Chapter 7 Learning Log

what:

Knowledge construction can occur during both storage and retrieval. There is a variety of things people can learn from one set of information because different people construct different meanings from the same stimuli or events.

People organize information in different ways. Some times in concepts, a mental grouping of similar things; schemas, tightly organized set of facts related to a particular thing; scripts, schema with a particular order; theories, general understanding and beliefs systems; and world views, general set of beliefs about reality.

Reinforcement is the act of following a response with a consequence. There are many different types. Concrete reinforces, social reinforces, activity reinforces etc.

Reinforcement, however, usually falls into two categories positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is presenting something to in crease a behavior and Negative reinforcement is taking away something to increase behavior. With in this the timing of the reinforcer needs to be as close to a behavior as possible to have an effect.

Shaping: reinforcing successively closer desired behaviors. Shaping is a way to get desired behaviors. What happens at first is that you reinforce any behavior that resembles what you want in the end. Then you only reinforce something that is more close to the end result you want until you get to the point where you only reinforce the end behavior.

Cueing: reminding children of the behavior you want from them.

Extinction: reducing undesirable behaviors. This can be done with a few different techniques. Reinforcing Incompatible Behaviors is when you reinforce behaviors that are the opposite of what you are trying to reduce. For example if you want the students to talk less during work time you can reinforce the student when they aren’t talking. “Jake you are working nice and quietly on your assignment, thank you.” There is also punishment. Punishment is a consequence that decreases behavior such as making the student write sentences for misbehaving like Bart has to do in the opening credits of the Simpsons ( presentation punishment). Punishment can also involve taking away something, like minutes of recess (removal punishment).

So What: Different people will bring different unique prior experience to you classroom which means they will construct different meanings from the things you teach. Students will also extract different meanings because people see and hear what they expect to see and hear. Because when we retrieve information we might have holes in our memory, sometimes we might construct memory to fill in holes.

Different reinforcers will be better for some children than others. As well as different children will be able to delay gratification of receiving a reinforcer the more mature they are. We also need to remember that praise is not always a reinforcer.

Shaping can help us to narrow down behaviors that we want. It is another tool for our teacher tool box.

Punishment is not thought of as very effective. It may sometimes only temporarily suppress a response, but has not been known to always eliminate it. Sometimes what a teacher feels is punishment is actually reinforcing the behavior.

Now what: because people construct different meanings we need to make sure that our messages are clear with out ambiguity. Because children might construct their own memory to fill in holes we need to make sure that information that is difficult to fill in logically is learned well.

Reinforcers need to be used effectively. The desired behavior needs to be stated up front in observable terms. Instead of saying I need you to talk through the halls well, you could say, I shouldn’t hear any talking, everyone should stay in a straight line with their hands to them selves, etc. AS a teacher I need to think ahead to identify consequences that will reinforce the different individuals in my class. Some students may not want praise from a teacher so you would want to reinforce them in a different way to increase behavior. I need to be careful with extrinsic motivations especially since they often loose their effectiveness after a time.

I need to make sure I use punishment only after other alternative approaches have been ineffective. Also, consequences need to be followed through with especially in the case of punishment. If you don’t do what you promise the threat of punishment becomes an empty threat.

Learning Log Chapter 10

What:

• Social Cognitivism is a mix between Behaviorism and Cognitivism.

• Learning is an internal process that may or may not lead to a behavior change.

• Reinforcement has a whole knew role in Social cognitivism.

• In social cog vicarious reinforcement is introduced into a teacher’s tool box of behavior management. Vicarious reinforcement is where one child’s behavior will increase when another child is reinforced for the same behavior. An example of this is proximity praise.

• Modeling is another important aspect of Social Cog

  • Example: Bobo doll experiment. In this experiment the Bobo doll was played with by an adult while children observed. One group of children had an adult model violent behavior when this group of children was introduced to the Bobo doll they were very violent with the doll and got even more violent then the model. A second group of children observed an adult playing nicely with the doll and did not get overly violent with the doll.

  • People follow models. They especially can learn academic skills, aggression, and interpersonal behaviors.

• Another important part of Social cog is Self regulation

  • When we behave in a particular way we observe how our environment reacts—reinforcing some behaviors and punishing others.

  • The following type of techniques arise when self regulating.

