Course Contract Review #4
1. What are you doing well?
I kept up on all of my assignments and handed them in on time. I studied efficiently for my tests. I believed in myself and strived to reach my goals.
2. What are you not doing well?
I think I could have made an effort to study every day to help encode the information more effectively.
3. Are you making sufficient progress on your goals?
My first goal was to find specific things that I could use as a teacher to help my students. I think I have learned many things that will help me with this. So I think I made this goal. My second goal was to turn all assignments were in on time. I never was late on an assignment. My third goal was to get an A. As I stand right now I have 104% so I can safely say unless I bombed the FRJ and the Test I will get an A.
4. List specific things you need to change in order to meet your goals.
I think the idea of making goals at the beginning of the semester is a new thing for me and helped me throughout the semester. I think this is one thing I will be doing for my other classes.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Personal Learning Theory
What:
• Piaget's Cognitive Development:
What I like about Piaget’s theory is the aspect of how students learn when they interact with the world around them. I absolutely agree with this. I think this is a great way to get students to learn. I also like the idea of Schemes because I agree that we put things in groups and organize our knowledge this way. I don’t like the aspect of Disequilibrium. This to me seems students would get frustrated if they are feeling this way all the time. If there is a way we could help the students without them feeling this way I would love it!
• Vygotsky's Cognitive Development
I like Vygotsky’s theory about students in their ZPD. I think it is important to help the students learn while we help them. If not I think they may learn things incorrectly. Therefore I believe the teacher should be there helping the student. If the subject is too easy they will be bored and if it’s too hard they will shut down. (Believe me, I’ve been there). There is nothing about Vygotsky that we learned that I do not like. I think he’s theory’s are great.
• Erikson's Psychosocial Development
When I first started learning about Erikson’s psychosocial development, it was surprising at how much I related with the stages that I have already have been through. I can see where he got these stages. I feel all the stages make a lot of sense. Just as with Vygotsky’s theory there really isn’t anything that I don’t like about this theory.
• Kohlberg's Moral Development
This whole theory is a little confusing to me. It’s not that I don’t understand it I just feel that many times in our lives, we go through the different stages at different times. For example some people change their moral stance in different situations. Therefore I am not sure we can say that someone is in a certain stage. I think the people we are around influence the way we act and may change our moral development.
• Goleman's Emotional Intelligence
I really like the emotional intelligence theory. I think this is something that everyone needs to work through and strive to achieve. Knowing ourselves and others can help us a lot in our lives, from education to relationships to everything we do. I think it is important to know how to deal with relationships and then know how to read others to be able to deal in relationships. Knowing yourself also helps with this too. At first I thought that this does not sound like it applies to education and learning but now I see how it is imperative as teachers to know these things and help our students learn this.
• Information Processing
I like meaningful learning in this theory. It shows us that we should relate what we learn to things in our lives or things that we already know. I think this is very important in learning. I think as teachers we need to remember to teach using meaningful learning and always do this for our students. I understand when automaticity is needed but I also see how in my own education it hasn’t been so helpful. There have been times where I have memorized something but then it doesn’t stick. Therefore when the comprehensive final comes around, I don’t remember a thing. This is why repetition isn’t good when trying to learn things. We also need to get our students attention when teaching or else they will most likely not learn anything.
* Knowledge Construction and Higher-order thinking
Some things from these theories I like are authentic learning and activities and spiral organization. I like authentic learning because then students themselves can find meaning and purpose for what they are learning. If we just teach them things and don’t tell them how they can apply them it won’t be as effective. I also like spiral learning because I think it is important to come back to the concepts we have already taught so the students will remember them better and in different ways. I like community of learners too, but there is a point where I feel the teacher needs to be in charge or things can get out of hand especially in secondary education. This is also how I feel about discovery learning. I guess I just feel like in a classroom there should be someone in charge or else it would be chaotic. I think once you trust your students and they trust you it would work better. I just feel like if a teacher isn’t there teaching, what if they learn it wrong? It’s a great thing in an ideal world and could work for some things but not everything.
• Behaviorism
Behaviorism is a concept that is important to teaching I think. We need to learn how to control the environment of our classrooms and learning the different ways of doing that will help. Some of these things that we learned about in Behaviorism seem like we are tricking the kids into behaving in the way we want them to act. In some cases this may be the only way we can get some students to learn but I feel this way is not the best. For example, a token economy may be great for students who just don’t care but it seems they are just doing it to get the token, but if we can get them to like the subject that would be better.
• Social Cognitivism
I like the concept of self-efficacy. This is something I think teachers and students alike should be trying to improve. We all need to believe in ourselves before we will be able to learn. Therefore we need to encourage our students and help them know that they can do things and if they aren’t help them be able to or modify it for them so they can. I also like the aspect of Modeling. This helps me to learn to see someone else to things first and so I think many students will be like this. There is nothing in this theory that I don’t like.
