comes to know" and it is based on the "interaction between their existing knowledge or beliefs and the new ideas or situations they encounter" So, can we then assume that constructivism is a subset of behaviorism?
"Since individuals make their own meaning from their beliefs and experiences, all knowledge is tentative , subjective and personal. Knowledge is viewed not as a set of universal "truths," but as a set of "working hypotheses." Thus constructivists believe that knowledge can not be justified as "true" in an absolute sense" (Airasian & Wlash 1997, p. 445)
Instruction in the classroom is guided by the standards set forh by the Local Education Associations. We are bound to follow these standards because it is widely accepted that the student should know X, Y, and Z at each grade level. I cannot see how this is possible in the constructivists approach where the teacher is guiding the student through each 'milieu' and the student is determining their own truths and thus constructing their knowledge based on what is meaningful to them. In my classroom teaching experience I have heard students say over and over again that the information that they are learning is not useful or meaningful. I have also often been asked the question, "When will I ever use this information?" I bring these examples up to point out that in the constructivist's approach the teacher has to determine how much emphasis to place on the student's truth and what is meaningful. However because these two things are subjective their is no uniformaity and therefore no way to evaluate them as the article stated (pg. 448). To this end, such an approach would be detrimental to a teacher and a student in todays schools because we would have to hope that the student's truth and that which he or she deems meaningful encompasses what the student needs in order to be successful in a standards based classroon setting. Also, the objectivity of the teacher's role in determining how much "emphasis" to place on the students truth and meaning can be lost because the teacher is held accountable for the student's performance on skills set forth in the curriculum.
It is quite a task to reconcile the constructivists view of education to the educational legislation Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This legislation and its predisessor or previous form; No Child Left Bhind (NCLB), are heavily rooted in assessment, teacher accountability and bringing each child to grade level by a predetermined date. This kind of information puts pressure on educators and in some cases schools and teachers are teaching the tests and not the skills. So looking at schools performance on state assessments may not mean that the students are at grade level. It could simply meaning that the student is a good memorizer and can only regurtitate information but has no clue what the infomation means or how to begin to apply it.The constructivists view appears to come across a bit like the Montessori schools. The only exception is the fact that the constructivists approach encourages teachers to critique the student's work. The Montessori school teacher doesn't correct a sudent's work but merely guides the students to new areas of discovery. However such an approach is so contrary to the mantra, "data driven decision making" that is hammered into our heads from the teacher preparation programs and straight into the classroom.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Chance vs Kohn
R6
Can it be said that teachers do not use reinforcement because they don't truly understand what it is?
" ....... the child who learns the Pythagorean theorem at the hands of a teacher who provides frequent feedback and praise does not suddenly forget Pythagoras because his next teacher no longer pays attention to his efforts. Nor is there any reason to think that student who are paid to read become illiterate when the money runs out" (Chance 1993, p. 127).
I had the experience of observing an orchestra class at a middle school in Fayette County. There were two teachers instructing the class of 6th graders. One teacher was in the front directing while the other was moving around. Chance stated that teachers infrequently use reinforcement in the classroom and inadvertently reinforce negative behavior. These two teachers were observed for an hour. During this time they were constantly reinforcing behaviors. They were clearly using what Chance called Performance Contingency Reward (Chance 1992, p. 119). Students were praised for their progress regardless to how small it was. The teachers never used negative words such as "don't" "no" "not" "incorrect" When the students played a note incorrectly they were corrected through modeling and verbal guidance. They were praised for the things that they did correctly. I noticed that the students were smiling when they were given the guidance. These teachers never had to raise their voices and had the full attention of the 27 students.
B. F. Skinner (1984) postulated that teachers need to be taught how to teach. He also stated that the students needed to have immediate feedback to confirm their positive behavior. Chance (1992) stated in his article that teachers shy away from using reinforcement and sometimes believe that reinforcement is the same as punishment. This misunderstanding points out the lack of knowledge that teachers have about reinforcement. The fact that they do not understand what it is makes it difficult for them to implement it effectively. Skinner's belief that teachers should be taught to teach then should include them being taught what reinforcements are and how to effectively use them in the classroom.
Can it be said that teachers do not use reinforcement because they don't truly understand what it is?
" ....... the child who learns the Pythagorean theorem at the hands of a teacher who provides frequent feedback and praise does not suddenly forget Pythagoras because his next teacher no longer pays attention to his efforts. Nor is there any reason to think that student who are paid to read become illiterate when the money runs out" (Chance 1993, p. 127).