  • Goal setting

  • Conferencing

  • Self instruction

  • Self evaluation

  • Self contingency

So What: Knowing that people’s peers can effect what students think and how they behave can be used to a teacher’s advantage, especially when it comes to classroom management. One type of social management technique is a social contract where a group is rewarded or punished based upon individual behavior. But it’s also important to note that when children are expecting a reward and they don’t get it it takes on the form of a punishment. When we promise something we need to follow through unless we change the conditions later on.

Modeling can be used a technique to help students achieve more in their studies or behavior better. An observer can acquire new behaviors; increase or lessen certain behavior based upon the reinforcement a model received. Students may also display more frequent behavior after seeing someone else not get punished for it.

Self regulation is another very important tool for people coming out of social cog. To help children with this we need to remember that students need to be cognitively able to achieve goals, they need to motivated, students expectations need to be realistic, and students need high efficacy to make things happen.

Now What: Knowing what I do about social cognitivism there are a number of things I need to implement in my classroom. Knowing that models are important in children’s behaviors, I need to choose good models to expose children too. It would be especially good to expose students to successful models from diverse cultural backgrounds and to models who have become successful despite disabilities.

I also need to give students challenging tasks and communicate confidence in students’ abilities to achieve that task. I may sometimes need to adjust task difficulty to students’ existing self –efficacy levels then gradually increase the challenge. Show students how students of similar ability have, with reasonable effort succeeded on a task

It’s important that children do not compare them selves with others it’s better that they compare themselves to themselves. It’s better to Minimize student awareness of classmate’s performance levels.

Self regulation is a very important principal to teach in the classroom. It can be promoted by encouraging students to set their own goals and monitor their own progress. Giving children a chance to learn on their own can be rewarding. Giving students assignments where they have a lot of room to choose their own topic, use of time etc. Show students how to use checklists etc. Being a good model of self regulation and asking students to evaluate their own performance.

chapter 9

Chapter 9

What:

Behaviorism

Learning: semi permanent change in behaviors can be seen through what people do/say. This can be measured, but different measure better using different tests so the measurements are not always accurate.

There was a man with bilateral hippocampus damage who as a result had no short term memory. A Group of people went to visit this man on a regular basis. When the people went to introduce themselves to him one particular person always had a buzzer on their hand. After a few days of getting introduced to these same people and getting buzzed he actually flinched before he shook the hand of the person with the buzzer. (this sort of disproves some of behaviorism)

Behaviorism is like a Black box we don’t know what’s going on in the brain unless we see a behavior from it.

Assumptions:

-influence of environment: a person is conditioned by their environment to act certain ways

-focus on observable events: Behaviorism thinks the brain is like a Black box we don’t know what’s going on in the brain unless we see a behavior from it. Responses people make given stimuli.

-learning as behavior change: learning is changed behavior due to experience. If you explain something to your students, you ask them if they have any questions and no one says they do, you don’t really know if they understand or not.

- similarity of learning principles across species (if a dog learns that way, so does a kid)

Classical Conditioning: involuntary ex/ raising our hands
Pavlov
Unconditioned stimulus (food) = Unconditioned response (salivation)
Condition stimulus (bell) + Unconditioned stimulus (food) à Unconditioned response (salivation)
Condition stimulus (bell) = Conditioned Response (salivation)
Many times the Unconditioned response and the Conditioned response are the same.
Operant Conditioning: voluntary
Skinner
-antecedent stimulus, behavior, reinforcement
Reinforcers
Note reinforcers are unique to each student.
These tend to kill intrinsic motivation —try to use tokes for stuff the HATE
Make reinforcement a surprise
Make contingent on level of quality
Practical Reinforcement (in order of preference)
-self praise –praise – attention – grades & recognition – home-based reinforcement – privileges –activity reinforcement – tangible reinforcement – food
Reinforce the group: -group contingency –token economy
Shaping: -break tasks down, attain criterion
Eliminating Behavior:
-reinforce incompatible behaviors (ie/ if the child talks a lot reinforce when they don’t)
-cueing
-don’t be afraid to tell students what you are doing (I am ignoring those who are not raising their hands to be called on)
- “extinction burst!” beware (things will get worse before they get better)
-extinction procedure
Punishers: unique to each student, use only when reinforcement fails, DON’T do in front of OTHER students
Forms: -verbal reprimands – response cost (loosing reinforcement)- logical consequences – time out – in-school suspension
Ineffective forms: - physical punishment – psychological punishment – extra class work – out of school suspension – missing recess
Potential Punishers: - temporary – may distract student from behavior – negative emotional response – aggression – does not illustrate correct behavior

