Final Blog Posting

1. This is tough for me because I think that everyone learns in all the ways that we have studied. I believe that we construct knowledge through prior experiences and through discovery learning (constructivism). There is no denying that the chemical make-up of our brain can effect how we learn and what we retain (cognitivism). We have learned through studies and observations that we can change people's behavior through conditioning (behaviorism), and finally we know that the environment around us effects our choices and how we act (social cognitivism). However, if I were to identify one theory that I most closely support, it would be social cognitivism because it is kind of a conglamorate of all the theories...to a certain degree. I think another reason that I like it is that it provides an easy way to manage a classroom effectively through observational learning.
2. This will impact the way that I run my classroom because it will challenge me to really observe who is on task and then affirming that action. It will also be a challange to make sure that I am not giving the attention to the same people all the time. That all are getting the reinforcement that they need to raise their self-efficacy. I also think that the principle of reciprical causation will be vital to the classroom set up. If environment, behavior and personal variables all effect eachother, if one is out of control, it will effect the balance of the whole classroom.
3. The next step for me would be really looking into how I can control these variables (environment, behavior, and personal variables). What can I do to control classroom behavior and make sure that all are working together and that management does not get out of control? How can I create a learning environment where all feel safe and are encouraged to participate? How can I help shape the values, beliefs and emotions of my students? Really, you need to study all the aspects of psychology to accomplish all these goals, but I think if I can help my students in these areas, that learning will occur.

Social Cognitivism

1. Today we learned about social cognitivism which is basically a mix of behaviorism and cognitavism. The basic idea is that we observe the actions of others around us constantly and we learn and reflect from the behaviors of others. Based on the performances of others, we will create our self-efficacy.
2. This means that we have to be very careful as teachers what we are modeling to out students. Like someone in our class said, a teacher had a student with special needs in his class and he would kind of chuckle at the students responses sometimes because he didn't know how to act and it was a way to kind of shrug off the ridiculousness. Eventually, his students started to laugh at this student as well. We have to model good behavior and use vicarious learning to help student learn behaviors from each other.
3. I think the influence that we have on children is greater than we think. We need to keep in mind that they are constant observers. They see a lot more of what we do than we want them to so we have to keep in mind what we are modeling for them. We also have to help students learn how to self regulate and help them boost their self efficacy. These are all contributing factors to student behavior and their performance and achievement.

Behaviorism

1. Today we talked about behaviorism in the classroom. This theory helps us understand how we can help students to behave appropriately. This theory says that we can condition students through two different ways: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is a way that we can create a conditioned response from a conditioned stimuli. In Operant conditioning, we give reinforcers for a certain behavior to encourage a desired behavior.
2. With this knowledge we can not only help our students behave in a way that we need them to in a school environment, but we can understand why students behave way they do. We can look for conditioned responses and why they have connected to certain conditioned stimuli. If we understand that, we can help make that conditioned response disappear through extinction.
3. This is a principle that can be applied in our classroom. In many classes they use a token economy to encourage participation in the classroom. After reading this chapter however, I don't know how much I agree with it. Yes, it does help students to participate, but it does not help with students intrinsic motivation. I think it can be used because that is the stage of moral development that these children are in, but it should be used as little as possible.

Constructivism

1. Today we talked about constructivism which is the theory that children learn best when they construct their own answers. By using prior knowledge and discovery activities, children are introduced to an idea or concept and through exploration will define and discover what that concept really means.
2. This is a highly debated topic because sometimes students do not construct correct principles. When they are let free to discover, they will often have reconstruction errors or create misconceptions. There is also the argument that in subjects like math that if they do not "discover" correctly, then in higher math when the come across equations they will not understand how to use them.
3. I think that with everything else, constructivism should be used along with other things. It's like saying that carrots are good for you so all you should eat are carrots. We all know what happens when we eat to many carrots. Therefore, constructivism should be used as one method of teaching, but not the only method.

New Study Strategy

The study habit I committed to try this week was to make meaningful connections with the material. That is one thing that I could definitely do better because everything we are learning is for our benefit. If we are not constantly thinking "how can I use this in my classroom?" then it is useless for us to be in the class. I think that sometimes as students we just get into the habit of learning the material to get through the test. Especially now in higher education, when were are studying things for our specific profession we need to connect with the material and apply it to ourselves.
That is why I chose this strategy to try this week. I am going to be honest, I forgot that I had made that commitment until just now when I was looking up our blog topic, but I am glad I did so I can use that technique in my studies for the rest of the weekend.

