Saturday, October 24, 2009

Chapter 9 case study

1. Is Haley's fear of men most likely due to classical or operant conditioning? Justify your response (yes, it will all be hypothetical as we do not have enough information in this case)

I think that Haley's fear of men is most likely due to Operant Conditioning. I think this because the definition of Operant Conditioning is the form of learning in which a response increases in frequency as a reslut of being followed by a reinforcement. In other words, something has happened to Haley, dealing with a man, and there were some consequences that followed it. Some bad memories or something has happended, it could be her mother being beat in front of her, or something else.

2. How might you explain Meredith's aggressive behaviors from the perspective of operant conditioning?

I think that at home her mother gets beatin or hit by her father or some other family member. I think that Meredith sees her mother getting beat, yelled, or hit and ends up doing whatever she is told. Therefore, Meredith sees this and uses it to get what she wants. Even though she is just 6 years old, she sees her mothers and others weaknessess and takes full advantage of it to get what she wants. It's easy to see the perspective through operant conditioning because she has learned that hurting someone will get her the result of whatever she wants. Overtime, it's just become more and more frequent because she realized that it works.

3. What strategies from Chapter 9 might a teacher use in working with Haley? Be specific and describe how each strategy could be used.

I think that shaping could be used. This is the process of reinforcing successively closer and closer approximations to a desired terminal behavior. So when Haley goes into violin lessons, she could get rewarded with something. Not only would the reward work but she would realize that the violin teacher isn't so bad afterall.

Another strategie that could be used is the Token Economy. She could get a "token" for going into violin lessons or even just behaving every time a strange man would enter into the classroom.

I'm sure that there are more, I just can't think of anymore right now.

4. What strategies from chapter 9 might a teacher use in working with Meredith? Be specific and describe how each strategy could be used.

You could use the "token" method but I don't think that that will get anywhere with Meredith becuase she has been hurting people to get what she wants for awhile now. I think that the group contingency strategy may work. Just because when she's in a group that has done everything they need to get a reinforcment, so they may kind of peer pressure her into doing the right thing. Not that all peer pressure is a good thing but when it's a good response, it could be a positive thing.

Also, they could use cueing. The teacher could do a certain signal just for Meredith to show that her behavior is good/expected or even when it's bad/not desired. It's difficult to tell if this will work.

I'm really not sure what else would or wouldn't work with her. It's difficult to tell, especially with very little detail of really goes on with the home life. The same goes with the strategies to use with Hayley.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Chapter 7/8 Case study

1. Describe two similarities between the traditional lesson and the constructivist one as described above.

In both of the lessons, neither one of the classes knew what "measurement" was. Another similarity would be that both classes had teachers that understood that their students didn't know the concept of "measurement"...

2. What are two benefits and two drawbacks of the constructivist approach as described above? Why? In your opinion, are the benefits worth the costs? Explain your response.

Two benefits of the constructivist approach would be that they students get to explore on their own and they are having to start to think logically. Children have to think about different concepts and ideas. The teacher doesn't really give the students the answer, they are having to find and explore things on their own. Two drawbacks would be that the children may not have prior knowledge and/or experience and so the lesson will take longer than expected. Also, the students may not know how to get around to the correct answer and they my become frustrated and just give up. Students may also just decide that because they got frustrated that they hate the idea of "measurement" and that thought will stick with them throughout their lives and may even cause their brain to shut down anytime they hear the word "measurement" or something connected with their past experience.

3. How does the contructivist lesson described above promote critical thinking? Give specific examples of critical thinking from the case study to support your response?

It promotes critical thinking by making the students have to go back to past schemas and try to connect what measurement is so that they can tell the king how big the Mayflower is. The teacher really isn't giving them any anwers and is making them try to come up with their own ideas on how to get the exact measurement of the ship. Also, when the students decide to measure the ship with their hands all of the students have to tell Mark to not let there be any gaps between his fingers and his palm so that he gets an accurate measure. Then the teacher has the smallest person in the class measure the boat with her hands so that she can show the students that it's not going to be the same measurement without actually telling them that. So the students once again have to think critically about another way to measure the ship.

