What?
This week in education psychology I learned about social cognitivism. The definition of learning for this theory is that learning is an internal process that may or may not lead to a behavioral change. It is a combination of cognitive psychology and behaviorism in that change in behavior may take place and it recognizes that something is going on inside the brain. I thought that the Bobo doll experiment was very interesting to watch and see that children who watched an aggressive model were more aggressive to the Bobo doll. In the text it says that children are influenced by what they watch including videos, games, and movies. I have always thought that children are influenced by what they see; however, I am kind of confused about this because I think that it has been reported in the news that they don’t think there is a connection between what we see and what we do. This seems to not be true. In class, we talked about reciprocal causation and how environment, behavior and personal beliefs, perceptions, values, and emotions can all influence each other. There is an interrelationship between all of these things. We were divided into groups and went to the computer lab. Our group worked on a presentation concerning vicarious learning. Vicarious learning is when a person observes someone else doing something and they learn from the experience themselves. Three types of this include response facilitation effect, response inhibition effect, and response disinhibition effect. In the first, the learner increases an activity after seeing someone else being reinforced for it. The second is when a learner sees a person being punished for an activity and the learner decreases the activity. The final of the three is when previously punished activities are not punished in others and so the learner increases the frequency of the previously punished activity.
So What?
From this chapter, I have learned that modeling of appropriate behavior will have a great impact on my students. As I model the behaviors I expect my student to adopt, they will be able to use me as a model and make goals for their own behavior. As I help my student incorporate self-regulating in their behavior, they will eventually be able to make decisions about their behavior on their own. The things I do in class will have a big impact on all the students through vicarious learning. The students will feel vicarious reinforcement and punishment as they see me interact with other students in the classroom so I had better make sure that I am consistent in my behavior. Students need to have high self-efficacy in order for them to be successful in their lives. There are things that teachers can do to promote a high self-efficacy in their students.
Now What?
I will need to make sure that I am always a good model for my students. Students need to feel that I am competent as a teacher and as a person. They also need to feel that what I model is relevant to their personal situation. For this, I will need to make sure to make connections with what I teach to their lives. In the text, it indicated that I need to provide a wide variety of successful models so that my students feel that they too can be successful. To do this, I will look for resources in the school and in the community so that all of my students know that success is possible for them. I will need to be consistent in my reinforcements and punishments because I have learned that students can experience consequences for behavior either directly or vicariously. In order to promote high self-efficacy in my students, I can provide experiences in which they will be able to be successful in many different areas. I can help them be successful by providing necessary scaffolding. I can provide explicit ways that students are successful and I can communicate my belief in their ability to be successful.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Chapter 9 Learning Log
What?
In class we discussed behaviorism. Dr. Cox passed out small sheets of paper and indicated that she would give us stickers for our contributions to the discussion. At the end of class, which ever groups had 5 stickers on their papers they would get to choose a prize. This is an example of operant conditioning as well as a token economy. Dr. Cox would give us a reinforcer each time a contribution was made and the students in the classroom were making more comments than usual to the discussion. In the end, if each group had five stickers we could get a better prize.
Behaviorism’s definition of learning is a semi-permanent change in behavior and the visual analogy for this is a black box. This means that we don’t know what’s going on in the brain, and we don’t care to know. One advantage to the definition is that the change in behavior is measurable. One disadvantage is that we want motivation to come from within not from a reinforcer. Two types of reinforcers discussed include extrinsic reinforcers and intrinsic reinforcers. Extrinsic reinforcers are provided by the external environment and might include an actual object, gesture, sign, or an opportunity to engage in an activity. Intrinsic reinforcers come from the learner themselves and are things like feeling good about doing a task well or feeling pleasure or satisfaction from accomplishing something.
The two types of conditioning which we discussed were classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when a neutral stimulus is presented at the same time as an unconditioned stimulus and eventually, the neutral stimulus begins to elicit the same or similar response that the unconditioned stimulus did. Pavlov discovered this with dogs and salivation. He began flashing a light at the same time as he presented dogs with their food and they would salivate. Soon, he could flash the light without having food present and the dogs would still salivate. Operant conditioning is different in that a response is strengthened when it is followed by a reinforcer. An example of operant conditioning was shown by Dr. Cox during class with her stickers. The students in the class were experiencing operant conditioning and we were participating more in class as a result of her reinforcer.
There is a difference between a reinforcer and a punishment. Reinforcers can be positive or negative but they both increase the frequency of what we are reinforcing. A punishment on the other hand is meant to decrease a behavior. The problem here is that sometimes we might be reinforcing poor behavior, and what is punishment to one student, might be enjoyable to another.
So What?
Through Dr. Cox’s object lesson we were able to discover several things. First, it is very time consuming to keep up giving reinforcers. Second, when one student was told that he couldn’t receive anymore stickers for his comments, it discouraged him from commenting anymore. Third, sometimes Dr. Cox did not give stickers to students who commented and they may have wondered what was wrong with their comment not to have received a sticker. As a class, we discussed that reinforcers should be used sparingly and that we should try to help students understand there are intrinsic rewards for doing their school work well. Reinforcers are stimuli that increase a behavior whether good or bad. Punishments are supposed to decrease a behavior. As an educator, I need to be careful to use punishment only in situations where it is absolutely necessary. I also need to be aware that one person’s punishment may be a reward (or reinforcer) to another.
