What Is Learning?:
I knew at the start of this semester that learning is an abstraction. Never did I realize that, although abstract in nature, it is something that has TRIED to be grasped by educators in a way that information, understanding, meaningful learning and the like could be cognitively processed. There is but one perfect teacher and he never had to earn a Masters degree to teach on the side of a mount, or in a synagogue, or in the busy countryside of Galilee. The thing that blessed His short-lived teaching career was the fact that He KNEW his students, better than they knew themselves.
Having an opportunity to shallow-dive into behaviorism, functional behavior, meaningful learning, schema theory, human development, motivation, case-based learning, situated cognition and constructivism showed me that I have A LOT to learn about effective classroom organization and management.
Effectuated Teaching:
The one thing I am taking away from this class in terms of effectual teaching in the classroom is that there are many approaches one could take that work just as well as any other theory. Certainly there are things that could be argued within each theory, but the combination of one or more of the theories could prove a teacher's success for past, present and future students and their ability to become productive people.
Do I have a favorite theory? No. Are they all useful to my effectiveness as a teacher? Only if they uplift and inspire the rising generation to become, to think, to act, to speak and to observe.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Social Constructivism
What is learning?
Learning is the ability to take new information, retain or discard, and pigeon-hole it into useful, meaningful, or crap categories.
How can it best be effectuated by a teacher?
This theory teaches us the importance of allowing the students to work out the information as a group and apply it to everyday life situations. However, within the group there needs to be a zone of proximal development, or in other words the ability to participate in group assignments that are challenging their problem-solving skills while at the same time having a capable individual lead the group to discovery. It challenges their skill level and raises their cognitive development.
Adam Cobb, a Preservice director in Boise, Idaho once stated, "Whoever does the work gets the learning." That statement is never truer than after having successfully experienced group work that creates an atmosphere of meaningful learning. When a student can walk out of the classroom and know what s/he needs to do to become a more productive person, then previous schemata morphs into more a meaningful cognition of that particular principle/doctrine.
Learning is the ability to take new information, retain or discard, and pigeon-hole it into useful, meaningful, or crap categories.
How can it best be effectuated by a teacher?
This theory teaches us the importance of allowing the students to work out the information as a group and apply it to everyday life situations. However, within the group there needs to be a zone of proximal development, or in other words the ability to participate in group assignments that are challenging their problem-solving skills while at the same time having a capable individual lead the group to discovery. It challenges their skill level and raises their cognitive development.
Adam Cobb, a Preservice director in Boise, Idaho once stated, "Whoever does the work gets the learning." That statement is never truer than after having successfully experienced group work that creates an atmosphere of meaningful learning. When a student can walk out of the classroom and know what s/he needs to do to become a more productive person, then previous schemata morphs into more a meaningful cognition of that particular principle/doctrine.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Bruner's Consructivism Theory
What is Learning:
Bruner teaches that education must be centered on experiences and perspectives that encourage the student to learn outside of external rewards or punishments (grades, etc.). When a student is engaged in the lesson because he/she is interested in the subject matter, THEN readiness has occurred. That is why the first 3-4 questions that a teacher asks when starting a lesson makes all the difference. If it is engaging enough, and meaningful to the students, then student responses will flow naturally. For instance, I remember when I was in seminary and had the "Godly Sorrow" lesson. There is a video that goes with it showing a couple about to be married. At some point you recognize (through video dialogue) that the couple had inappropriate sexual relations before marriage. The boyfriend wasn't sorry it happened, and neither was the girl at first. When she started the repentance process she realized that in order to truly repent of this sin, she needed to feel the way God feels about it. The question my teacher started class with was, "Is sex bad?"
What an eye-opening statement to make, in seminary nonetheless! But, if you can imagine, even us teenagers went the rounds with that question for awhile. Now THAT was readiness!
How Can Learning Be Best Effectuated by the Teacher:
By allowing students to connect new instruction with previous knowledge furthering their ability to apply the new knowledge, spiral organization (or a learning helix) enlarges their understanding. Furthermore, by permitting students reflective time in their journals allows them an opportunity to go beyond the scriptural information given. Their learning is the result of group work closely coupled with mental exertion. They will have successfully and actively constructed their own understanding of the principles and doctrines being taught.
Bruner teaches that education must be centered on experiences and perspectives that encourage the student to learn outside of external rewards or punishments (grades, etc.). When a student is engaged in the lesson because he/she is interested in the subject matter, THEN readiness has occurred. That is why the first 3-4 questions that a teacher asks when starting a lesson makes all the difference. If it is engaging enough, and meaningful to the students, then student responses will flow naturally. For instance, I remember when I was in seminary and had the "Godly Sorrow" lesson. There is a video that goes with it showing a couple about to be married. At some point you recognize (through video dialogue) that the couple had inappropriate sexual relations before marriage. The boyfriend wasn't sorry it happened, and neither was the girl at first. When she started the repentance process she realized that in order to truly repent of this sin, she needed to feel the way God feels about it. The question my teacher started class with was, "Is sex bad?"