• Group and Individual Differences
Helping students with special need is one area where I feel pretty confident. I have worked at a school for three years now working with students with special needs. I feel like I have learned how I will be able to modify their work and have patience with them and understand their differences. I love the idea of inclusion because these student need the social aspect of their peers and it helps them grow and learn better too. Now the cultural aspect is a little different for me. I went to high school in Highland, Ut so there wasn’t much diversity. It has been 10 years since them and I have lived many different places where it was very diverse and this has taught me how to interact and learn with other cultures. I think we as teachers need to learn about different cultures and do our best to incorporate them into our lessons.
• Motivation
I agree whole-heartedly with the idea that without students having their needs as in, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, met they will not succeed as well as they could. If they are not fed, feel unsafe, not loved or feel as if they don’t belong, or no self-esteem they can’t reach their full potential and we won’t be able to teach them. We need to keep an eye out for those students who fit in any of these categories and help them meet their needs and then we can help them learn. But if we try before that it will be very hard.
My results from the Quiz were pretty even on all aspect. This is because I really feel like each theory has a lot of good stuff. I don’t think I will stick with one way of teaching and one way of having my students learn. All students are different and learn and behave in different ways and because of that we need to teach like that too.
So What?
As I was saying, I really believe people learn in many different ways. If I have learned anything this semester it is that I learn in many different ways. If I myself learn in so many different ways then so will my students. I also believe there are many different types of intelligences. Some people may be looked at as different but really may be smart. I have learned that with working with students with special needs. Some of these students may not be smart in the IQ sense but they are smart in other ways. They show compassion in ways that no other people can. I also think that students learn best when they feel comfortable and loved in a classroom. If they feel threatened or hate the teacher they will not get a lot out of the class. There needs to be a good feeling in the classroom and the student will thrive.
Now What?
Therefore, I want to make my class a haven for my students. Many times, students in Drama are looked down upon for some reason or another. However, I want to make my students feel like they are doing great things. If they feel like they can succeed in my class they will feel that self efficacy and will in turn succeed in their other classes too. I want to vary my teaching methods because as I said, everyone learns differently and if I only teach one way it won’t be fair for the students that do not learn that way.
I feel like I need to learn how to be a better teacher when it comes to discovery learning. I am afraid of letting my students go out and learn on their own without any guidance. I guess I just need to have more faith in them. I want to learn more about Behavioral techniques. I feel I don’t understand it as much as the other theories and therefore need to learn how to apply it in my classroom. I also need to work on how to work with students from other cultures than I am used to. Those students need a little more care and I have not worked with those students before so I need to learn a little more about that.
• Piaget's Cognitive Development:
What I like about Piaget’s theory is the aspect of how students learn when they interact with the world around them. I absolutely agree with this. I think this is a great way to get students to learn. I also like the idea of Schemes because I agree that we put things in groups and organize our knowledge this way. I don’t like the aspect of Disequilibrium. This to me seems students would get frustrated if they are feeling this way all the time. If there is a way we could help the students without them feeling this way I would love it!
• Vygotsky's Cognitive Development
I like Vygotsky’s theory about students in their ZPD. I think it is important to help the students learn while we help them. If not I think they may learn things incorrectly. Therefore I believe the teacher should be there helping the student. If the subject is too easy they will be bored and if it’s too hard they will shut down. (Believe me, I’ve been there). There is nothing about Vygotsky that we learned that I do not like. I think he’s theory’s are great.
• Erikson's Psychosocial Development
When I first started learning about Erikson’s psychosocial development, it was surprising at how much I related with the stages that I have already have been through. I can see where he got these stages. I feel all the stages make a lot of sense. Just as with Vygotsky’s theory there really isn’t anything that I don’t like about this theory.
• Kohlberg's Moral Development
This whole theory is a little confusing to me. It’s not that I don’t understand it I just feel that many times in our lives, we go through the different stages at different times. For example some people change their moral stance in different situations. Therefore I am not sure we can say that someone is in a certain stage. I think the people we are around influence the way we act and may change our moral development.
• Goleman's Emotional Intelligence
I really like the emotional intelligence theory. I think this is something that everyone needs to work through and strive to achieve. Knowing ourselves and others can help us a lot in our lives, from education to relationships to everything we do. I think it is important to know how to deal with relationships and then know how to read others to be able to deal in relationships. Knowing yourself also helps with this too. At first I thought that this does not sound like it applies to education and learning but now I see how it is imperative as teachers to know these things and help our students learn this.