I had the experience of observing an orchestra class at a middle school in Fayette County. There were two teachers instructing the class of 6th graders. One teacher was in the front directing while the other was moving around. Chance stated that teachers infrequently use reinforcement in the classroom and inadvertently reinforce negative behavior. These two teachers were observed for an hour. During this time they were constantly reinforcing behaviors. They were clearly using what Chance called Performance Contingency Reward (Chance 1992, p. 119). Students were praised for their progress regardless to how small it was. The teachers never used negative words such as "don't" "no" "not" "incorrect" When the students played a note incorrectly they were corrected through modeling and verbal guidance. They were praised for the things that they did correctly. I noticed that the students were smiling when they were given the guidance. These teachers never had to raise their voices and had the full attention of the 27 students.
B. F. Skinner (1984) postulated that teachers need to be taught how to teach. He also stated that the students needed to have immediate feedback to confirm their positive behavior. Chance (1992) stated in his article that teachers shy away from using reinforcement and sometimes believe that reinforcement is the same as punishment. This misunderstanding points out the lack of knowledge that teachers have about reinforcement. The fact that they do not understand what it is makes it difficult for them to implement it effectively. Skinner's belief that teachers should be taught to teach then should include them being taught what reinforcements are and how to effectively use them in the classroom.
Skinner, B. F. (1984). The shame of American education. American Psychologist, 42, 947-954.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Behaviorism Video
This short clip is of the new Karate Kid 2010 starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. I want to focus on the jacket off jacket on conditioning. Jackie Chan makes Jaden take his jacket off hang it up and put it back on again over and over again. Without Jaden realizing it, he was being taught karate by Jackie Chan. The movements were later connected to karate moves as well as teaching Jaden to hang up his jacket at home. The associations that Skinner as well as James mentioned can be clearly be recognized in this short clip and in the movie itself Jaden.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
B. F. Skinner (1987) Whatever Happened to Psychology as the Science of Behavior & (1984) The Shame of American Education.
If individualized education programs are the key to improving America's education system, do we then dis-ban special education programs in schools of education instead of entire schools of education? or Would both general education and special education programs benefit from a overhaul in terms of teaching teachers to teach?
"There is a conspiracy of silence about teaching as a skill" (Skinner 1987). (p. 947)
Skinner talks about Psychology as a science of behavior. The three obstacles to Psychology as a science of behavior were Humanistic Psychology, Psychotherapy and Cognitive Psychology. He mentioned that these three approaches are more acceptable to us and have a better appeal than the behaviorists approach (p. 785). The behaviorist approach makes connections or causes events to external stimuli. Whereas the other three approaches seem to be about the internal causes. We are less likely to want to believe that we are controlled by something or someone other than ourselves or outside of ourselves. This is so true when we think about things that we are successful or unsuccessful at. For example, when I was learning how to play softball in junior high my coach stated that if a person has rhythm, meaning if they could dance, they are usually good at playing a sport. I had never played softball ever before but I knew that I could dance and I had rhythm. So, I automatically believed that I was good at softball. I never once believed that the verbal instruction given by the assistant coach was the reason why I knew how to catch a fly ball or a ground ball or even how to bat. I was very good at this sport that I had never played before in my life. It made me feel good to know that the fact that I could dance was the very reason I was so good at it. Even if it were not the fact that I could dance, then it had to be innate. The short period that the coaches spent in explaining the techniques in my mind could not have possibly been enough to make me as good as I was. Maybe I was born with it. My expertise in the sport as far as I was concerned was not as a result of outside stimuli.
In B. F. Skinner's (1984) article The Shame of American Education he talks about the role a cognitive psychologist can play in education. He stated that they can help to construct tests that can tell us what a student has learned and how to better teach them what they did not learn. This connection between the cognitive psychologists role in education is very similar to what school psychologists attempt to do through the use of Curriculum Based Assessments. These assessments are used to help us assess what a student knows and what he or she does not know. It gives school psychologists as well as teachers a baseline of where the student is and how to structure instruction or prescribe an intervention that would work to assist the student in the areas of weaknesses.
"There is a conspiracy of silence about teaching as a skill" (Skinner 1987). (p. 947)
Skinner talks about Psychology as a science of behavior. The three obstacles to Psychology as a science of behavior were Humanistic Psychology, Psychotherapy and Cognitive Psychology. He mentioned that these three approaches are more acceptable to us and have a better appeal than the behaviorists approach (p. 785). The behaviorist approach makes connections or causes events to external stimuli. Whereas the other three approaches seem to be about the internal causes. We are less likely to want to believe that we are controlled by something or someone other than ourselves or outside of ourselves. This is so true when we think about things that we are successful or unsuccessful at. For example, when I was learning how to play softball in junior high my coach stated that if a person has rhythm, meaning if they could dance, they are usually good at playing a sport. I had never played softball ever before but I knew that I could dance and I had rhythm. So, I automatically believed that I was good at softball. I never once believed that the verbal instruction given by the assistant coach was the reason why I knew how to catch a fly ball or a ground ball or even how to bat. I was very good at this sport that I had never played before in my life. It made me feel good to know that the fact that I could dance was the very reason I was so good at it. Even if it were not the fact that I could dance, then it had to be innate. The short period that the coaches spent in explaining the techniques in my mind could not have possibly been enough to make me as good as I was. Maybe I was born with it. My expertise in the sport as far as I was concerned was not as a result of outside stimuli.