What an eye-opening statement to make, in seminary nonetheless! But, if you can imagine, even us teenagers went the rounds with that question for awhile. Now THAT was readiness!
How Can Learning Be Best Effectuated by the Teacher:
By allowing students to connect new instruction with previous knowledge furthering their ability to apply the new knowledge, spiral organization (or a learning helix) enlarges their understanding. Furthermore, by permitting students reflective time in their journals allows them an opportunity to go beyond the scriptural information given. Their learning is the result of group work closely coupled with mental exertion. They will have successfully and actively constructed their own understanding of the principles and doctrines being taught.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Week #11 Situated Cognition
What Is Learning?
I love to read books. Mostly religious doctrine books by BYU authors and/or General Authorities. My undergraduate work was in History with an emphasis on World War II. I took any class I could that based itself around that time period. So a good WWII book held my deep interest as well. One particular class focused on military warfare and weaponry of all the major wars. I remember one professor (breaking school policies, I am sure) bringing in a civil war gun and a WWII gun used by the Japanese. He passed them around class and allowed each one of us to heft the piece in our hands. Experience-wise, that was way better than anything I had ever read on any war. Hands-on learning rocks. That being said...
How Can Teachers Best Effectuate Learning?
Any time I can plan workshops, group work, classes that have an apprenticeship training feel to it allows students to do the work and get the most out of it. The lecture method or stand and deliver method still has its place and appropriateness at certain times, but hands-on beats it hands-down.
I love to read books. Mostly religious doctrine books by BYU authors and/or General Authorities. My undergraduate work was in History with an emphasis on World War II. I took any class I could that based itself around that time period. So a good WWII book held my deep interest as well. One particular class focused on military warfare and weaponry of all the major wars. I remember one professor (breaking school policies, I am sure) bringing in a civil war gun and a WWII gun used by the Japanese. He passed them around class and allowed each one of us to heft the piece in our hands. Experience-wise, that was way better than anything I had ever read on any war. Hands-on learning rocks. That being said...
How Can Teachers Best Effectuate Learning?
Any time I can plan workshops, group work, classes that have an apprenticeship training feel to it allows students to do the work and get the most out of it. The lecture method or stand and deliver method still has its place and appropriateness at certain times, but hands-on beats it hands-down.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Week #10 - Case-Based Learning
What is learning and how can it best be effectuated by a teacher (according to this learning theory)? I really enjoyed this weeks readings and lesson planning particularly because it worked in the classroom. I had great success with it. So here is my example:
This week was challenging BECAUSE of the subject matter. We delved (not too deep) into the writings of Isaiah as found in the Isaiah chapters of 2nd Nephi. I asked the students several questions about Nephi choosing to use the writings of such a cryptic prophet that seems to obscure almost everyone's understanding. When they came to the conclusion that Nephi was an Israelite and the Nephites were mere descendants living on another far-removed continent having not learned Jewish customs, etc. it started to make sense to the students. No wonder Nephi said Isaiah's words were "plain to understand." He grew up in Jerusalem.
We then looked at the Isaiah chapters using a principle that teenagers were VERY familiar with: sins and consequences. We used a worksheet that allowed the students to view the Isaiah chapters using only this point of view. Once they identified as many sins and consequences as they could they answered 5 poignant questions that took Nephi and Isaiah's experience to "high school life." They were able to make past connections (problems and solutions) with present and future personal applications. One girl even commented, "Isaiah isn't hard at all when you tackle him using one principle at a time." WOW! Success with Isaiah. I think even he would be happy to hear a seventeen year-old senior girl say that.
This week was challenging BECAUSE of the subject matter. We delved (not too deep) into the writings of Isaiah as found in the Isaiah chapters of 2nd Nephi. I asked the students several questions about Nephi choosing to use the writings of such a cryptic prophet that seems to obscure almost everyone's understanding. When they came to the conclusion that Nephi was an Israelite and the Nephites were mere descendants living on another far-removed continent having not learned Jewish customs, etc. it started to make sense to the students. No wonder Nephi said Isaiah's words were "plain to understand." He grew up in Jerusalem.