• Information Processing
I like meaningful learning in this theory. It shows us that we should relate what we learn to things in our lives or things that we already know. I think this is very important in learning. I think as teachers we need to remember to teach using meaningful learning and always do this for our students. I understand when automaticity is needed but I also see how in my own education it hasn’t been so helpful. There have been times where I have memorized something but then it doesn’t stick. Therefore when the comprehensive final comes around, I don’t remember a thing. This is why repetition isn’t good when trying to learn things. We also need to get our students attention when teaching or else they will most likely not learn anything.
* Knowledge Construction and Higher-order thinking
Some things from these theories I like are authentic learning and activities and spiral organization. I like authentic learning because then students themselves can find meaning and purpose for what they are learning. If we just teach them things and don’t tell them how they can apply them it won’t be as effective. I also like spiral learning because I think it is important to come back to the concepts we have already taught so the students will remember them better and in different ways. I like community of learners too, but there is a point where I feel the teacher needs to be in charge or things can get out of hand especially in secondary education. This is also how I feel about discovery learning. I guess I just feel like in a classroom there should be someone in charge or else it would be chaotic. I think once you trust your students and they trust you it would work better. I just feel like if a teacher isn’t there teaching, what if they learn it wrong? It’s a great thing in an ideal world and could work for some things but not everything.
• Behaviorism
Behaviorism is a concept that is important to teaching I think. We need to learn how to control the environment of our classrooms and learning the different ways of doing that will help. Some of these things that we learned about in Behaviorism seem like we are tricking the kids into behaving in the way we want them to act. In some cases this may be the only way we can get some students to learn but I feel this way is not the best. For example, a token economy may be great for students who just don’t care but it seems they are just doing it to get the token, but if we can get them to like the subject that would be better.
• Social Cognitivism
I like the concept of self-efficacy. This is something I think teachers and students alike should be trying to improve. We all need to believe in ourselves before we will be able to learn. Therefore we need to encourage our students and help them know that they can do things and if they aren’t help them be able to or modify it for them so they can. I also like the aspect of Modeling. This helps me to learn to see someone else to things first and so I think many students will be like this. There is nothing in this theory that I don’t like.
• Group and Individual Differences
Helping students with special need is one area where I feel pretty confident. I have worked at a school for three years now working with students with special needs. I feel like I have learned how I will be able to modify their work and have patience with them and understand their differences. I love the idea of inclusion because these student need the social aspect of their peers and it helps them grow and learn better too. Now the cultural aspect is a little different for me. I went to high school in Highland, Ut so there wasn’t much diversity. It has been 10 years since them and I have lived many different places where it was very diverse and this has taught me how to interact and learn with other cultures. I think we as teachers need to learn about different cultures and do our best to incorporate them into our lessons.
• Motivation
I agree whole-heartedly with the idea that without students having their needs as in, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, met they will not succeed as well as they could. If they are not fed, feel unsafe, not loved or feel as if they don’t belong, or no self-esteem they can’t reach their full potential and we won’t be able to teach them. We need to keep an eye out for those students who fit in any of these categories and help them meet their needs and then we can help them learn. But if we try before that it will be very hard.
My results from the Quiz were pretty even on all aspect. This is because I really feel like each theory has a lot of good stuff. I don’t think I will stick with one way of teaching and one way of having my students learn. All students are different and learn and behave in different ways and because of that we need to teach like that too.
So What?
As I was saying, I really believe people learn in many different ways. If I have learned anything this semester it is that I learn in many different ways. If I myself learn in so many different ways then so will my students. I also believe there are many different types of intelligences. Some people may be looked at as different but really may be smart. I have learned that with working with students with special needs. Some of these students may not be smart in the IQ sense but they are smart in other ways. They show compassion in ways that no other people can. I also think that students learn best when they feel comfortable and loved in a classroom. If they feel threatened or hate the teacher they will not get a lot out of the class. There needs to be a good feeling in the classroom and the student will thrive.
Now What?
Therefore, I want to make my class a haven for my students. Many times, students in Drama are looked down upon for some reason or another. However, I want to make my students feel like they are doing great things. If they feel like they can succeed in my class they will feel that self efficacy and will in turn succeed in their other classes too. I want to vary my teaching methods because as I said, everyone learns differently and if I only teach one way it won’t be fair for the students that do not learn that way.
I feel like I need to learn how to be a better teacher when it comes to discovery learning. I am afraid of letting my students go out and learn on their own without any guidance. I guess I just need to have more faith in them. I want to learn more about Behavioral techniques. I feel I don’t understand it as much as the other theories and therefore need to learn how to apply it in my classroom. I also need to work on how to work with students from other cultures than I am used to. Those students need a little more care and I have not worked with those students before so I need to learn a little more about that.
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