Under intense political pressure, testscores are likely to go up without a corresponding improve-ment in student learning.
high stake tests cause students to memorize and have the mindset of "I just want to get this over with." This means that the students aren't actually improving or learning they are just "learning" to get it over with and then forget about the material when the test is over
Tests should be used frequently to ensure mastery be-fore proceeding to the next objective
would every test count as a grade?
The best way to assign grades properly is to collect evidence of a student's accomplishments so the teacher will have access to ample information before deciding whether to dish out an A, B, C, D, or F to a student.
I think this is super important. Sometimes students will mess up on a test or quiz but overall have been doing really well in the class. This should always be taken into consideration because it is not fair if one little mistake ruins a whole entire grade. My teacher for my field placement will let students redo some of their assignments or quizzes that they got bad grades on just because sometimes their head isn't in the game but she knows they know the material. I think this is a good thing of her to do because it gets the students to not only think harder about the assignment to learn more, but it also gives them a chance to prove themselves.
(1) where to put their instructional energies to ameliorate a student's shortcomings and (2) what already mastered skills or knowledge can be instructionally avoided.
These two concepts are super important. As a teacher, time is precious. You don't want to waste your time doing a whole lesson on something that either the kids already know or is too complex for them at the time. Always know where your students are at so you can use your time effectively and help accommodate to your students needs
Teachers who can test well will be better teachers
Hurts a little to hear this because I am not a great test taker.I wouldn't consider this to be the only factor that can make a teacher great.
Other than those engaged in interests highly validated by the school and peer culture such as mainstream sports, kids who are passionate about their interests are often branded as “geeks,” “nerds,” “freaks,” or “dorks.”
It is really important to try and create an atmosphere where ALL students can get along and feel part of the community. I think that sometimes interests groups can leave people out and students can feel like they can't get along with people who have different interests as them. I think that teachers and administrators should try and break the stereotypes and groups up to create more of a community in the school
will“transfer to” everyday life and future work,
One of my goals as a teacher is to make sure that students see a connection of what they are learning to the real world. By showing my students that what there learning has relevance to their life, I believe they will be more motivated to learn
It’s not just about effort. You also need to learn skills that letyou use your brain in a smarter way..
Ive noticed that a lot of the theories we read about have a common theme. This is that it is very important for students to be aware of their learning. They need to know themselves and their brain and be aware of what is happening. That way they can learn in the most efficient way.
goals
Goals are so important. I want to make sure that my student set educational goals to motivate them throughout the year. It helps give them purpose and they can also see how much they have improved by the end.
how the theory that intelli-gence is fixed and unchangeable can lead students to in-terpret academic challenges as a sign that they may lackintelligence
I think that this is huge especially in elementary school. Since the students are so young, they are all at different developmental levels and educational levels. So when they see their classmates succeeding while they are struggling, they automatically think they are dumb. I often found myself thinking these things as well. If we can change this mindset, students will be more willing to face challenges
What is the purpose of schooling in a pluralistic society?
I think that schooling in a pluralistic society is extremely important because the world has so many different people from so many different cultures in it. In school we are preparing our students for the future and to have a successful life. To be able to understand the world in a better way and understand the people who live here will help them get far in their life during and after their educational experience.
have looked to join the home and community practices, histories, and activities of stu-dents and communities of color with dominant school ones in meaningful ways that do not devalue either in the process of school learning and acces
Learning about other cultures can be beneficial to not only the student who belong in the minority cultures but also the other student so that they can better understand the world around them and so that the students of the minority cultures can see themselves in the curriculum
From federal “Indian schools” with their goal of forcibly stripping Native languages and cultures from Indigenous American students and communities
I watched a documentary in E300 which talked about duo language integration programs. Many people of color who spoke different languages at home said that they lost their culture and language through schooling because they were only taught english. This made it hard for them to communicate with their own family members and there roots were taken away from them. We cannot strip our students of their culture because it is part of who they are.
when we revise our language from “he doesn’t know how to…” to “he is learning how to…”
It is always important to be positive when talking to students and to make sure that other students are being positive too. Words of discouragement even if they are not direct can defeat a student before they even begin to try learning.
th long histories in systems designed to maintain hierarchy and control.