Jill Stamm

1. Jill Stamm is a Professor at ASU who has been doing research on the nurture side of brain development. She has written a series of books about the importance of people contact with babies. She says that T.V. and all the programs like "Little Einsteins" are not as important as time with your child.
2. This will bring parents back to the fundamentals of child raising. Like Dr. Stamm said, that the things like eye contact and attention are vital to young infants. In her words, she said "babies don't need things, they need people." We have to remember that we can not ignore our children and expect that a television will make up for the attention that we are not giving them.
3. This is especially important for teachers to understand. That we can not expect that our students will receive the learning and attention they need from reading a text book or watching a video. They need personal interaction from the teacher. They need to feel cared for and loved in order for their brain to develop and retain what they learn in the classroom.

Emotional Development and Cognitive Psychology

1. Today we talked about the importance of emotional development and began to discuss the complexities of the brain. We talked about specific areas of the brain and how information is stored and transmitted and some of the basic assumptions that we make about cognitivism like that we are selective about what they process and the importance of prior knowledge and beliefs.
2. I feel like the more we learn about the brain the more we are able to utilize our own capacities. I also think it is helping us understand how to repair brain damage. We discussed a lot about how people have recovered from severe brain damage and how the brain has adapted. The more we know, the more we are able to help.
3. It is so fascinating how much we are learning and how much there still is to learn about the brain! It is effecting the way that we teach and the way that we helping children remember information and develop in every area. It will be important to stay current on research on the brain because you never know what scientists will discover next!

Social and Moral Development

Today we talked about social and moral development. We talked (and learned how to memorize) Erikson's Eight stages of psychosocial development which I thought was very accurate. We talked about the implications of this new knowledge and how much school can influence a child's psychosocial development. We also discussed Kohlberg's stages of moral development and the criticisms of his studies. I can't believe he only observed girls! that is so odd to me.
It is good to know the different stages because now we know what to look for and how we can help them move along in their development. We are responsible for helping them in their development, and social and moral development are just as important as intellectual development.
Now we know what to look for and how we can encourage appropriate behavior. We of course are the principle models for these kids, but we can also relate these developmental issues with cognitive development and more fully understand what is going on in their heads.

Piagetian Tests

I did my piagetian tests on my three year old niece, my 5 year old nephew and my 9 year old niece. I video taped the tests as well, but we couldn't figure out how to get the video downloaded onto the computer (stupid technology...). The results were as anticipated. My three year old niece gave all the anticipated answers, but when I poured the water from a smaller glass into a larger glass, she said it was the smaller glass that had more water (I think because it looked fuller).
With my 5 year old nephew, he was trying to out smart me. At first he said the two balls of play-doh were different, but then I rounded them out more and he said that NOW they had the same amount. Also, when I put out the pennies in two rows, at first he said they did not have the same amount. I asked him why and he said "because of this one" and he pointed to the one coin that was tails up. After, I flipped it over, he said they had the same amount. Finally, when I poured the water from a smaller glass into the taller, skinnier glass, he said that that one had more water. What was funny is when he watched his little sister's video and saw that she had said the other glass, he laughed and said "she got that one wrong!"
Other interesting things that came up were when my nephew asked "what does 'amount' mean?" It made me wonder if Leah (the three year old) really understood the questions, or if Noah was just in the question stage where he asks about everything he can. But over all it was a fun experiment, especially for my sister to see what exactly is going on in her kids brains and why they do some of the things they do.

Individual Differences

1. Today we learned about individual differences. It was mostly learning disabilities and different kinds of intelligences and it was amazing to see just how different we all can be. There is so much that makes up who we are, not just our ethnicity or our age, not even to our gender can totally define us. We learned about how to identify different intelligences and learning disabilities. Oh! and lets not forget our splendid debate about labels.
2. It is important to understand what makes up the different kids and how to help them with their individual differences. With the group differences we learned not to teach the group but to teach the individual, and today we learned what exactly that meant.
3. It would be hard NOT to apply this knowledge! We have to know what kind of learners and what challenges we may face in order to truly help these kids! We have to take into consideration their individual needs otherwise misbehavior or withdrawal may occur. Once we know how to help individually, we can engage them in learning.

