Week of October 19

I really enjoyed the readings this week concerning motivation. I really think that motivation is one of the most important parts on the classroom. The readings this week focused on how students ask for help and how teachers can help students ask for help. I think that before we even think about that, teacher enthusiasm should be taken into consideration. If a teacher is not enthusiastic and does not care about the content, students sense that and become apathetic to the content taught in the classroom. I remember the first year I taught. I taught texts that were available and texts that other teachers taught and had success with. I was so fortunate; I had the best mentor teacher ever (literally, she became the Utah Teacher of the Year a few years later). I thought that everything was in place for me to have a great year. That year, I tried to teach pieces of literature that I didn’t love. I think that really came through to the students. I didn’t feel a lot of success with some of the units that I tried. I was frustrated because my mentor teacher loved those pieces of literature and it seemed that her students did too. The next year, I was able to order my own set of books. I chose a book that I loved, that filled the curriculum standards and that I felt I could teach in an impactful way. That really changed everything. I could look at my kids and say “I love this book and I think that there is a lot that we can learn by reading it together.” That enthusiasm changed my classroom that year. Since that experience, I try to get enthused about everything I teach. Sometimes we are mandated to teach certain curriculum that doesn’t excite us, but we can put our own stamp on it and add our own personality.

So I guess I think that learning can best be effectuated by really motivating students with our enthusiasm. If students see that we love the things we teach, they will be more motivated to learn.

Week of October 8 What is Learning?

This week I’ve been thinking about learning according to schema and of course Piaget’s developmental stages, but I’ve also been thinking about my own classroom and my school. When I am asked “What is learning” I have to say that student motivation is a huge key. I work in an amazing school and I work with wonderful teachers. I can’t help but think that some of the success I see in the classrooms of my fellow teachers comes from the motivation that these students feel when they enter the classroom. The classroom environment makes such a huge impact on student learning. If students feel like they are valued and cared for, they will do anything for a teacher. I just wonder if we will talk about that in class. My faculty has been working on positive reinforcement and specifically sending home two positive postcards a week. Teachers choose any two students in class and send home a postcard telling parents about a positive thing that happened with the student that week. This has been very powerful and there has been great feedback from parents and students. I think that when students get one of these postcards, their motivation goes up and they are willing to try that much harder in class. So is there a theorist that has done research on this, or should I start my research process so I can make millions of dollars selling books with my findings?

I think that one of the best ways to effectuate learning is to try to get to know students. (Of course everyone in my Masters classes understands this because I’ve seen your lesson plans and I know that you are amazing teachers.) Students need to know that a teacher cares about them. They also need to know that the teacher cares about them enough to put a foot down when they are out of control. So, there are my thoughts about learning and effectuating learning for this week.

Week 6--What Is Learning?

I've been thinking a lot about background knowledge and schema this week. I love these concepts and I really try to use a lot of background knowledge in my lessons. The thing I've really been thinking about this week is the fact that there is such a discrepency in background knowledge among some of my students. I have many students who are well-read upon entering my class and they are ready for so much literature and so many challenging pieces. I have other students who don't read at all and reading for enjoyment is so foreign to them. Sometimes it seems hard to bridge the gap because there is such a difference in background knowledge and schema. I imagine that teachers in science, history, math, art, music and all other subjects run into this problem in their content area.

I think that the best way to effectuate learning when background knowledge is so different is to include a huge base of background information. In our classroom study of Shakespeare, we do a lot of background set up before we start to read Romeo and Juliet. We do basic research activities that discuss who Shakespeare was and why he was important in history. We study cultures and traditions of the time. I know that some of my students know about some of these things, I just hope that the knowledge base is broad enough that all students are learning something and have a schema for when we start to read.

Week 5--What is learning

What is learning? Well, with all of the study we’ve done over the past few weeks, I’m still trying to figure out my theory of learning. I do know this—people all learn differently. This is always demonstrated at the first of the school year. I give assignments to my students and I would really LOVE to tell them how to do each step, how to schedule their time and what not to do. I can’t really do that though, I have to let them learn and work at their own pace. It is like fingernails scratching against a chalkboard when I hear students talking about they have to “get started” on the paper that is due the next day. What happened to the two weeks I’ve given you to write the paper and the great nuggets of learning I’ve given you along the way? Ironically the students who wait until the last minute often produce some of the best material. So, the bottom line is that I can teach ideas, materials and skills, but I can’t dictate how the kids use those skills.