So What: Behaviorism is very popular among teachers because it can be measured without taking brain scans etc. There are flaws in it though as show by the man who no longer had short term memory. From the basic assumptions Behaviorism has we can deduce educational implications. From the assumption of the Influence of the Environment we learn that the environment of the school and classroom is very important for learning.
  Conditioning is something that as teachers we will use in the classroom, although it is more revered to as training. We train children to know the routine we have in our classroom. We train children to walk quietly down the halls. Behaviorism outlines how this is effectively done through reinforcement. There a lot of different ways to go about reinforcing behaviors has we learned in chapter 9. You can take give the student something or take something away to reinforce behaviors. Reinforcing is going to be a big part of managing classes and it's important that it's as effective as possible. to DO this one needs to specify desired behaviors at the beginning, identify consequences that will really be reinforcing for the specific student, only use extrinsic reinforcers as last attempt, make repose-consequence contingencies explicit, and be consistent!!!
Now what: Since we know that behaviorist assumption are important for learning in the classroom I can take this one step further by implementing the knowledge I have to better my teaching. Since we know that environment is important I need to create an environment where children feel safe and comfortable. If I can encourage good behaviors by praising students (especially ones who need more help) on their desirable behavior I will create a positive environment students will want to learn in. It's important to note that especially with Young children the consequence needs to come as close to the behavior as possible in order for the reinforcement to be effective.
  It will be important for me to examine all the students I have and especially the ones who need the most management, to see what is truly reinforcing and punishing so that I can be effective. When the class isn't behaving how I want them to, it will be important for me to step back as the teacher and figure out what I am doing wrong and what undesirable behaviors I might be enforcing.

Oct. 27 learning log ch 6 continued

what
Cognitive psychology has some basic assumptions. These are that cognitive processes influence what is learned.

People are selective about what they process and and learn-- it's virtually impossible to interpret everything the body senses.
Meaning is constructed by the learner, rather ten being derived directly from environment. This happened because learners are combining new information with what they already know.
Prior knowledge and beliefs play a major role.
maturation helps with cognitive procedures
people are involved in their own learning-- you must be an active participant.
Memory starts with the sensory register where input is received and close to it's original form. The sensory register has a large capacity, but it doesn't stay there very long. After the sensory comes the working or short term memory. To get there a person must pay attention to the stimulus. attention has a limited capacity "the cock tale party phenomenon." People can usually only attend to 2 or 3 automated tasks at a time. It's important to remember that paying attention is a mental process, not a behavior. Working memory does the "mental work." but information only lasts about 5- 20 seconds, which is why we have to repeat things over and over (maintenance rehearsal) Movement from working memory to long term memory usually involves making connections to other things. When stimulus makes it to long term memory its encoded in different ways.

Retrieval
Getting things from long term memory seems to be a process of following a path way of associations. ex/ going down memory lane. It's there fore easier to remember later if in storing it, it's been connected to something else in long term memory. If it is connected logically it will be much easier to find later, like if you keep things in a nice file cabinet.


so what
Cognitive psychology tells us that there is something going on in the brain. It can be measured and things and be stored there. It is a just a matter of trying to figure out the best way to store things and the best way to get the information back out. because we know about cognitive psychology we can study the way people learn and the way things are stored and retrieved in the brain. we can do this in a number of ways especially through brain scans and he like. The more we know about these things the more efficiently and effectively we will be able to teach.

now what
We need to be regularly monitoring students understanding. To make sure students are paying attention we need to ask questions to test under standing, or put class room materials to use. mostly we want to create a stimulating class environment where people WANT to pay attention. WE need to keep limited capacity in mind when teaching. It's hard for kids when too much information is presented at a time. We may need to repeat the same idea several times for children to be able to pay attention and store it in their long term memory. We need to help students know what is important to remember by giving guidelines and omitting unnecessary detail from lessons.
since retrieval is difficult at times we need to increase the chances of retrieving information. To do this we should try and make multiple connections to information. Practice the information enough that you reach automaticity. This can be done by routinely incorporating basic knowledge and skills into a variety of meaningful and enjoyable activities. Retrieval cues are things like mnemonic devices or other helpers like looking a t a map. Recognition tasks are easier than recall tasks.

Oct 20 leraning log ch 6 intro

In this lesson we started out learning about the brain.

question

synapse: junction between two neurons that allows transmission of messages from one to another. usually described as a GAP

"learning involves strengthening existing synapses..."

learning = strengthen gap

just how exactly do you strengthen a gap? isn't a gap the nothingness in between two somethings? i guess it's really a connection though. I clearly need to learn more brain physiology.