In B. F. Skinner's (1984) article The Shame of American Education he talks about the role a cognitive psychologist can play in education. He stated that they can help to construct tests that can tell us what a student has learned and how to better teach them what they did not learn. This connection between the cognitive psychologists role in education is very similar to what school psychologists attempt to do through the use of Curriculum Based Assessments. These assessments are used to help us assess what a student knows and what he or she does not know. It gives school psychologists as well as teachers a baseline of where the student is and how to structure instruction or prescribe an intervention that would work to assist the student in the areas of weaknesses.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Talks to Teacher Ch. 15 & Gladwell MP3
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Question(s): Do we then say that the impulsive acts in adolescence are the will of the individual? If this is so, then does the fact that the impulsivity decreases in adulthood mean that the older we get the more likely we are to display the narrower sense of the word will as it relates to volition?
James stated in the text that when a student is faced with a difficult task and does not get it the first time he or she is "inhibited" to it and they have a difficult time understanding it from this point on. He mentioned that the teacher should look at this difficulty as a "neural pathology" and not a "moral culpability". To this end, the only way the teacher can help the child is to divert her attention to another task to help the child forget the inhibition and return to it at a later time by making an association to the new information. The old information is presented without the child's knowledge and she does the task easily and correctly, without thinking about it (p. 89). I can easily connect my task of sewing a garment to this "circuitous" method of teaching mentioned by James. On one occasion I was putting a zipper into a garment that was lined. I read the instructions on the pattern and thought I followed it correctly but the zipper was puckered and it was not hidden as it was supposed to be. I tried reading the instructions three more times and attempted the task three more times. It was still incorrect. I had to take the zipper out four times and in doing so the fabric started to fray. So I left the garment and came back to it two hours later but started on another section. I told myself that if I got everything else done I would be forced to get the zipper correct. I worked o the garment late into the night and early morning moving from one section to the other. When I got to the zipper I could not remember what I was having difficulty with and the task went smoothly and I was able to complete the garment at three in the morning.
In the text James encourages teachers to teach their student the notion of "good" by only presenting them the good. It would seem that this is his answer to free will. If an individual chooses the good because this is the natural propensity then there is no choice and "will" becomes a moot point and the individual is less stressed because the choice he makes is natural and without negative consequence. Lawrence Kohlberg, on the other hand, believed that children had their own moral judgment development. He called children “moral philosophers” who did not make decisions based on consequences of law or feelings of guilt. He postulated that they developed their own moral judgment based on their social relationships (Walsh 2000). If social relationships were of import then these individuals would try to give the right response as it relates to the teacher. So, in James' response to teaching the truth then it would be very easy for children to make the moral decision based on their relationship with the teacher. However, if the truth is contrary to that of other individuals they have social relationships with, would they then be able to go with the non-truth even though the teacher did not expose them to it?
References
Walsh, C. (2000). The life and legacy of Lawrence Kohlberg. Society, 37(2), 38-41. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Talks to Teachers by William James (Chapters 10 -14)
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I wonder. Do the advertising agencies use these facts about dramatic effects and associations to create their commercials? I ask this because it seems like the more shocking or more ridiculous the commercial jingle, the more one tends to remember it. Whether this translates to higher sales is another thing but these silly songs or musical notes tend to be ingrained in our minds somehow long after we hear them.
William James’ chapter on memory was very thought provoking. He mentioned that “the secret of a good memory is thus the secret of forming diverse and multiple associations with every fact we care to retain” (p. 61).
In a previous written response I mentioned the fact that we remember things that we may not have realized that we were paying attention to. James stated that the involuntary attention is the most effective in retaining a subject’s interest. He continued on to say that things with dramatic quality are of most interest to students (p. 47). According to the text James believes that teachers should not have to create moments where students can display effort (p. 56). The learning is more effective and is longer lasting when the information is native to the student and he or she is less deliberate in their attention (p. 51). I have observed a student in a classroom setting who seemed to be displaying what James referred to as passive attention. He hardly ever raised his head to look in the direction of the teacher when she was instructing the class and seemed to not be paying attention. The teacher explained that the behavior was typical of the student each day. She explained that he is however her brightest student and that he performs extremely well on all of her assignments.