Now What?
I need to keep in mind that I need to create a classroom environment where the stimuli including my own behavior is likely to create responses of enjoyment and relaxation. When my students associate my classroom with a pleasant circumstance, they are likely to learn that school is a place that they want to be. On the other hand, if I create a stressful environment, it may create responses of stress and distaste. My students then would associate my classroom with unpleasant circumstances and they will likely learn that school is a place they do not want to be. As I prepare to teach kindergarten, I will need to evaluate the reinforcers I use in my classroom. I believe that I would be interested in using a token economy for some reinforcement. However, I want to instill in my students that intrinsic rewards that are associated with doing tasks well are far better than reinforcers. I need to make sure that the praise I give is genuine and specific to each of my students. I will need to study different methods of reinforcement to determine what will work the best in my classroom. In addition, I will need to be very careful not to reinforce behaviors that I would like to extinguish. I will monitor progress in the classroom to see if my chosen techniques are working and adjust them as necessary.
In class we discussed behaviorism. Dr. Cox passed out small sheets of paper and indicated that she would give us stickers for our contributions to the discussion. At the end of class, which ever groups had 5 stickers on their papers they would get to choose a prize. This is an example of operant conditioning as well as a token economy. Dr. Cox would give us a reinforcer each time a contribution was made and the students in the classroom were making more comments than usual to the discussion. In the end, if each group had five stickers we could get a better prize.
Behaviorism’s definition of learning is a semi-permanent change in behavior and the visual analogy for this is a black box. This means that we don’t know what’s going on in the brain, and we don’t care to know. One advantage to the definition is that the change in behavior is measurable. One disadvantage is that we want motivation to come from within not from a reinforcer. Two types of reinforcers discussed include extrinsic reinforcers and intrinsic reinforcers. Extrinsic reinforcers are provided by the external environment and might include an actual object, gesture, sign, or an opportunity to engage in an activity. Intrinsic reinforcers come from the learner themselves and are things like feeling good about doing a task well or feeling pleasure or satisfaction from accomplishing something.
The two types of conditioning which we discussed were classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when a neutral stimulus is presented at the same time as an unconditioned stimulus and eventually, the neutral stimulus begins to elicit the same or similar response that the unconditioned stimulus did. Pavlov discovered this with dogs and salivation. He began flashing a light at the same time as he presented dogs with their food and they would salivate. Soon, he could flash the light without having food present and the dogs would still salivate. Operant conditioning is different in that a response is strengthened when it is followed by a reinforcer. An example of operant conditioning was shown by Dr. Cox during class with her stickers. The students in the class were experiencing operant conditioning and we were participating more in class as a result of her reinforcer.
There is a difference between a reinforcer and a punishment. Reinforcers can be positive or negative but they both increase the frequency of what we are reinforcing. A punishment on the other hand is meant to decrease a behavior. The problem here is that sometimes we might be reinforcing poor behavior, and what is punishment to one student, might be enjoyable to another.
So What?
Through Dr. Cox’s object lesson we were able to discover several things. First, it is very time consuming to keep up giving reinforcers. Second, when one student was told that he couldn’t receive anymore stickers for his comments, it discouraged him from commenting anymore. Third, sometimes Dr. Cox did not give stickers to students who commented and they may have wondered what was wrong with their comment not to have received a sticker. As a class, we discussed that reinforcers should be used sparingly and that we should try to help students understand there are intrinsic rewards for doing their school work well. Reinforcers are stimuli that increase a behavior whether good or bad. Punishments are supposed to decrease a behavior. As an educator, I need to be careful to use punishment only in situations where it is absolutely necessary. I also need to be aware that one person’s punishment may be a reward (or reinforcer) to another.
Now What?
I need to keep in mind that I need to create a classroom environment where the stimuli including my own behavior is likely to create responses of enjoyment and relaxation. When my students associate my classroom with a pleasant circumstance, they are likely to learn that school is a place that they want to be. On the other hand, if I create a stressful environment, it may create responses of stress and distaste. My students then would associate my classroom with unpleasant circumstances and they will likely learn that school is a place they do not want to be. As I prepare to teach kindergarten, I will need to evaluate the reinforcers I use in my classroom. I believe that I would be interested in using a token economy for some reinforcement. However, I want to instill in my students that intrinsic rewards that are associated with doing tasks well are far better than reinforcers. I need to make sure that the praise I give is genuine and specific to each of my students. I will need to study different methods of reinforcement to determine what will work the best in my classroom. In addition, I will need to be very careful not to reinforce behaviors that I would like to extinguish. I will monitor progress in the classroom to see if my chosen techniques are working and adjust them as necessary.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Investigations Math
What is investigations math?
