Group Differences Forum

I think that this forum was a very valuable experience for students going into education as it gives the oppurtunity to look at our biases and misconceptions on equality. I really enjoyed hearing the insight my classmates had on these issues. Personally I did not participate much as I was intrigued by other's answers  and felt that my opinion, where I had one, had been expressed. I believe that this should be a type of assignment in many classes and should even be addresed in education with students. It is important that we see ourselves as different but equal and realize what we all have to offer.

If I had to change anything about this forum it would be to give it more time so that  the issues  that garner more excitement can be discussed more heavily. I also think this should not necessarily be an assignment as much as a regular format for class during certain classes. I bekieve that at this point in our education, most students have so much to offer that class should be more of a sharing of ideas rather than a lecture style class. Naturally from time to time lecture is needed as the teacher is more prepared to share the information, but often class discussion should be more idealized.

Barb Retenbach

I read in a classmate's blog post that they thought that Barb was going to start her presentation by saying, "dear utk, autism is my prison." However she said it was her prism not her prison. This statement is where my perception was changed the most. I by no means expected that Barb was not intelligent as I have had experiences with children and adults who have autism. I did however expect that Barb would feel trapped inside her autism and feel as though it hindered her personality and intelligence from coming out. She felt the exact opposite. Barb explained through her writing that she believed that autism was a benefit to her. This sentiment blew me away. Barb is not dealing with a condition she is working through her position, and that is a powerful message.

One thing that spoke to me directly was when Barb's "SS" was talking about medicating away creativity and entrepreneurship and said that as teachers, if a student needs to be mobile or stimulated to learn, we should let them be that. Because I agree with this statement,  when I begin to teach my goal will be to have "my space" be a place where students feel comfortable and can learn in whatever way works best for them. If a student in my class needs to move to learn, I cannot fathom why anyone would stop that.

I enjoyed this presentation and I think it really opened eyes about the capabilities of those we so often say are incapable.

Post #10

After looking at table 2.2 on page 51 and considering the content relevant to grades 9-12, I believe that the strategies mentioned would be very helpful. One strategy that I think is necessary to education, and that I would certainly use is the use of academic vocabulary that is necessary to the course. This would help as it would help to build the already expansive vocabulary of my students. 

Another strategy that I would insist upon using regardless of how tedious it may seem to my students, is the insistence that all students use the correct words. By this I mean if a student mistakenly uses a word that has a different meaning or that they have simply misunderstood, I would correct them. I would not do this in a condescending way nor would I attempt to embarrass them, instead I would simply establish that in my classroom grammar is important, just as it is in the real world.

Beyond simple grammar and insistence on correct word choice I would also ask my students to find the meaning of certain readings done in class. As a history teacher, I would expect my student's to read some historical writing and explain what information can be learned from what is and what is not written. I would do this because I believe inference into the text is a very important aspect of education and that students can benefit from it in all situations.

One strategy that I have never considered but that I will use based on the table on pg 51 relates to the use of native languages at certain times. The table suggest that students use their native language in informal conversations but use standard English in formal classroom settings. I believe that I would do this as students need to be able to speak their native language for comfort and to stay close to their culture, however proper English is important in the classroom. Therefore I would encourage the use of English and only allow or rather promote the use of a native language in certain situations

Using these strategies I believe that I will be able to best help my students in the classroom as it relates to language and vocabulary.

Self-Efficacy and Intervention

There are  a few things to consider when thinking about the contributions of Self-efficacy and Self-regulation to my intervention plan. The first of these is whether or not my cueing will have an effect on the students belief that the can pay attention and do their work. That is, if students perceive that they are being chastised regardless of how subtle I may attempt to be, will it harm their level of self-efficacy. Another thing to consider as it relates to self efficacy is whether or not the students possess a low self-efficacy to begin with and whether or not that plays a role in why the students were misbehaving to begin with. If it were to be determined that this was the cause then this could be a place to begin in planning an intervention strategy.

As it relates to self-regulation and intervention strategies, the teacher would want to ensure that the students had the ability and motivation to change their behavior. It is possible that the students have an issue affecting their interest in the course and this would make it difficult for them to regulate their personal change of a certain behavior. It would be necessary to relate the class to the students to allow for the students to have a reason to want to change the behavior prior to them being expected to change and regulate their behavior.