When reading these chapters I thought about human development as it relates to how one learns. James talks about the teacher presenting object information to students but neglecting the importance of the abstract to the learning process. What was very interesting was that he talks about abstract teaching and learning and the readiness of the individual to successfully receive the information. He postulates that even the very young can benefit from the abstract learning if it is presented at their level (p. 74). Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development outlines the capabilities of individuals at four levels of cognitive development. The stages are the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operation, and formal operations. Piaget insisted that we all followed these steps and that there were certain things that we are capable of doing at each stage. He was aware that teaching and experiences could speed up development but he was adamant about the fact that we all went through the stages in the very same order (Vander Zanden, Crandell & Crandell 2007). This order of cognitive development by Piaget can be compared to James’ thought that abstract information has to present at the correct level. In contrast, James believed that even the young can “enjoy abstractions” (p. 74). Piaget however introduced age ranges for which individuals develop certain cognitive abilities. In his stages abstractions only begin to occur in the concrete operational stage when individuals were 7years to 11 years of age. Piaget however stated that these developments can be delayed or sped up but occur in the same order (Vander Zanden et al., 2007). So, in this instance the abstraction readiness that James mentioned is based on where the child is developmentally and not based on the age of the child.
References
Vander Zanden, J. W., Crandell, T. L., &Crandell, C. H. (2007) . Early childhood: cognitive and
physical development. In E. Barrosse, M. Sugarman & J. Kromm (Eds.), Human
Development (224-261) . New York, NY: McGrawhill.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Chapter 8 & 9
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In the chapter Laws of Habit James discusses what teachers should encourage students to do in terms of the formation of habit. He emphasized that habits are part of our make-up and that the nervous system is what we use in the acquisition of the things that we deem as positive or advantageous to automaticity. My question here is if this is what we aspire to, where does creativity play into this picture?
James stated in the text, " Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming but in the moment of their producing motor effects that resolve and aspiration communicate the new set to the brain." (p. 35) Runco & Pritzker (1999) listed habit as a barrier to creativity. Creativity it would seem to me is spontaneity of the individual. When we make an act a habit then we can no longer look at it as creative. I guess it would only be creative in the stage in which according to James prompts a "motor effect."
The mention of association of ideas to that which is native or acquired bring to mind the thought of teaching students in ways that they can associate the information to real life situations. James in Chapter 7 explained that teachers should vary their association of ideas when they instruct students. He also stated that teachers should also vary the way that they pose questions to students. This is very interesting to me simply because it connects with the notion of teaching so that it connects to real life situations. In this instance the connections of ideas has to change because the real life situation of students also varies.
The connection of ideas can be difficult for students with Specific Learning Disabilities in the area of writing. These individual typically have difficulties with formulating ideas in written work. The association of these ideas to a creative sample of work for these individuals is not an easy task.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
William James: Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some Of Life's Ideals
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William James gives teachers lots of issues to ponder. However, quite a few question stand out in my mind. The one that keeps coming up for me is, how does an unconscious thought or action move to our consciousness? William James talks about the fact that even our consciousness is "unclear and hazy." (p. 9) If this statement is true then how can he say that consciousness leads to knowledge and action?
In our discussion in class on the definition of learning, we discussed unconscious and consciousness as it relates to whether a person has learned a particular thing. We could not concretely decide if learning is a conscious or unconscious effort because we realized that somehow we remember things that we were not consciously paying attention to. This made us question whether remembering something meant that a person has actually learned it.
James mentioned in the text that a person couldn’t just sit quietly without some sort of action. Listening involves some sort of physiological response. He proposes that even if a person sits and does nothing but listen he or she is moving their eyes and thus moving some of the muscles within their body. (p. 18) Is this an example of conscious or unconscious process? It would seem as if the explanations also lead to more questions.
There was also mention of the connectedness of psychology to teaching. James admonished teachers that the very things that they are taught to focus on is the unimportant thing as it relates to educating the young. According to James, teaching and psychology are as equally important, neither more important than the other. Teaching involves the task of just "supervising" the process by which the child is learning (p. 20). If this is the case then are we saying that learning is innate? If an individual lacks the "innate" capability then are we also saying that they are incapable of learning?
Even further, James proposed that any acquisition is just an addition to or a substitution of what a child by nature already knows (p. 20). "The teacher's art consists in bringing about the substitution or complication, and success in the art presupposes a sympathetic acquaintance with the reactive tendencies natively there." (p. 20) In the case of special education and specifically those individuals with intellectual disabilities, the teachers are given the task of training individuals to perform functional skills that are not "native" to them. So if a teacher just sits back and guides the learning, these specific skills may not be acquired and these individuals may only be able to adapt to their environment with very little successes.
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