In E300 we talk a lot about social hierarchy and the problems that it can cause in school. Making our classroom as multicultural and open to differences as possible has many positive effects.
develop self-directed, lifelong learning skills;4) become effective collaborators;
One thing I really like about PBL is that it helps students become both self-directed learners and collaborators. It is important for students to have both of these skills because there are things in the real world that they will have to conquer themselves and there are times when they will need to know how to work well with others.
esolution of meaningful problems
When students can connect their learning to the real world, they are more open to learning. I know that in some of my classes in high school I just resented the material and found no use for the class because I didn't see how I would use it in real life. By showing our students why the material is relevant to them, they will pay better attention because it is information they truly need to know
become active learners because it situates learning in real-world problemsand makes students responsible for their learning.
I think PBL can be useful in a classroom of diverse learners because in some way they can control their own learning process.
Asking questions of students to know where they may have difficulty is part of the inquiry method to alleviate misinterpretation
In my field placement, my teacher does a good job of seeing where the students are at during a lesson. After certain questions she will ask the student to put a thumbs up if they get the question. That way the teacher can see during the lesson if she needs to slow down and reteach something and she can just see in general who is struggling.
Piaget's theory of cognitivedevelopment proposes that humans can-not be given information, which theyimmediately understand and use; instead,humans must construct their own knowl-edge
Other readings have talked about how students can have background knowledge coming into the classroom from their experiences. If students have background knowledge they do not immediately know everything about the topic. They use it as a base and build up off of it. All material takes time to learn no matter what.
hey have to knowwhere the student is at a given learningpoint or the current stage in their knowl-edge of a subject so that students can createpersonal meaning when new informationis given to them
This is super important because student will have more effective learning if it is personalized to the level that they are on and how they learn best.
community life
if students feel more comfortable in the learning environment they will be more willing to participate and learn
engages the full spontaneous interest and attention of the children.
it is important to make your lessons engaging, not only so that they students participate and actively learn, but also so you can tell if the students are on the right track or not
character-building
In my field placement, the teacher did a lesson on character. I think it is important for students to realize their character so they can feel good about themselves and know their strengths and weaknesses.
sociocultural theorists believeit is valuable to explore how they came to be, and how they may transform over time
it can help us as teachers know how our students came to learn something so that we can use similar strategies for that student in the future. This can help them learn more easily.
Motivationis thus informed by their awareness of how challenging this kind of problem is for them, as well as the likelihood of overcoming that challenge.
I think that this can also backfire because students can get really frustrated and give up
Transferis the use of knowledge in a new situation, different than where it was originally acquired.
Is this why teachers put things on tests that the students have never seen but should be able to know based on what they have learned?? Do they want us to work on our transfer skills??
Since people participate in multiple communities, they develop multiple identities
I thought this comment is very interesting because I see this in myself. I am apart of multiple different organizations and activities that make up who I am. Encouraging students to participate in outside activities could be beneficial because they can build on their character and knowledge and bring it into the classroom.
Whereas cognitive theories see the individual as separate from the environment,
This is important because not everyone has the same environment so its not very cookie cutter. No one student will be the same so when looking at these theories we need to determine which are accurate and can help our students based on who they are
Learning should be studied as it occurs in everyday life, not just in the laboratory.
This connects with what some of our other readings have been saying. Learning doesn't just happen in the classroom. As kids grow up they see the world around them and almost everything that happens is a learning experience for them. These experiences can be difficult for teachers because students will have different background knowledge but it can also greatly help the students
relies on a broad strategy
The more these students understand a concept, the more the can apply it to multiple things. If they only learn something one way, the won't know what to do when a situation comes up that is slightly different.
For example,cocktail waitresses make distinctions between the drinks men and women typically order
This is like evaluating your students and knowing what each student would like and need in terms of help or activities.
With time and practice, all thisbecomes routine, automatic. But early in a career, the waitress will undoubtedly be conscious ofvarious aspects of this physical performance, have to think about it, monitor herself.
At the beginning of your education, you need to think and try hard in everything you do. You have to find the pieces and put them together. Once you have mastered a concept it becomes muscle memory.
What they perceive, however, con-tributes to how they act and learn.
