Barb's Seminar

I was fascinated by the seminar I attended on with Barb Retenbach. I really had no idea what I was walking into before I went, and came out educated on the topic in a new way. I had no idea that people with Autism were so capable of communicating with the world we live in. I love the technology that we are able to use today that allows us to do that. Because of Barb's tablet that allows her to type out words and phrases, she is now able to reveal that she is just as capable and smart as anyone that was in that room listening. Barb was very together and understood every piece of information that someone stated, even when we thought she wasn't paying attention. I believe the main lesson I learned from this was to never underestimate your students. Barb is a woman who can barely communicate verbally, yet has accomplished more in her life than many people her age. I believe it's easy to say that she certainly works harder than most of the other novelists in the world, because of the circumstances she is in. This just proves that when we give our students motivation, encouragement, and tools to reach their goals, they can live up to any hope we have for them. I certainly admired Barb's helper, Lois, because of the passion, patience, and care she shows for Barb. I believe we can all learn something from this, even if we don't have children with Austism in our classrooms.

Chapter 5

I believe that intelligence is something that cannot be strictly measures through achievements tests or grades. If there is one thing we now know about intelligence it is that it is certainly complex and vast, and therefore cannot be studied through one specific scope. There are multiple traits to intelligence, and each person is programmed to live out those traits in different ways. While we do know that like heredity likely has a role, we can never assume that intelligence is the product of our parents, but it more likely the product of our environment. I say this because different cultures and environments have different topics of interest, and different priorities. Some cultures will not be exposed to the types of resources of others, or invest their focus into aspects that we don't necessarily view as important. I believe intelligence is applicable to the lifestyle we live. It is our ability to adapt to the world we live in and thrive in that environment based on reasoning and capability.

Chapter 3

When looking at the high school case study, I notice that a code of behavior and a sense of motivation seem to be nonexistent. There is a lack of interest in the classroom and on the subject as a whole. Students who do not seem interested in learning about the course at all may have a lack of personal interest or motivation, which in turn reflects onto those around them. When some students do not care to pay attention or respect the procedures, it can affect the atmosphere of the entire classroom. While in this class many of the problems come from the majority of the class, I would also look specifically at the three boys who appear to be causing many of the problems directly. When these students openly mock students who are trying, or openly refuse to obey the classroom procedures which everyone is expected to follow, they make an example to the rest of the class. When this happens I must look at why students do not seem to be interested or understand the importance of the subject, or why they feel they don’t need to comply with standard set for everyone else. These students might be behaving in this way because they are going through a period of discovering their own identity. They are willing to chance risky behavior and growing confident in those decisions, because they searching for what they can and cannot do as they grow older. The riskier behavior they achieve, and get away with without consequences, lets them know what they are capable of performing. In order to help with this confused sense of self, I would like to explore perspective taking with the boys in the class. By sitting down and addressing that their behavior is influencing not only each other, but the classroom environment as a whole, I would that they would see they are being destructive to the learning environment of every student around them. Since they are at a point where they are gaining recognition that people are not always are of why they do the things they do, I would they would make this realization about themselves and put a stop to it. If there is another underlying problem, I would offer that they tell me about it from their own perspective, then explain how that might look from another. Lastly, I would hope that they would use their increasing moral reasoning to feel they are causing a disservice to the classroom and do something to stop it. I would reinforce the idea to them that they are smart, caring individuals who will be helping the classroom society as a whole by behaving in a productive manner.

Chapter 2

Once I began teaching a classroom of my own I will not be able to assume that everyone of my student's has achieved formal operations stage. His theory does not allow for much diversity in classroom abundance, which I am assured there is. While I do believe every student will hopefully reach the point at some point in their lives of achieving the formal operational stage, I believe it can be delayed severely. This could be in part due to Vygotsky's own theory of cognitive development. I believe that biological and social factors have a huge part in reaching these stages, so these will need to be addressed in the classroom if a child appears to be delayed. I believe this could be a huge factor in my classroom teaching if I teach in an urban or low socioeconomic status school because students in these types of settings are often not exposed to many resources. In order to help combat this problem, I believe this issue will need to be addressed first. This might include surrounding and teaching students concepts that they have never before been exposed to, and making special attention to explain these confusing concepts to them. Once this issue has been addressed we could then see if the delay is still occurring in the formal operational stage. If there is, I would be sure to incorporate cognitive processes into my everyday lessons through modeling myself, and peer work. Perhaps once students see how to arrive at solutions through this, they may begin to attempt that same thinking process that they have seen work. Also, when being an English teacher, it is clear that language will play a huge role in my classroom. Therefore, choosing strategies to incorporate linguistic characteristics in my classroom should not be hard. Through reading novels, short stories, and poetry students will be exposed to new vocabulary everyday. They will learn what many of this words mean through not only context clues, but discussion as a class to reinforce the use of them, as well as remember the meaning. This also goes for any underlying means we discover in the text. Students will learn to "read between the lines" in stories once we discuss the meaning of numerous scenes from our stories as a class.