4. Would the constructivist activity be considered an authentic activity? Why or why not?

I would say that the constructivist activity would be considered an authentic activity because an authentic activity is described as an activity that uses real-world resources, experiences, and sharing. They are also problem-focused and the problem that the students are focusing on is trying to get the measurement of the Mayflower to the king. In the constructivist activity, they are using their hands, feet, and body. They are also using past experiences in order to come up with different ways to measure the boat. Beyond that, they are using each others thoughts and ideas to come up with their own thoughts and ideas...so they are sharing and using one anothers thoughts/ideas to come up with new ones.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Chapter 6 case study

1. I think that the students will remeber how it felt to pack all of the stuff and actually get to "act" out actual things that they would have had to do if they were in the war. I think that in "acting" out the war, they were probably more engaged and actually wanted to participate and learn more. Whereas if they would have just read about the war in the text, most of them would have been bored and disingaged. To many students, war/history is a boring subject. This is especially true when they are just having to read it...I think that getting to actually feel how it would've been is more interesting and gives them a better idea and they will want to learn more.

2. I think that his use of Civil War re-enactment engaged students' emotions because they were probably feeling tired, excited, nervous, ect... because they were actually having to experience things. I think that the relationship between emotions and learning is that when students actually get to experience things they connect it to the emotions that they were feeling. When they have to take a test or a quiz, they are able to go back to their emotions and think of what they were doing and then from that point they could connect to actual facts or things. When you read a text book most of the time you don't get those emotions so sometimes it's hard to recall some important information.

3. Well i'm not completely sure what dual-coding is, but I think that with him showing/having them participate in the re-enactment, that now he needs to do more of a lecture/verbal type of follow-up. So I think that maybe he could do a lecture but still make it more fun and in doing the lecture, the students will be able to connect to it more because they've already had the experience of the re-enactment/visually and physically getting to see what it was kind of like to be in the war.


4. My first thought was that Mr. Dunkin provided better instruction because his students knew what they were doing ahead of time so that if they were gone they could still get homework done, but all of his work is done by lectures and from the textbook. So my opinion is that Mr. Richards provides better instruction because although he isn't organized in anyway, he incorporates different types of learning strategies. That way all of the students will get to do certain things in the way that they learn best. Mr. Richards provides many different learning environments and that will allow all of his students to learn better than Mr. Dunkin's students...

5. Like I stated above, I think that the students in Mr. Richards class will learn more than the students in Mr. Dunkins class because they'll experience many different types of learning environments and they'll all get to experience their strongest types of learning (visual, hands-on, ect.)

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Second Case Study-Chp. 3

1. I think that the most effective social skill they are trying to teach is when they are trying to get the more shy children to ask if they can play or join in. I think that this is more important than they more outgoing children asking because they shy children need that extra push to do something out of their comfort zone. It may be hard for them at first but it will eventually become easier for them to go up to a group of peers and ask if they can join in. They will use this skill throughout their entire lives, not just in school.

2. I think that children's literature would help with Erikson's stage of Industry vs. Inferiority. Teachers use literature to help with social skills/making friends; Erikson's stage of Industry vs. Inferiority is when elementary age children are looking to gain self-confidence and get the recognition of parents, teachers, and peers. They do that by making things like drawings and other things. So I think that by teaching those skills, by using literature, that once they learn those social skills they will be able to get more recognition from their peers and teachers because they will be more willing to reach out and try new things.

3. Children's literature could help children develop moral reasoning by the teacher reading stories with different circumstances. After reading the book, or even stopping during reading, the teacher could ask the students what they would do and then continue reading so they would know what/how the character of the book resolved the circumstance. This will help the students becuase if they encounter a problem or circumstance that they had previously read about, they will be able to look back on the book and react how they said they would or remember how the character dealt with it.

4. The children are having to think about someone elses problems, although they are really problems that they are dealing with or have dealt with, so they are using assimilation to help Mr. Stone with his questions. I also think that they students are looking at this letter and going back to things that they've experienced so they can feel how Mr. Stones daughter feels, disequilibrium. I think that this letter is a good idea because it's allowing the studendts to go back and think about things and then encorporate them with new ideas, of how they would handle the situation. It will be a useful thing when/as the students get older; they can use this in the future for school or anysituation.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Second Course Contract

1. I'm still doing well on keeping up on the assignments and doing the study guides and reading.

2. I really should be doing better on the study guides, go more into depth on some things. Also I think that I need to be memorizing the theorists and what goes with them. I thought I was doing good but apparently I'm not.

3. I think that I'm making some progress, probably not as good as I should be but I'm slowly making progress...For me anways.

4. Well apprently I need to memorize which things go with which theorists, also I need to break up certain time for reading/studying still. I thougth that that study strategy was working but I don't know... Maybe I just need to come up with another study strategy... I'll try other things like different note takin strategies and ways to break up the reading so that my brain doesn't get overloaded...