We then looked at the Isaiah chapters using a principle that teenagers were VERY familiar with: sins and consequences. We used a worksheet that allowed the students to view the Isaiah chapters using only this point of view. Once they identified as many sins and consequences as they could they answered 5 poignant questions that took Nephi and Isaiah's experience to "high school life." They were able to make past connections (problems and solutions) with present and future personal applications. One girl even commented, "Isaiah isn't hard at all when you tackle him using one principle at a time." WOW! Success with Isaiah. I think even he would be happy to hear a seventeen year-old senior girl say that.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Week #9 Motivation
When I first started student teaching my preconceived notions of what a teacher does and what the student is responsible for was really skewed. I though that the teacher's job was a one-man dog and pony show where he/she creates a specific learning atmosphere to which the students respond positively (with emotion, or sensation, or Spirit, or all of the above) and walked out of class as a better EDIFIED person: a daily EFY experience of sorts.
Now that I have a few years under my belt, and I am starting to catch the vision of effective teaching, I realize that the student is just as much responsible for their own learning as the teacher is for his well planned presentation. Simply put, if the student's motivation is ego involved or performance oriented or help avoidance hindered then real meaningful lifelong learning cannot take place.
If I as a teacher can create a classroom environment where students feel safe to share personal experiences and feelings and ask appropriate questions concerning their own salvation or standing in the gospel (whether the question is directed to the teacher or to the peer group) then the application from the lesson, as Piaget would say, becomes lasting in its effects. However, regardless of the characteristics of the instructor, whether he is snore-boring or completely eccentric or the master teacher who gets it right every time, the students NEED to have a desire for content mastery, stay task-involved, and apply it to lifelong learning. Elder David A. Bednar once shared that "[a] teacher can explain, demonstrate, persuade, and testify, and do so with great spiritual power and effectiveness. Ultimately, however, the content of a message and the witness of the Holy Ghost penetrate into the heart [and not just unto the heart] only if a receiver allows them to enter" (Seek Learning By Faith, Feb 3, 2006). Thus the student controls their educational destiny starting with their attitude for learning.
Now that I have a few years under my belt, and I am starting to catch the vision of effective teaching, I realize that the student is just as much responsible for their own learning as the teacher is for his well planned presentation. Simply put, if the student's motivation is ego involved or performance oriented or help avoidance hindered then real meaningful lifelong learning cannot take place.
If I as a teacher can create a classroom environment where students feel safe to share personal experiences and feelings and ask appropriate questions concerning their own salvation or standing in the gospel (whether the question is directed to the teacher or to the peer group) then the application from the lesson, as Piaget would say, becomes lasting in its effects. However, regardless of the characteristics of the instructor, whether he is snore-boring or completely eccentric or the master teacher who gets it right every time, the students NEED to have a desire for content mastery, stay task-involved, and apply it to lifelong learning. Elder David A. Bednar once shared that "[a] teacher can explain, demonstrate, persuade, and testify, and do so with great spiritual power and effectiveness. Ultimately, however, the content of a message and the witness of the Holy Ghost penetrate into the heart [and not just unto the heart] only if a receiver allows them to enter" (Seek Learning By Faith, Feb 3, 2006). Thus the student controls their educational destiny starting with their attitude for learning.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Week #8 - Human Development
I was really impressed by the Piaget article on "Development and Learning" this week. For JP to state that that it is a misnomer to believe that development is NOT "reduced to a series of specific learned items and development is thus the sum" really challenged my belief system (which in one article he managed to shatter nearly completely). I held to that widely assumed opinion. Therefore, what is learning and how can it best be effectuated by the teacher/learner?
Development is the end goal of a productive person (I would imagine in any society). In order to obtain development learning becomes the function. However just knowing something, the ability to regurgitate or recall information, doesn't necessarily mean that I understand it. Piaget stated that, "[t]o know an object is to act on it." That is what learning, understanding, and development is really about; to be able to process and APPLY the knowledge makes all the difference.
I can easily memorize facts about the civil war; dates, places, names, and battlegrounds and pass a history test pertaining to that particular piece of schema, but what does it all mean? What are the lessons learned from obtaining such information? According to my own development, what can I do with that knowledge that pushes toward the end goal of becoming a productive person? I love the first question Piaget always asks himself when wanting to be convinced of certain facts: "Is this learning lasting... and what are the conditions necessary for it to be lasting?" If it is lasting then development has naturally occurred.
Development is the end goal of a productive person (I would imagine in any society). In order to obtain development learning becomes the function. However just knowing something, the ability to regurgitate or recall information, doesn't necessarily mean that I understand it. Piaget stated that, "[t]o know an object is to act on it." That is what learning, understanding, and development is really about; to be able to process and APPLY the knowledge makes all the difference.
I can easily memorize facts about the civil war; dates, places, names, and battlegrounds and pass a history test pertaining to that particular piece of schema, but what does it all mean? What are the lessons learned from obtaining such information? According to my own development, what can I do with that knowledge that pushes toward the end goal of becoming a productive person? I love the first question Piaget always asks himself when wanting to be convinced of certain facts: "Is this learning lasting... and what are the conditions necessary for it to be lasting?" If it is lasting then development has naturally occurred.
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