PLE 5: Memory Process

How might your knowledge of the memory processes guide your instructional decisions?

          Having the knowledge of how our brain retrieves memories and information is important for a teacher as we often call on our students and demand answers out of them. But a knowledgeable teacher will realize that they need to give a wait time of approximately three seconds before calling on someone to answer so that students have enough time to process the information and hen draw upon their own information.

            I think it is also important to teach about how to remember something just like it is important to reach study skills. I would do this in my classroom through modeling. It is difficult for an adult to remember some of the things that we require of children so routinely showing the children and practicing memory games and techniques. I think this can start as early as having to learn a nursery rhyme my memory in kindergarten or first grade.

This article shows how students who have teachers that demonstrate and encourage the practice of memory techniques preformed better than students whose teachers did not emphasize memory as strongly. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1992.tb01653.x/abstract

PLE #4

What are the essential skills and/or learning outcomes you want your students to know and be able to do that relate to cognitive learning? 

One thing that is important for students to realize is that they are often in control of their own learning. This can be done my actively listening or taking notes in older grades and even doing activities such as writing down a fact you learned while a story is being read aloud in younger grades.  Students also can make connections to their prior knowledge or make sense of a difficult concept my creating their own way of thinking about it.

Although metacognition seems like a very abstract task if used correctly you can begin to make young children aware of their thought process.  It can be described through concrete examples and then as the student’s abilities grow they will not have to be as aware of their metacognition  I think the earlier that this is brought up to children the easier it will be for them to master and make sense of more difficult concepts in the future.

This is a link to an article I found particularly interesting. Many schools are now serving breakfast for their students when they arrive and I frequently see students eating on their favorite Coco puff cereal. This article makes the argument for breakfast foods that have higher protein and other sources of energy and how it can help increase their cognitive abilities during the school day.

http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/spacelab/pubs/MahoneyEtAl.pdf

Assessment Strategies

Think of a lesson plan from your licensure area.  Knowing that assessment is an integral part of teaching, explain at least four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning.

The lesson that I  based the assessment on was a math lesson on using non standard forms of measurement to measure different items and the concept of estimating. This lesson was designed for the first grade.  


Informal check ins are unplanned check ins that can be easily done to give the teacher a basic idea of where the class is in understanding a given topic. It is a quick way that lets her know if I needs to explain the lesson again or if I can move on because everyone has a grasp of the concept. One way I would test informally is getting a gauge of what knowledge the children have before the lesson by having them give me a thumbs up if they have heard of it and know something about it, a sideways thumb if they have heard of it before and then a thumbs down if they have know idea what I am talking about. I would use this again during the lesson to see if by the end of the lesson they have a grasp of it. 

Another form of informal assessment that I would use would be to have a homework assignment or a in class worksheet that they would work on individually for completion. This would be 'graded' but points would not be counted off for the wrong answer it would just give me a better understanding of who has it and who needs some more work. 

When I felt that everyone had a good grasp of the information I would then give them a 'quiz' of just a couple problems for them to work out and be graded if they were correct or incorrect. This would be used as a formal assessment at the end of the math unit on measuring with nonstandard forms. 

Continuum of Responses

     Creating a learning environment that is conducive to learning begins with the teacher setting the tone for the rest of the students. This begins with the teacher and the students creating rules together that creates a positive classroom environment and does not tolerate actions such as bullying or being interruptive towards other classmates. When a teacher sets her standards high for her students and expects them to meet the standards then the students are more likely to rise to the occasion.      In the case of Lisa, after observing the group and seeing the new dynamics I would have a meeting with the group. In this meeting I would remember the essentials of preserving the students dignity, avoiding a power struggle, and checking your assumptions. I would then generate a discussion in the group about what they believe is going on in the group. I would let each child have a turn to voice their opinion and then I would also state what I saw in the group without specifically bringing attention to Lisa. I would then let them know that I would be monitoring the group more closely during the coming activities and if I saw a student or Lisa not participating I would first try to give them "the look" or approach the desk and just tap the desk or the table to let them know that I was watching.
     If the above strategies did not work I would then pull Lisa aside and have a discussion with her about her behavior and how it is not appropriate for the classroom and how everyone in the classroom must contribute to the learning environment. During the entire year I would be  incorporating self regulation into the curriculum using ideas from the responsive classroom (article below) to give students options on how to deal with their behavior. I would also work with the fellow teachers on my team to see if they have suggestions or ideas on how to address the situation.  If the behavior still does not change I would then contact Lisa's parents via telephone and ask if they have seen a change in Lisa's behavior and talk about how they might be able to address the situation with Lisa. If getting the parents involved still did not help the situation I would then go to the guidance counselor in the school and have a meeting with her about the situation. I would catch her up on what has been done and Lisa's response to the prior interventions and then see what she could do and if she has techniques that might vary than what I had originally tried. I do not think it would get to this case because I believe this situation could be taken care of in the first couple of steps with a diligent teacher that promotes a positive classroom environment. 

Article:

This is an article about the responsive classroom where it talks about how to help children care and work together in groups. It also focues on self control and the classroom community. They also have a book that is a great resource (used for another class) and a website that is great for teacher to get ideas. 

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED369531&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED369531

Motivation

Consider the theories of motivation that we discussed in class.   Which theories of motivation are most helpful and instructive for you?  How can they enhance motivation and affect your students?  

I think it is really important for teachers and educators to understand motivation. It is critical to be able to engage children and motivate them to learn and work in the classroom. I think personally it is important to know effective ways to motivate children but also the knowledge of how to encourage intrinsic motivation. Reading the story in class of a teacher who failed to realize how much children relied on homework passes shows how communication between teachers and honest feedback is very important and valuable to teachers.

I find the self-determination theory very interesting. I really like it because the teacher is really trying to build the intrinsic motivation within the student but they are still helping them by providing select extrinsic motivators.  If the teacher is not selective in what they are choosing to reward with an extrinsic motivator it could quickly turn into solely extrinsic motivation instead of trying to develop the intrinsic motivation. Young children often find things very interesting in school and if the teacher has created an environment that they will want to learn in the self-determiantion theory would be very useful. I think it is important to let the children take the lead because i have seen in my experience they will be more invested in the topic. 

Here is a blog that I found that had tips to help grow students intrinsic motivation. I found it helpful and very easy to read and it reminded me of some ways to fuel intrinsic motivation with the self-determination theory. 

http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2011/11/26/intrinsic-motivation/

Week 1

After the first class, take a moment to reflect on what was discussed. What are your personal objectives for the class? What do you want to explore deeper? What questions or concerns do you have?

I am excited t o explore the various topics in this course and hear other students point of view on different subjects. I loved getting to hear the different reasons that people wanted to be teachers. I also liked having the opportunity to reflect on why I chose this as a career. Recently I have just been trying to get through classes and sometimes lose sight of why I wanted to be a teacher. 

My personal objectives for this class are to get a better understanding of how to get children motivated, keep motivation, and create a learning environment that is conducive to all learning types and personalities. I do want to explore motivation and classroom management deeper. I do have a concern that the blogs could get overwhelming. I am a bit worried that I will not be able to keep up with them and am worried about forgetting one. My bigger concern is having to find something from an oustide source. That seems like a daunting task and very time consuming. I have had to do something similar in a prior class and I found it very difficult with certain topics to find any valuable information that did nothing but repeat the information that had already been noted.