Personal and Social Development: CH 3

what

Personality is something you are born with that can be modified some through environments. Temperament is how you react to things, this can be changed. "... brain circuitry ... is... malleable" therefore "temperament is not destiny."

Sense of Self encompasses two parts, self- concept, self- esteem. Self concept is how you see your self in regards to characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. Self- esteem is judgements and feelings about oneself. There are about eight different components that may affect different people's sense of self more and less strongly. How smart in school, how skillful of an athlete, how good is behavior, how attractive, how do others like me, have good friends, how romantically appealing, how successful? we also need to know the different way students will view themselves through out their development. Childhood- concrete optimistic, Early adolescence: - imaginary audience (every one will notice) - personal fable (you don't know how I feel, invincible), Late adolescence- multi faceted.

Erikson's Psycho Social Crisis: how people view them-selves, how erikson saw it

1 trust v mistrust

2 autonomy v shame and doubt

3 initiaive v guilt

4 industry v inferiority

5 identity v role confusion

6 intimacy v isolation

7 generativity v stagnation

8 integrity v despair

Kohlberg moral development:

1. preconventional, punnishment avoidance/ obendiance ( if I cheat I'll get in trouble) and exchange of favors (you can copy off my test if I can copy off of yours tomorrow)

2. Conventional, goodboy/ goodirl and law & order

3. post conventional, social contract and universal ethical principle (dr. martin luthar king, civil disobedience)

Gilligan notes the weaknesses in Kohlberg's reasearch (too many boys studied).

boys -rights and autonomy - noninterference - rules girls - relationships and interdependnece - empath and compassion - situational (it depends)

Goelman Emotional Intelligence: because emotions can "get in the way" emotional intelligence is very important in deciding how "successful" we'll be in life. Emotions affect all other abilities.

-knowing one's emotions - managing emotions - motivating oneself - recognizing emotions in others - handling relationships

*people with good emotional skills are more likely to be contest and effective in life

*people who can't get at least some control over emotions deal with inner battles that affect other aspects of life.

Marshmallow test:

Children were put in a room with a marshmallow. they were told that they could eat the marshmallow if they wanted, but if they waited until the tester came back, they could have two marshmallows. The researchers followed these students to see what kind of people they would be later on in life. The students who were able to wait for the tester to come back had a lot more desirable personality traits and academic scores.

so what

emotional intelligence(EQ): Recognizing that emotional intelligence exists and affects our lives tremendously, considerations for EQ needs to be implemented in classrooms. Classrooms need to be places "where students feel respected, cared about,and bonded to classmates, teachers, and the school it self." Teachers should integrate EQ into their curriculum, be and example of good EQ behaviors, notice and take advantage of EQ teaching opportunities, value EQ in students, create opportunities for EQ reflection, keep a journal of my EQ and encourage students to do it.

A sense of self impacts actions, we need to know what influences this. 1 previous performance, behavior of others, group memberships and achievements. It would be good for teachers to understand where their students are developmentally.

Moral reasoning is also something that develops. Depending upon where a student is in their moral reasoning is going to depend on how you will be able to reach students. For example, telling students that they will get in trouble if they cheat may be enough to scare some students from doing it. Some students may need to be expalined that when you cheat you are getting someone elses grade and you can be proud or happy with a grade you haven't earned your self. Still other students may need to understand that you shouldn't cheat because tests arn't important anyway, it what you learn. These different level of reasoning are things teachers will run into and inorder to help children to understand or to learn we should be able to appeal to these different levels of moral reasoning.

now what:

emotional intelligence:

when teaching and in my own home I need to be conscientious of what type of emotional lessons I am teaching. Growing up for me, emotions were very chaotic. This may be partly why I struggle with emotions even now. I need to establish the places in my life to include/teach important emotional skills. Emotional coaching is one thing which would be good to implement. This is done by talking about feelings, not being critical and judgemental, do emotional problem-solving, and teaching alternatives to unwanted behavior. Working on emotional skills my self, now, is going to help set a precedence for them in my areas of influence.

moral development: it will be important to give reasons that somebhaviors are unacceptable, encourage perspective taking empathy and prosocail bhaviors, expose studnets to numerous model of moral behavior, engage studetns in discussions of moral issues related to academic subject matter, get students actively involved in community service.