This concept connects to what some of the previous readings have been saying. Each person has their own experiences which shapes their opinions. How they perceive things may be different based on these experiences and beliefs.
eople who use tools actively rather than just acquire them, by contrast, build an increasingly rich implicit understanding of the world in which they use the tools and of the tools themselves
I think that this is a SUPER important concept. As a teacher I want to really relate my concepts back to the real world and explain how the students will use this knowledge in the future or in their every day life. So many classes I took felt pointless because at the time I needed to know the information, but I never used it again so it all escaped my head. I want my students to feel purpose in their learning.
Given the method, such mistakes seem unavoidabl
I would always struggle with vocabulary in school because the method they taught me was hard. I had to memorize definitions and never really had good context for when to use words. I think it would be better if we used real life scenarios then trying to force a word into a sentence.
innormalchildren
As a special ed major the term "normal children" bothered me a little. Every child is different which is what makes this job difficult.
Usingimitation,childrenarecapableofdoingmuchmoreincollectiveactivityorundertheguidanceofadults.
It helps a lot in the younger ages to plan lessons where you can incorporate imagination. For example: letting students write about what ever they want but also using guidelines of a standard. This makes them more excited to learn and we see they can do more collectively.
wecannotlimitourselvesmerelytodeterminingdevelopmentallevels if we wish todiscovertheactualrelationsofthedevelopmentalprocess tolearningcapabilities.
It is important for teachers to realize that their students will never all be on the same level academically. Every child has their different strengths and weaknesses and will need to be pushed in different ways. It is something so important when planing lessons because you need to find something that caters to every students abilities.
Thatchildren'slearningbeginslongbeforetheyattendschool isthestartingpointof thisdiscussion.Anylearningachildencountersinschoolalwayshas aprevioushistory.
It is a common misconception that younger elementary school teachers have to teach children fresh out of the oven. It is important to know that children learn from their experiences before hand and that the point of an education is to connect it to real life. Therefore children might subconsciously experience things before they even learn it.
thefundamentaldistinctionbetweenthem,thisapproachlosesthespecificcharacteristicsofeachtypeofactivityandleaves uswithonegeneralpsychologicalform ofdetermination.
it is always normal for a student to fail. We want our students to be motivated by their failures to try and learn better.
However,theytakeonthecharacterofinnerprocessesonly asaresultofaprolongeddevelopment.
Is the prolonged time over the course of a year or throughout a child's whole education?
Development,asoftenhappens,proceedsherenot in acirclebutin,aspiral,passingthroughthesamepointateachnewrevolutionwhileadvancingto ahigherlevel.
This I think is true because as kids go through grade school, they may relearn some of the things they already know. Once you learn something you usually have mastered it but when you come back to it in a few years you need to touch up on the topic, starting the cycle over again but in a less dramatic way.
LEARNINGAND TRANSFER61Challenges, however, must be at the proper level of difficulty in order tobe and to remain motivating:
I thought that this comment was interesting. It is important to push our students but often time I get really frustrated when I have no idea what to do on a problem. I never really thought of it until now but it can really be a turn off to learning when you get overly frustrated. As teachers, we need to work on the balance between challenging and too hard.
xpertise occurs only with major investments of time, and the amount oftime it takes to learn material is roughly proportional to the amount of mate-rial being learned
As a teacher, I would rather take an extra day or two to teach a concept if my students need it rather than rushing to get it done to fit my plan of the week. My teacher for my service learning said that your plans almost never stay the same for the week. Part of planning as a teacher is being open to changing your lesson plans.
Students whoonly memorize facts have little basis for approaching this kind of problem-solving task
I've experienced this first hand. The classes where I just memorize the information, I usually do not do as well on the tests cause I can't apply my knowledge. I also forget everything I learned when the class ends.
load). For example, most adults can read without consciously processing the individual letters that make up the prose being rea
For teachers at the younger elementary level, we need to not let our automation get in the way of our teaching. The things that we are teaching are second hand nature to us. We need to remember what its like for students who are fresh at learning the certain topic.
est humans are particularly poor at complex reasoning unless most of the elements with which we reason have previously been stored in long-term mem
In the younger ages of elementary, it is important that we make sure our students fully understand the concepts we are teaching them. They will eventually need to build on their knowledge to succeed in the future. This is where the long-term memory comes in.