Implicit Association

I did the implicit association for black and white and also for males and females. I did the black and white test first and didn't really understand how that was supposed to test association. I ended up being neutral but then when I took the male and female with careers and home life, I struggled more with the names and the careers. I made more errors and took longer in my response. I found that I was strongly biased towards men and careers and women at home, which isn't necessarily bad in my opinion, but that is how I think.
It was interested to see how difficult it really was so move those words around when I don't associate those words with those people. I thought it was a fun test, and it does do good at showing what your initial reaction is, but I don't think it would be good to show racism or anything much deeper than your initial reaction.

Intelligence Tests

On the IQ test, I had a "higher average" score of 112. On reporting my results, I will classify my strongest areas as the subjects with scores that had the highest difference above the percentile and my worst areas as the subjects with the lowest difference above the percentile. My strongest areas were general knowledge and verbal. Visualization was my worst score, the only subject that I scored below the percentile. Classification was my second worst subject area.
These results surprised me a bit because in other standardized tests, my worst subject has always been verbal. On the SAT's and ACT's, it was always the verbal sections that gave me problems. I think the reason for my high scores on this test were due to the fact that this test was very basic It was testing whether I understood the relationship between two words, not if I knew the word itself. In the other standardized tests, my biggest problem was that half the time I didn't know what the words meant, much less what their relationship was with another word that I didn't know. Also with the word scrabbles, I found myself dreading when they came up because they are hard for me to figure out.
This test was very short. It didn't really collect very much data for each area it tested and the results were a little hard to interpret. One could score very well in a subject area, but still be under the average percentile. My main concern though was in the number of questions. They gave results for nine different categories and there were only 30 questions, meaning there were about 3-4 questions that they gave you for each category and posted results as if those three questions could determine your intelligence in that category.
In the multiple intelligence test, my highest scoring area (and no surprise to anyone) was the kinaesthetic, with linguistic and logical close seconds. My lowest areas were musical and naturalistic with the other categories falling some where in between.
Again, the linguistic surprised me. Maybe this is a recent phenomenon or maybe I have conditioned myself to be good (and like) word problems because they always gave me such grief in younger years. I was sad that the music was so low because I do like music and learn through it. My issue is that I have always been so busy with sports that I never had time to develop or explore any musical talent that I may (or may not) have.
The major flaw I see with this test is that it is subjective. They are asking you to rate yourself and sometimes that judgment may not be accurate. For example, they asked if you remembered music patterns easily. Well, compared to what? I don't really know how well the rest of the world remembers music patterns and how I compare to them. True I have a general idea, but that may not be accurate. I liked the volume of questions, there could have been more to get more thorough results, but I thought it was a enough to get a general idea of where you fall. It showed tendencies.
I would not use an IQ test with children. There are too many factors that could sway the results. For example, they don't speak the language well, they don't have much experience with patterns, they are distracted by the pressure of the test, etc. I don't even know if I would use a multiple intelligences test with children. I would use it for my own observations and try to see tendencies, like what children like which activities better, but I don't like the idea of kids putting themselves into categories. If they take the test and it shows they are an intrapersonal learner, then they will always think that and not try to branch out on their interpersonal abilities. Like I mentioned about my verbal scores on both tests. I think this is something that has developed in recent years because it was not my strength as a teenager and I never enjoyed verbal activities in school.

Group Differences

1. We studied today about group differences such as cultural differences, gender differences and socioeconomic differences. We talked about what we should look for and be aware of in identifying those differences, but also what we can do as teachers to avoid encouraging these differences and how to help neutralize a classroom. We tried to identify our own stereotypes that exist within ourselves and how we can create a multicultural classroom.
2. Now that we are more aware of differences we can help those who might fall outside of the norm. We also know that if we do have students that have come from other countries or a different background, we can do some research about differences that could impair a students learning and how we can help the classmates be more understanding of that diversity. One of the biggest problems that exists in a classroom is the lack of awareness. If we can increase awareness not only in our teachers, but also in our students, then there will be more understanding, more cooperation and more opportunities for all to succeed.
3. Now that we have this information it is our responsibility to imply it. Awareness is one thing, action is another. We have to be active in our change of our biases and be willing to change ideas that we previously had of others. We have to be open to criticism and encourage feedback about how we can be more culturally diverse and weed out our stereotypes.

