Final Learning Log

What?
The emerging theory quiz suggests that my philosophy of learning is almost equally split between a cognitive and behaviorist philosophy. Presently, I believe that my theory relies heavily on social constructivism. I believe that learners construct meaning from experiences that they have within the culture they live in. I use Piaget’s cognitive stages of development to try to understand how the students I teach might be thinking. In class, I enjoyed learning about the development of the brain and different theories of learning. These things enabled me to better understand the students I will teach. Going into the classroom to observe during my field experience, I was able to see the teacher using different techniques from the theories and watch how the students would learn. I observed the teacher using scaffolding in each lesson that she taught. She used discovery learning in many of her lessons which I thought was very effective for the students to gain an understanding of concepts on their own which I believed help them retain the information better. Small group activities were used several times throughout the day and the teacher encouraged the students to talk through tasks with their neighbors in a cooperative manner. In addition, the teacher must have conditioned the students to behave in a respectful manner which must have take place at the beginning of the year through a behaviorist approach. I felt comfortable in the classroom partly due to the fact that the teacher used educational philosophies which aligned with my own developing educational philosophy. I saw that these strategies worked in the classroom that I was observing which helped me understand their usefulness in the classroom.

So What?
I will use pieces from many learning theories when I am a teacher. I will use Piaget’s stages of cognitive development to understand the logic of how my students might think. I will use this understanding to help them move further in their stages of thinking. As I hope to teach kindergarten, I believe that many of my students will be in the preoperational stage of development. This will impact my classroom in several ways. The students will have an egocentric perspective, so they will not be able to see another’s point of view. As a teacher, I will need to point out different perspectives while reading books and dealing with situations in the classroom to help students see different points of view. I will focus on class inclusion and conservation giving the students opportunities to sort and re-sort, and to reshape and rearrange a substance. Hopefully this will give the students the experiences they will need to begin to understand class inclusion and conservation. I will give my students the opportunity to use discovery learning so that they will be able to construct knowledge from these experiences. I will try to connect new concepts to prior learning and provide many opportunities for social interaction.
I will use many of Vygotsky’s ideas of in my classroom including scaffolding, play, self talk, and providing tasks which are in their zone of proximal development. I believe that adults in every culture systematically teach children the acceptable ways to behave and respond to the world around them. In my classroom I want to include many opportunities for the students to learn in their zone of proximal development. As Vygotsky believed, it is working within a zone of proximal development that learning takes place. Providing challenging tasks with the necessary help will allow my students the opportunity to learn. I will use scaffolding techniques to provide the support they need to learn and experience new tasks which will eventually lead to them accomplishing these tasks on their own. I will take each opportunity I can to tell the students what I am thinking while teaching them so they understand how important it is to talk themselves through more difficult tasks. This will encourage them to use self talk to work through assigned tasks. I will encourage play which will enable the students to practice adult behavior in a non-threatening way.

I will include some behaviorist ideas in my classroom as I believe that students’ behaviors can be a result of the experiences they have in the classroom. From observing my cooperating teacher, I have come to believe that it is the teacher’s responsibility to condition the students through classroom management skills. The students in the class I observed showed respect to the teacher and to my partner and me in every situation. I believe this respect resulted from the teacher’s high expectations and her consistent insistence that the students behave appropriately.

Now What?
As I continue my education here at UVU, I will continue to learn from knowledgeable professors and gain valuable insight from field experiences. I will keep an open mind as to my developing educational philosophy to ensure that I include the proper techniques and strategies that will ensure I teach my future students in an engaging and effective manner. As I continue to build my educational philosophy, I hope I will be guided by exceptional professionals from whom I can use as mentors. I will continue to learn all that I can through course work, observations, hands-on experiences, and personal study to ensure that I will one day be an excellent teacher.