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.

learning log: chapter 2

What
We learned about the brain and theories about Piaget, Vygotski, and Language Development.
We learned that the brain has neurons which are made of: dendrites (input) , soma, axon (out put), myelin sheath etc. and is connected to another neuron by a synapse. The Dendrites receive information for the neuron and in drawings looks like the branch-like parts of the neuron "tree." The Soma is the body of the tree. This will send out impulse to other neurons through the axon. The axon and other neurons don't actually connect, there is a gap between them called the synapse which electricity "jumps"across. The myelin sheath is a fatty substance around the axon it helps lubricate the axon to help information travel fast and well.

Piaget: - Sensorimotor stage: child is focused on now - Preoperational stage: objects beyond child's immeadiate view, not logical yet - Concrete Operations Stage: adult like logic about concrete things - Formal operations stage: logical reasoning about abstract ideas

Vygotsky: -through both informal conversations and formal schooling, adults concey to children the ways in which their culture interprets and responds to the world-every culture passes along physical and cognitive tools that make daily living more productive and efficient. -thought and language become increasingly interdependent in the first few years of life - children can perform more chllenging tasks whenthey have the assistanve of someone more advanced and competent than they are. Zone of proximal development (zpd): range of taks person can persofmr wth others but not alone. - challenging tasks promote maximum congitive growth -play allows children to strech themselves cognitively.

Linguisgtic Development

SO what
brain anatomy: So there are physical "things" inside your brain that can cause you to act, be, do things, a particular way. For example people with particular diseases may be a lot more prone to them because of the workings of the neurons and their neurotransmitters. This is also important because when we are young we have more neuron connections then when we are older. When we are young our body goes through a "pruning process" where some connections are cut back if they are not needed as much.

Piaget: although the time periods which Piaget labeled with his differnt stages are not always true, it is true that I will be dealing with children that have various levels of cognitive development.

Vygotsky's theoreies are not attached with an age so it's not as if one or more of his ideas will specifically apply to the age group I will teach. Vygotsky does focus on culture. Different cultures are going to have their learners pay attention to different stiumli.


now what:
brain anatomy: because the children I will be working with will be going through a brain pruning stage in their life, I need to make sure I get as many neuron connections being used as I can so that fewer connections will be pruned back.
Piaget: I need to make sure that when I teach things, I can reach students on all cognitive levels and not expect reasoning beyond their abillity, but challenge their cognitive abaility to help them grow.
Vygotsky: Vygotsky focuses a lot on how the older generations help the new learners. After learning about Vygotsky's theories apprenticeships and guided paticipation become more important to me.

questions/having trouble with
schemes- how piaget uses them pg 29, 31 piaget