Reflection on a Study

I chose to read a study that was done by Wayne P. Thomas and Virginia P. Collier of George Mason University on dual immersion education. Their study was conducted from 1985-2001 at five rural and five urban sites in the northeast, northwest, south-central and south-east United States with a sample of 210,054 students. The research focused on Spanish language learners, but 80 primary languages were analyzed as well. They studied: program design (dual-immersion, transitional bilingual education, etc.), socioeconomic status, primary language, proficiency upon entry and prior schooling. Quantitative results were done through standardized testing (primarily in reading but testing in other subjects was also done) and numbers are represented by medians. Qualitative tests were done by interviews, school visits, surveys, and source documents.
The study found that for English Language Learners, 50-50 one way dual immersion was most effective with the students reaching the 72nd percentile after 4 years of schooling in the program. Afterward, they continued to succeed in Middle School scoring in the 61st percentile. The most ineffective program was just immersing English language learners in mainstream English classrooms. This group had the largest number of drop-outs with the remaining students testing in the 12th percentile in high school.
The study took the research one step further and tested the native Spanish speaking students in Spanish proficiency. In all of the programs they found that native Spanish speakers outperformed native English speakers when tested in their native language and remained above grade level in later years.
This study was a descriptive study which we know because they have qualitative and quantitative results. The study took many factors into consideration, the geographic location, progress though out their educational career, socioeconomic status, educational background, etc. The report of this study was actually 335 pages which means that is was very detailed and lots of data was taken through out the 16 years of research; however, the teaching styles were not considered in this study. No correlational data was given which means that this study was purely descriptive.
I like this research because it does look at many different programs and the results are significant enough to show trends. Basically what we can conclude from this study is that any kind of bilingual program is better for English Language Learners than just simply throwing them into English mainstream and thinking that because they are kids, they will pick up the language quickly and be fine. From this study we can see that they now only do worse in school but they are actually more prone to drop out.

Research Methods

1. We learned about research methods and how to be smart in conducting studies and also analyzing conclusions made by others. We discussed descriptive studies which tell us all about what is going on in an environment. They tell us percentages and statistics, and they also can give us characteristics and description about what is going on.
We also discussed experimental research which will try to control an environment in order to accurately test an independent variable. We discussed how this method was the best for clearly showing cause and effect but also how this method is difficult to use due to ethics and the inability to control all variables.
Then there was the infamous correlative studies. The ones the media loves to exploit for their ability to show relationships between two different phenomenon but the inability to show why they are related and if they even are connected.
Finally there was action research, where a teacher will take it upon his or herself to try different teaching methods in their classroom and see what specifically will help that group of students.

2.It was important to know the different styles of research and how they are conducted so we don't just join the band wagon. We can not just change everything we know about teaching because entertainment weekly has printed results about a poorly conducted study (not that entertainment weekly really cares about elementary education, but you get the picture). We need to be cautious about what people are reporting and we also have to be able to explain to parents why we are not implementing something that the media says all classrooms should have.

3. I am going to be going into the dual immersion field of elementary education, a relatively new approach to teaching children and there are always new studies coming out about more effective way to teach children in a bi-cultural and bilingual environment. With this information about research methods, I will not only be able to examine studies done by others, but implement action research in my own classroom to help students in this unique style of learning.

motivation blog

1. Good question. I have always wanted to teach, I knew from a very young age. I'm here at UVU as a kind of divine intervention (if I had had things my way, I would be in southern California right now). But teach I must, and to do that I need a license and that is why I am here.

2. I think the greatest thing that motivates me is the fear of failure. Is that a bad thing? I just have seen the kind of lives others have when they fail school or don't have ambition and I know I don't want that for me. So every time I feel like life is too hard, or that I can not do something, the fear of being a failure or the thought of having regret for the rest of my life motivates me to continue, even if the going gets tough.

3. I succeed because I like to. As simple as that sounds I love the feeling afterward. It's like if you were to take a really long run. In the middle of it you may feel like you can't, or you wonder "what the heck was I thinking?" but once you finish, the sense of accomplishment is so great. I really think that is what helps me when I need an extra push, the fact that one day I will look back and think "I'm glad I made it through."

4. I don't mean this to sound arrogant or anything but... I don't fail. Things may not work out how I had planned, or I may not make it to the tippy-top of the success ladder, but anything that I have started, I have finished. If for some reason things don't work out how I had envisioned, it is never because I did not put forth the effort or because I was not capable, but because the timing wasn't right and I was unable to meet requirements.

5. I need to change my mind set from passing the program to reaching my greatest potential. Again, not to sound arrogant, I am not worried about my grades, I am not worried about managing a classroom. I need to see where I am now, and how far I am from reaching my greatest potential as a teacher and seek to reach that goal.