According to the website http://investigations.terc.edu/, investigations math is a K-5 math curriculum designed at TERC in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was designed to help students understand fundamental ideas about numbers, operations, geometry, data, measurements, and algebra. Investigations math is a result of over 20 years research designed to improve teaching and learning math in elementary schools. Three principles that guide investigations math are that students have mathematical ideas and the curriculum needs to support the exploration of these ideas; teachers are engaged in learning about math and how students learn math, and that teachers and students work together to create curriculum in the classroom. From several sources I have determined that in this type of math the teacher presents a mathematical question and the students work together in groups to try to find a way to solve it. Apparently, time is spent emphasizing concepts, estimating, and using calculators. The traditional idea of memorizing math facts, and repetition and practice are not a part of this type of math.
What were the results of its use in the Alpine School District?
Alpine district began using investigations math in the 2000 school year. I was unable to locate the math scores for pre and post usage of the investigations math program. I only found mention of raised test scores in which the district spokesperson said that there was a 5% increase in elementary algebra and a 7% increase in geometry than the state average. I was able to find reported in 2005 that the legislative committee criticized the method and that the Utah State Office of Education removed it from its list of recommended primary sources of instruction.
I found information that indicated schools in California that used the investigations math approach for 7 years went from being top in math scores in the states to the second lowest. The thing that seemed to be the most obvious result of the use of investigations math was the divisiveness in the district. Some parents were so upset by the program, that they went door-to-door obtaining signatures for a petition against the program. They created a website which kept information concerning investigations math in the forefront of conversation. Some parents moved their children from the public school system into charter, private, or home schools. Several teachers supported the program; however, many others opposed it. In the news reports, children were scolded by teachers for using traditional math ideas and some teachers’ jobs were threatened if they did not use the program. Some teachers reported that they spent 10 minutes on investigations math then closed their doors and taught traditional math.
What are the arguments for and against the use of investigations math?
Arguments for:
Emphasis on concepts, estimation, and use of calculators
Teachers present concepts
Students explore concepts through investigations
Making students into thinking mathematicians
Students develop a deeper understanding and love for math
Arguments against:
Large amount of time for students to identify which solution will work
Fewer topics covered or diminished depth of content
No repetition and practice of basic math facts
De-emphasizes algorithmic methods
Deprives students of some essential skills
My Opinion:
I believe that there should be a balanced approach to teaching math. I believe that it is important for students to memorize basic math facts in order to make it easier to recall basic facts for more complicated problems. I believe that students need to have many opportunities to discover and work with manipulatives in order to solidify abstract math concepts in a more concrete way. As I prepare to teach kindergarten, I realize that my students need many hands on experiences to help them gain an understanding of many math concepts.
According to the website http://investigations.terc.edu/, investigations math is a K-5 math curriculum designed at TERC in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was designed to help students understand fundamental ideas about numbers, operations, geometry, data, measurements, and algebra. Investigations math is a result of over 20 years research designed to improve teaching and learning math in elementary schools. Three principles that guide investigations math are that students have mathematical ideas and the curriculum needs to support the exploration of these ideas; teachers are engaged in learning about math and how students learn math, and that teachers and students work together to create curriculum in the classroom. From several sources I have determined that in this type of math the teacher presents a mathematical question and the students work together in groups to try to find a way to solve it. Apparently, time is spent emphasizing concepts, estimating, and using calculators. The traditional idea of memorizing math facts, and repetition and practice are not a part of this type of math.
What were the results of its use in the Alpine School District?
Alpine district began using investigations math in the 2000 school year. I was unable to locate the math scores for pre and post usage of the investigations math program. I only found mention of raised test scores in which the district spokesperson said that there was a 5% increase in elementary algebra and a 7% increase in geometry than the state average. I was able to find reported in 2005 that the legislative committee criticized the method and that the Utah State Office of Education removed it from its list of recommended primary sources of instruction.
I found information that indicated schools in California that used the investigations math approach for 7 years went from being top in math scores in the states to the second lowest. The thing that seemed to be the most obvious result of the use of investigations math was the divisiveness in the district. Some parents were so upset by the program, that they went door-to-door obtaining signatures for a petition against the program. They created a website which kept information concerning investigations math in the forefront of conversation. Some parents moved their children from the public school system into charter, private, or home schools. Several teachers supported the program; however, many others opposed it. In the news reports, children were scolded by teachers for using traditional math ideas and some teachers’ jobs were threatened if they did not use the program. Some teachers reported that they spent 10 minutes on investigations math then closed their doors and taught traditional math.
What are the arguments for and against the use of investigations math?
Arguments for:
Emphasis on concepts, estimation, and use of calculators
Teachers present concepts
Students explore concepts through investigations
Making students into thinking mathematicians
Students develop a deeper understanding and love for math
Arguments against:
Large amount of time for students to identify which solution will work
Fewer topics covered or diminished depth of content
No repetition and practice of basic math facts
De-emphasizes algorithmic methods
Deprives students of some essential skills
My Opinion:
I believe that there should be a balanced approach to teaching math. I believe that it is important for students to memorize basic math facts in order to make it easier to recall basic facts for more complicated problems. I believe that students need to have many opportunities to discover and work with manipulatives in order to solidify abstract math concepts in a more concrete way. As I prepare to teach kindergarten, I realize that my students need many hands on experiences to help them gain an understanding of many math concepts.
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