. If more and less able players were shown a board configuration taken from a real game for about five seconds and then were asked to reproduce that configuration from memory, grand masters could correctly place most of those pieces, whereas less able players were only able to correctly place far fewer piec
I connect this directly with math. It is important to remember the steps of how you got to the answer. By remembering the steps it is easier to come back to similar problems and work them out. If you only remember the solution, you don't know the problem as in-depthly
Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design 253 appear to overwhelm working memory.
It is good as a teacher to know what the brain can and cannot handle when planning your lessons. If the lesson has too much going on, the students might not be able to retain much information. By knowing what the brain can handle, it will help you plan what your students can handle.
In fact, expertise can sometimes hurt teaching be-cause many experts forget what is easy and what is difficult for students
N101 and N103 are great classes here at IU that take us back to basic concepts, but teach us to remember that our students don't think these concepts are easy because they are just learning them now for the first time. It is extremely beneficial that IU has courses like these.
. If well designed, these prob-lems can help students learn when, where, and why to use the knowledgethey are learning.
I think this is very helpful because sometimes when learning a new concept, I do not understand it fully and we just move on in the material and by the time the test comes around, I still don't know. By taking the time to understand all aspects of a new concept it makes it not only easier to remember but easier to understand again.
he expert circuit technicians chunked several indi-vidual circuit elements (e.g., resistors and capacitors) that performed thefunction of an amplifier.
I connected this to math because you can use strategies and piece them together or go step by step until you get the answer
Experts have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that isorganized in ways that reflect a deep understanding of their subject matter.
I think this is a very important reason why it is good to be an "expert." We want our students to understand the concepts at a deeper level so that they can apply their knowledge in the real world and know more than just the basics so we can understand that they truly understand.
Another suggestion is that environments need to accommodate to differences in students’ self-regulation skills
I think that this strategy is more useful for a special education classroom or earlier elementary. This is because all of the students in a special ed classroom will have different abilities which will need to be catered to. In the early elementary levels, the students will also all be at different levels because they are fresh out of the oven with the things they are learning and some students will pick up on things faster than others.
The learner is not copying the model’s actions but rather emulates the model’s general pattern or style
Emulating shows that the students are actually understanding what is going on. You may be able to copy something, but not actually understand what/why you are doing it. Emulation shows you understand the process and can apply it
Motivation influences observational learning because when students believe that models possess a useful skill they are likely to attend to such models and attempt to retain what they learn.
Motivation is very important in this theory. Some kids, no matter how good of an example you put on for them, might not want to follow your example. If the kids do not want to follow your lead, they will no try to. The kids must want to and make a conscious effort to change.
Children are apt to believe that if the peers can succeed, they can as well
I don't fully agree with this statement. I think that some students can be intimidated by other students in the class. Every student has their own strengths and weaknesses so it can be challenging when a student who struggles at math sees a student who is very good at math get all the answers right. They may desire to be as good as the student but at the same time they feel like they will never achieve that level based on what they were gifted with.
students who doubt their learning capabilities
This whole paragraph is very accurate! I have a mindset that I am not good at science. Because of this mindset, I am more timid to get help and give up a little more easily because I have already defeated myself. Some teachers can be really intimidating to the point where students think that they are stupid or disappointing the teacher. It is our job to lift our students up and get them out of this funk.
Behaviors also can affect the environment, as when students eliminate distractions from their environments
I know that I cannot read and write with noise because I am a big music person and have to sing along to songs that are playing. But on the other hand I know many people that like to play soothing music when the write and it helps their creative juices flow. It is all up to your ability and being aware of your abilities will help you learn better and being aware of your students abilities will help you cater to the students more.
Student at work on a teaching machine
Overall, I think its cool that there is a machine that work they way it does and is closely related to a tutor, but in my opinion, nothing is better than having an actual person there to help a student.
Although it is much easier to build a machine to score multiple-choice anstvers than to evaluate a composed response, the tech- nical advantage is outweighed by these and other considerations.