Chapter 10

As a teacher, I believe modeling is essentially included in the job description and responsibilities when one signs up for this career. As teachers, we are called to be role MODELS, not only inside the classroom, but for outside purposes as well. One might think that their role in the classroom does not have an effect on life of the student as long as the student is still acquiring knowledge, but in actuality, modeling can hinder or help a student's knowledge. When teachers often show up late to classes it implies that a student's time is not a priority. If a student quickly realizes that their time with a teacher is not a priority, then they too will assume the class is not as important. If a teacher doesn't care about the class they are teaching, then why should a student? Showing up not only on time, but enthusiastic about the task ahead reflects passion and demonstrates that this topic is detrimental to a student's education. Not only is does tardiness reflect this, but being prepared demonstrates this as well. Just because a teacher shows up on time does not mean that he or she is prepared. I've had multiple instances where it is apparent that teachers have slapped together some sort of lesson plan or worksheet at the last minute, or not quite covered the topic thoroughly because they themselves do not like the topic. Unfortunately, even if we as teachers don't always love the topic we are expected to present we are still expected to actually teach that topic, and give our all. Just because something may not be our favorite, does not mean it won't strike a chord with another student. Presenting ourselves as knowledgeable, excited, caring teachers can do more for a child both inside the classroom and outside then we often expect. By doing so, we give students the option to be passionate, engaged, and caring themselves , which will in turn affect the knowledge they receive.
In my case study, there is a lot of rough housing and off-task behavior occurring in the classroom, which keeps the students from listening and the teacher from fully carrying out the lesson plan for the day. One of the main reasons for this behavior could in fact play a role in self-efficacy. In my "classroom" students are meant to be participating in music class but fail to do so. One of these reasons may be determined by the fact that students do not feel they can adequately perform in music, so they give up trying. It's important to remember that as teachers we do what we can to boost this self-efficacy. If a student is attempting to learn something new or correct mistakes from the past, we need to encourage them with praise and applaud them for their attempts. In order to help boost this, the participation of the whole class would be great. Not only will students feel as if they have done something right in the eyes of their teacher, but will feel better about themselves in front of their peers. When we encourage students to applaud one another, we can help boost their overall self-efficacy and ultimately, hopefully, improve the way they feel about a class.

Chapter 9

From a behaviorist viewpoint, I believe successful mastery of a lesson's objectives could mean many things from an academic viewpoint. Students that have mastered your objectives could have used behaviorism to apply what they have learned to what they see on their paper. If a student does a a grammar worksheet and writes down right or wrong answers and gets the paper back corrected, they will notice the check marks and X's. If a teacher puts a sticker on the paper for a 100, then they will know that good grades mean a sticker, therefore if a student wants a sticker, they learn they must make a one hundred. Therefore, when a student sees a particular type of problem, it acts as a stimulus and recalls the information they know, and urges them to put the correct answer, in order for a reward. This is much like classical conditioning. While behaviorism could be applied to this type of academic standard, it also works perhaps much better for objectives in the behavior of the classroom. If a student is not making good grades, or successfully learning the material, it could be related to his or her behavior in the classroom setting. Attention seeking or restless students are often not focused solely on the schoolwork at hand, therefore in order to redirect their focus, behaviorist methods, like applied behavior analysis or positive behavior support could be applied to the situation. Once teachers have identified the root cause of behavior, and effectively learned how to best help that student in terms of appropriate classroom behavior, then they may focus on the learning aspect of that student's work. This could also include adapting lesson plans to that student's interests, so that they are reaching their full learning potential.
For my CSEL class, this class could probably benefit most from positive behavioral support. It is a class of seniors who essentially do not take the class seriously because they are ready to get out and are over school. Students are roughhousing and passing notes and texting. First off, it would be beneficial to conduct a functional analysis to determine if there is any overriding reason any students are behaving this way, other than they see music class as a joke, or easy grade. If there deeper root causes, I would suggest finding individual projects for those who need it, however, in this class it seems that most of these seniors would simply rather be having social hour because graduation is near. Therefore, the best route would be to eliminate the undesirable behaviors, by creating activities and projects that let students interact with each other, while still getting work done. If students feel they cannot socialize or communicate in class, to a point where they will be disruptive to do it, I would try to redirect their focus by having them work together towards a certain task. This could include group work or competitions, and a system of perhaps rewards for those who are willing to try, while those who slack off would not get the opportunity to work with others.

