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.