This article by Sharon Zumbrunn et. al characterizes these attribute and their contributions well: http://merc.soe.vcu.edu/Reports/Self%20Regulated%20Learning.pdf

Case Study and Learning Theories

High School Case Study

You have started to dread your fifth period history class. It is made up entirely of seniors who are counting the days until graduation and seem to care very little about learning. Most of the students are obviously members of one clique or another. Whenever they think your back is turned, they start passing notes and text messaging. Worse, three boys have started disrupting those engaged in learning. No matter what you say, they laugh at the students who present their group projects to the class. Yesterday, Tony, Jeff, and Morris started roughhousing; then all three of them refused to sit down and follow the class procedures that the classroom community agreed upon at the beginning of the year. Although you have been using a set approach to handling infractions of rules, you decide it is time to change these procedures.

In my case study, students are beginning to lose focus and act out as the majority are approaching graduation. Behaviorism would work in only two approaches here. The ways to deal with this as I see it are through cueing and talking to the students directly. Cueing is a subtle way of attempting to get the students to behave without chastising the students outright. Cueing might include simply telling the students to get out their books and not to talk as they do it or something similar. If this does not work then I could ask the students to who I identify to be the instigators to come to the hallway and I can talk to them personally. This conversation should happen privately because calling them out in class may reinforce the behavior. This gives me the chance to explain why the behaviors need to stop and allows the student to explain why they acted out.

When reading this article I learned that constructivism is helpful when the writer said, "By engaging students in novel, relevant, hands-on activities, they become fully engaged in the learning. When this happens, the need to “manage” their behavior all but evaporates." Constructivism often appears in classrooms when students are able to use their hands-on activities to construct their knowledge base. This article tells the readers that when students are engaged in this way, they do not continue to misbehave. The article goes on to say that it is not enough just to show them a movie that captures their interest, as this does not keep children from acting out only engaging them with something that they can personally experiment with helps them.

I believe that behaviorism works better in most situations as it is easier to do and speaks right to the psychological nature of students. However, in this case I believe that constructivism would work better. I believe that getting the seniors involved with a hands on activity would engage them and prevent them from acting out. The study mentions a presentation, instead maybe the student could work on a website or wiki and create it to be posted on the internet for actual use. This would incorporate technology into the classroom, provide cross-curriculum training with web-design classes, and give the students a sense of connectivity to and responsibility for their work.

PLE Post #7

I observed a lesson that involved what the teacher explained to be choice boards. I would like to modify this type of project for my class. I could see using it for many units, but for the sake of this post, I am going to say i will use it for an American history class and the main ideas of reconstruction. I think it would be good to use this for reconstruction as many history lessons and classes gloss over reconstruction and focus on the civil war or jump all the way to World War I. My Choice board would have several didn't items ranging from guided practice to independent research. The reasoning behind having such a broad choice of activities is to provide for differentiation  in the lesson plan. Lower level students would do guided work like worksheets and using the book to answer questions. Average student could use projects that require outside research, while the highest level students might have to do research and open-ended questions to consider.

The skills that are involved in this lesson would be self-regulated learning. Students would be allowed to pick their assignments which they could pick based on interest. I could help guide them to the choices that would be best for them allowing me to have some say. The choices would be fairly relaxed in requirements, meaning that the choices would allow them to pick what type of sources they use. I would hope that they could explore their interests as it relates tt these topics so that they could learn what they want to about reconstruction while still allowing them to learn the required information. This articled guided me in thinking about this, especially pages 50-53.  

http://schoolwiresold.dentonisd.org/5222085105852403/lib/5222085105852403/diffedincludeall.pdf 

In looking for the sequence of skills necessary for ultimate mastery of content I think it is first essential to assess students' prior knowledge. This can be done in a variety of ways such as class warm-ups with open-ended questions or by drawing concept maps to illustrate student knowledge. From this point teachers should focus on finding misconceptions in the student's prior knowledge and have the students find a way to replace the erroneous parts of their knowledge with proper knowledge. This can be done by having students research a topic  or do a project that deals with the misconception so that they can see what they are getting wrong. From here teachers should guide students in the way of learning new information and find a way to organize this knowledge in some way. This is important to help students retrieve this information at a later date. This again can be done through research, projects, or a paper or an efficient grouping of the three. this helps students construct and remember the knowledge the teacher wishes their students to learn. Once a teacher believes that their students have learned what the have planned the only step is to re-assess knowledge in order to ensure students have acquired knowledge in the correct way with little to no misconceptions. 

I was very happy to find this article as it speaks directly to my area and this topic. While it is difficult to plan a lesson with this type of learning in mind, this article points out that constructivism in history classrooms only requires students to put a historical hypotheses together. That is, ask students why America may have made the decision to drop Atomic bombs in Japan. Students would be required to research information on the topic and  create a hypotheses as to why historical figures may have acted in this way. Students can then research and discuss whether they would have made the same decision given the information they have found. This will allow students to learn about WWII through their research of American bombings. This allows the student to personally build their knowledge base.