Chapter 8

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As an English teacher, one of the main objectives of my class will be writing papers. I know from person experience as a high school student, this is not a favorite among students, and is often perceived to be more difficult than what it needs to be. By the time students sit down at a computer to write an assignment, they feel as if they do not know where to start or what to say. In order to help students feel prepared, I would like help to teach effective metacognition skills and learning strategies, to better enhance their work. Before ever writing the paper it is important to address students upfront and let them know the information they are looking at will be used for an assignment. From that point, I will require the use of multiple overt and covert strategies, so that students are learning the information before they sit down to a new assignment. I believe it is important to address the importance of note taking, and providing examples of good notes. By showing good examples and identifying key information, students will learn the best way to jot down information and will be able to go back and apply to the work they are working on later. I would also work with students on identifying key information from a large work of material such as textbook or lesson. Reading a chapter in a textbook, or even a literature book can be overwhelming, therefore, by highlighting and noting key events or words students can identify what they need to take away. We would work together multiple times on both of these strategies as a class before any student would be required to do so on their own, because students must learn the right way to perform the strategies before they can identify and think about what information needs to be retained.

I also really enjoyed the parts on transfer of this chapter. Because I am interested in teaching at an inner city or urban school, transfer is a key component to learning. Students from these areas often have preconceived notions about many ideas, or a lack of support and enthusiasm from other schooling in the past. As their teacher, it is my job to work on correcting any negative transfer they have encountered in the past, while encouraging the positive transfer they have already experienced. Students in these types of schools often do not see the point in much of the information they are learning, so positive transfer to real-world contexts would greatly increase the value of a lesson to students, while allowing them to understand the material with greater ease.

Chapter 7

After learning more about constructivism this week, I believe it is something I would definitely like to incorporate throughout my teaching. I find this theory effective because it is based on the understanding of a student’s own knowledge and experiences, and connecting it to the material in the classroom. I believe this theory of learning would be very applicable to me because I am interested in teaching in urban schools. It is very hard for underprivileged students to find use in schooling when they don’t find it applicable to their own lives. By using a constructivist method, I would be able to use their experiences and worldview to create lessons more relatable and understandable. After looking at ways that constructivist methods can be used in the classroom, I am very interested in service learning. I think service learning is appealing because it hits on one of the main reasons I would like to be a teacher. One of the main reasons I chose teaching was because I wanted to help students and possibly help make a difference in their lives, and in ways other than curriculum learning. Service learning would give me the opportunity to provide effective examples of ways to help the community or perhaps better a student’s own life, while still accomplishing the task of covering required curriculum material. Getting students out of the classroom and into the real world with real-life tasks would help with identifying misconceptions and perhaps changing the view on them, while giving students new experiences to compare new knowledge with. For my own subject area, a service project could involve going into the community and identifying changes students would like to see made. Then students could write their own personal letters or essays to council men or local government asking for these changes and providing evidence on the good to come of it, and the benefits expected. Exposing students to the potential of the community around them provides them with a more optimistic view of their own world, and perhaps gives hope to their own personal academic goals.

Chapter 6

I would like for my students to learn the importance of mnemonics, and how these can help remember material presented in the classroom more effectively. If students can learn any of these three methods: verbal meditation, the keyword method, or superimposed meaningful structure, they may use the phrases or analogies they have come up with to retrieve information from the mind at a later date. These are effective because learners find their own meaning in material by relating it to their mind or some other sort of knowledge base they already have. Another important skill I would like me students to have in learning is the ability to connect their emotions to the material they are learning. When students experience hot cognition, they are more likely to relate to the situation or knowledge they are reading or learning about. When one becomes emotionally invested in something, it is often much harder to forget. To do this not only is it important to invest in material that will be emotionally attached to this class, but it will be important for me as a teacher to express my own emotions about certain topics. This way, students will see the excitement that can come from learning or that it is okay to react in certain ways to topics.
Memory processes are an extremely important aspect of instructional decisions in the classroom because they may determine what students will learn or gain from a lesson. In order for a teacher to effectively teach a in way that students will gain knowledge, it is important to take memory process into account. Since memory is ultimately the way students will recall knowledge, as a teacher we want to make things memorable. It's possibly to be "memorable" in a number of way for various students. Making connections to students' own lives in a context they can better understand will automatically allow students to grasp the material better, which will help in recalling facts or stories later. This also goes along with creating a lesson that involves the students' own personal lives. Whether it be a project or group collaborative assignment, it would be more memorable to the student if it is made personal and they are allowed to put their own stamp on it. When we make lessons that are more personal or presented in a variety of context, we are more likely to present information in distinct ways which mixes up activities and plans and keeps the students involved and eager. These activities don't just blend in, but will stand out in the mind and associate students with the material they have learned. When we as teachers can focus on ways to make these lessons memorable and the techniques used for these memory processes, we are likely to see an increase in knowledge gained and retained.