The best way to effectuate learning is to do what we are doing right now. Since so many people use skills and ideas in different ways, we need to understand many theories of learning. When we have so many theories in our teaching toolbox, we will be more likely to reach a greater number of students.

What is Learning Week 3

Our study of Functional Behavior Analysis this week really made sense to me and helped me add some new theories to my beliefs about learning. I really grasped on to the idea that we must find the cause of the breakdown in behavior or the breakdown in learning. Once we find the cause for this breakdown, we can try to remedy this problem and THEN reward students for the positive things that they do. This idea really spoke to me because I think that there are so many reasons learning can break down or behavior can break down. If we find the cause and fix it, deeper learning takes place. I really thought that Skinner's ideas last week were good, but I couldn't help feeling that it was like putting a Band Aid on the problem. If we reward students during one class for their learning, how likely are they to carry that over to the next class. On the other hand, if we find the very place that learning is breaking down, I think that correction is more likely to make a permenant impact on students.

Teachers can effectuate learning by getting to the root of the problem or the breakdown. Sometimes this is a quick process and can be taken care of in a few seconds. For example, every year I teach my 9th grade students about using strong verbs in writing. Every year I have a few students who don't know how to identify a verb. I take a few seconds and explain the definition of a verb and then these students are ready to go (until next year in 10th grade when they tell their teacher that they don't know what a verb is :). Sometimes getting to the root of the problem takes a longer process. Right now my department is working on making common assessments at each grade level. We are designing 4 common assessments to give to the students throughout the school year. We have teaching objectives for each quarter and throughout the year, we test the students to see if they have learned what we are trying to teach. This process is long, but I think it will be worth it in the end. So to make this long blog entry even longer, I think that teachers can effectuate learning by constantly evaluating students. This can be a formal common assessment or it may just be trying to fix the blank looks that we get from students during a lesson. I think that this type of learning will last a lot longer than exclusive reinforcement.

What is Learning Week 2

This week we studied Skinner's behaviorism theories and I read a lot of intelligent blog posts about learning from my classmates. I don't think that my definition of learning has changed, but I think that there are a few more things that I can add to my original definition. I believe that learning MUST be attached to some prior knowledge. This is so crucial especially for younger students. Just today I was teaching a lesson about writing in one of my English classes. We were talking about "writing" in very broad terms, both narrative and expository. We started talking about the act of writing recipes in the foods class. One girl raised her hand and said, "I just don't understand how you can make a recipe into a story. That doesn't make sense." I thought that was a strange comment and when we finally got to the bottom of it, this girl had no prior knowledge of "writing" in the expository sense. She had always defined "writing" as creating poems and stories. It took just a second to go back and give these students some prior knowledge of writing in all forms.

I especially appreciated the idea of prior knowledge when I did the readings about Skinner’s theories. An emphasis soley on external behavior seems one-dimensional to me. Of course students need positive and negative reinforcement, but I think that there should be a balance. I appreciate Skinner's theories, but above all, I’m looking forward to reviewing all learning theories so that I can use a balance of these in my classroom.

What is Learning Part 1

Learning is so much more than understanding. I think that learning is understanding plus being able to transfer that knowledge or skill into another situation. For example, in my English class, it's great when students can learn to identify and explain a theme in The Odyssey. I know that learning has occurred when students can take that same skill and identify and explain a theme from Romeo and Juliet. Real learning can be applied or transferred into multiple situations.

As a teacher I can effectuate learning by giving my students plenty of examples as opposed to expecting students to generate successful results from the beginning. Successful learning doesn't just happen all of a sudden; successful learning has to be scaffolded and guided. For example, I must give my students examples of themes in many pieces of literature. I must teach student that simply coming up with a simple truth in a piece of literature is not enough. That is a starting point that must be explained and defended. I need to walk students through this process using multiple pieces of literature. Once we do these steps, it is much more likely that students have learned to identify and explain a theme because they have done the steps in various situations. At that point, I must make sure that we discuss that learning at different times throughout the class so they can stay sharp and keep that learning.