As future teachers, I hope that none of us are "too lazy" to create/grade a test where we can't put it through a grading machine. Teaching is a selfless act and we need to do what is right for the students, not us.
When an examination is corrected and returned after a delay of many hours or days, the student's behavior is not appreciably I modified. The immedi- ate Eeport supplied by a self-scoring de- vice, however, can have an important instructional effect.
I think that this is a very important point. Most of the time after I take a test or quiz, I forget about the questions and my thought process. If you correct the quiz/test right away, you can correct your thought process more easily and the students are able to remember the correct way to solve the problem easier.
There is an- other function to which thcy contribute little or nothing.
This portion takes me back to W200. We learned that technology is very helpful in the classroom, but you need to do an assessment on the technology that you are using to make sure that it is actually benefitting the students. You don't want to use technology just to use it. Sometimes not using technology is better than using it. As a teacher you just need to make sure that the technology is helping them get to the learning objective
Edu- cation must become more efficient
As a student, I would much rather go to a crowded school with amazing teachers and a good system then just be throw into a random school with random teachers just because we need more space.
It is helpful if teachers and parents work together with the student to ensure that thecontract is being fulfilled.
Last year in G203 we talked a lot about working with parents and did a simulation with parent/teacher conferences. In the future I want to be connected with my students parents so that they can be on the same page as me. If a student needs extra help, I want the parents to be aware of this. It would be hard to help a student with behavioral problems or learning problems if they aren't getting the support of their parents.
epeat acts that led to favorable outcomes, and suppress those that producedunfavorable results
this connects back to the fact that behavior can be changed with some tweaking. If there are favorable outcomes for a student when they do the right thing, they will be more willing to shape up their behavior
Rewards vary
Every classroom is different so I agree that there are many different ways to reward/punish. For example, I coach swim team over the summer and if there were a bunch of swimmers that were not listening to me or the other coaches, we would punish the group as a whole because the swimmers that weren't listening would not like letting their teammates down so they would shape up. This technique doesn't always work though so you need to feel out the class and see if individual or group rewards works best.
Even teachers who attend institutions that provide a strong preparationfor teaching face major challenges after they graduate.
here at IU I think we do a great job getting in the classroom early, I think that by doing this we are granted the opportunity to test the waters and apply what we are learning as we learn instead of just diving in senior year. This helps get rid of a lot of the unpreparedness
Teachers are not encouraged to seek the knowl-edge and understanding that would allow them to teach academically rigor-ous curricula
the stigma in college around education majors is real. SO many times when I tell people that I am an education major they always make jokes about how I have to find a rich husband and that my classes must be easy. People need to realize that teachers are the ones who got them where they are today and teach their kids. Its really heartbreaking to see when teachers get discouraged by this and I wish there were a way to diminish it.
Uninspired teaching methods
Nothing is worst then being a student in a class where the teacher only likes to do it their way and it isn't benefitting the class. I think its important for teachers to find many different techniques to teach students so that each student is catered to. Even if you may not like it yourself, its about the students
dangers inherent in the fact that people construct new knowledge based on theircurrent knowledge
it is interesting that they talk about prior knowledge as a danger. I never really thought that it could be harmful and steer students in the wrong direction. Now as an educator I know it is important to be conscious of this
LEARNING: FROM SPECULATIONTO SCIENCE9standing. Textbooks are filled with facts that students are expected to memo-rize
In my school experience, nothing bothered me more than classes where all we had to do is memorize the facts instead of learning. Some of the classes I took in high school I can barely tell you one thing that I learned because I just memorized everything and let it all go after the test. It is so important that educators are conscious of the students understanding process and making sure that they are actually learning rather than memorizing
Instead, it took a number of trials for thecats to learn through trial and error.
trail and error is always a good technique for students because it gets them thinking more about what strategies are working and what strategies aren't. They think more about the process and learn along the way instead of just following a step by step procedure where they might not understand how they came to the conclusion.
The old psychology is thus dominated bya kind of subtle religious philosophy
I disagree in the definition of consciousness that they use. I think this approach to the definition is more religious rather than scientific. I believe that consciousness is more of an action than of a state. You are being aware of what is happening around you and what you are learning rather than being something. Overall this definition seems a little outdated