Chapter 14

A paper-pencil assessment for my English class would likely include giving a test similar to those I usually experienced in high school. This might include giving a multiple choice section on the plot summary of a story, short answer for some characteristics of a genre, and perhaps an essay question for the meaning behind a major symbol in a novel. It would probably be harder to demonstrate a performance assessment in an English classroom, but perhaps reciting lines from a play or monologue could be an example of this. I believe an informal assessment could be useful in an English class because I’ve found that English discussions often spark the most learning. When students participate in a discussion rather a lecture, it allows students to speak up and ask questions and point the class in the direction they will take that day. However, the teacher must then be prepared to talk about a variety of things rather than just a planned idea. Incorporating a formal assessment in the classroom too though could include a time set aside for a power point by the teacher, or identification of elements of the text, before launching into a informal discussion.

Chapter 13

For my classroom, I want to arrange the room so that students have no choice but to be put in the middle of things, hopefully engaging them in the lesson. I like the idea of no back of the room, because this is often a spot for students to talk or hide from the teacher. In many of my English classes, the desks were arranged in a circle for discussion. This set up won’t always work for all lessons, but I find that it is very effective when trying to get students to be involved in a discussion or even listen more accurately to what is going on around them. I also enjoy posters and words on the wall for students to read. Obviously we don’t want a distraction, but I believe it also shows students that the teacher cares about her classroom, and wants to create a fun environment and not just envelop kids in a typical classroom setting.

For the fifth period music class in my CSEL case study, I think some application of love and logic could be effective. For those passing notes and texting, it might be helpful to say “If everyone listens up and gets through the songs on time without distraction, we will probably have a few minutes to socialize at the end. If we don’t want to pay attention it will only take longer, and we’ll be left with no free time.” For the three boys roughhousing it will be effective to take them either aside as a group, or each one individually, and sit and talk to them in a private setting. If chastising them in front of the class hasn’t worked, this attention might. It shows them you care about their behavior and how disruptive it is regardless if they believe it is harmless, and also takes away the attention they receive when they do it. If they boys refuse to still obey you might threaten to have them taken out of this class for another period, which wouldn’t be something as fun as music, but work in the office or study hall where they will be separated from their friends.

Chapter 11- Motivation

As  a teacher, motivation is a student’s learning is a key in the amount of the effort the students put in, and the amount of knowledge they will take away from a lesson or project. Therefore, it is detrimental that we, as future teachers, do our best to spark that motivation in order for a student’s best performance. In order to do this I believe I would have to go outside the typical mode of extrinsic motivation. While grades are enough for some students to entice them to perform, others genuinely don’t care. In order to put some care and effort in the project, finding some sort of intrinsic motivation would greatly involve the students. To do this, I believe it extremely important to get to know students and their personal lives outside the classroom. Knowing a student’s hobbies or home life can allow a teacher to gain insight in to their life, and find out what interests them the most. This way, when projects or lessons can be revised into adaptable ways, the teacher may know what to say or assign that may hit close to home and actually spark interest. Obviously, this cannot be done all the time because there are multiple students in a classroom, but for some certain large projects or important lessons it would be very useful. This in turn not only allows a student to put their own ideas and heart into something, but shows a students that the teacher cares enough about his or her learning to try to help them succeed. Because of this, some students might see the desire teachers have to see their students be successful, which in turn might encourage them so that they can please someone who has faith in them. I believe showing a student respect and love will ultimately affect that student, because they will want to do the same in return, perhaps through their school work. By doing their work or learning the material, they believe they are pleasing the teacher, and so desire because they want to continue that relationship of respect and encouragement. I believe when teachers reveal their own passion to teach and focus on the well-being of the student as a whole, not just grades, it does not restrict the learning environment and increases motivation because it reveals encouragement, along with satisfying one’s need for relatedness.