Such great material in this class and what a lot of it! I enjoyed both books and found them to be very complimentary. The supporting articles and online information were excellent. The discussion board was encouraging and full of innovative approaches from classmates. The two multi-phased projects involved collaborative learning that was deep and had its own fascinating set of challenges and rewards. The teacher had a knack for carefully inspiring us. I found myself in the zone.
The topics of learning that I will focus on in my Meta-Reflection relate to the criteria for teacher standards at SPU. In particular: 1. Expectations– The teacher communicates high expectations for student learning.
1.1 Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy
This summer, my understanding of pedagogy and theories of development has grown. Our group’s Theory to Practice project required an in-depth examination of theory and pedagogy and it reflects my learning in the area of Nature vs. Nurture, Piaget’s theories of development, constructivist approaches, moral reasoning, and the importance of the use of concepts in teaching.
Our Theory to Practice Group
The Partner Practice project demonstrates developing skills as we created a great set of lessons that incorporate some newly learned pedagogy and teaching approaches.
1.3 Engaging Students in Learning
I have learned new strategies for engaging students in learning. Specifically, I have been thinking about how to use concepts and how to access prior knowledge to engage students. This is also linked with learning new strategies to assist with memory overload and processing of information. I have a renewed appreciation for journals and see how I might use them to meet all sorts of educational targets. In addition, I have deepened my understanding of self-efficacy and learned new methods to encourage it in my students.
The post focuses on self-efficacy.
As an emerging English teacher, I love the journal technique for students to think and rethink their learning and especially, to see “how far they’ve come.” I have learned that student voice could be assessed via journals and that they could be used for pre/informal/formative assessments. A rubric could easily be introduced and taped into a journal for a summative assessment as well. Here are some additional thoughts from classmate Eryn Morrigan about using images which I hope to include in the journal process:
Author: Eryn Morrigan Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 3:58:12 PM PDT Subject: Excitement through Visuals
… One exercise I’ve used fairly successfully is to have students read a passage, then draw a quick sketch of what they think happened. I usually encourage students to make related doodles in their notes and when I look at what they remember on assessments vs what was in the notes they turned in, the best results are for the information they doodled. Not all kids are great at drawing (I’m pretty shabby myself) but as long as they understand it, it seems to work – even stick figures!
I found the topic of concepts and their importance very interesting.
Author: Kelly Armentrout Date: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:36:19 AM PDT Subject: Categories, Concepts & the Classroom
According to Pressley and McCormick (2007), teaching concepts is important because concepts help us organize our experiences. I just saw the new Pixar film, “Inside Out” and was amazed to see a visual representation of this idea! The main character’s experiences were represented by memory balls moving from place to place with some being sent to “islands of learning” with names like family and friendship. There were short term and long term memories. The most important memories were called “core memories”. The islands were connected by tracks that the memories moved along. Many memories were dumped in the lost memory pit. It was fascinating!
Pressley and McCormick write: “Our conceptual understandings are related to each other in long-term memory and are stored in what are called semantic nodes. Concepts are nodes in the network, with links between the nodes specifying associations between concepts” (p. 109). We are beginning to understand that memory is developed and enhanced by creating associations between concepts. From Medina (2008), we know that experts’ knowledge is organized around core concepts or ‘big ideas’ that guide their thinking about their domains. Some approaches that we can use to teach concepts include using direct explanation, a discovery approach, and a guided discovery approach. I can imagine using all three approaches to teach concepts. Plus, I hope to help my students build connections by providing ample opportunity for practice and to space that practice out over time. According to neural network theory, learning is the creation of connections and the changing strength of connections. That means forgetting some things is OK and in fact necessary in order to prioritize the more important things.
I considered how I might help students cope with the attention demands placed upon their short-term memory.
Author: Kelly Armentrout Date: Thursday, July 2, 2015 12:19:02 PM PDT Subject: Coping Strategies for Short-Term Capacity Demands
Pressley & McCormick (2007) offer three strategies: analyze, simplify and coach/prompt… In working with students, I have used the strategy of simplifying the task. Helping the student break the work into manageable chunks is usually helpful. It also requires less hands-on attention than coaching and prompting. I do think the coaching and prompting is the best solution for students on short-term memory overload. If a teacher is able to prompt step by step, the student would be highly supported and short-term capacity demands would be reduced.
In his research, Medina (2008) offers some great techniques including…focusing on the meaning of the presented information. This, I believe, is the most useful tool for the student to learn and for a teacher to recognize: If the student can understand the significance and meaning of the material presented, it will be remembered with a more significant “mapping” process in the brain. I remember, as a student, realizing how important and helpful it was for me to ask myself why I needed to remember a particular thing. So, as a self-check, if a teacher can include an answer to the question, “WHY?” then the student will simply be more likely to remember the information. Of course, the student will have to hear and process the reasoning, but that simple act moves the information to another area of the brain and makes it more likely to be recalled when needed.
Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.
Pressley, M., & McCormick, C. (2007). Child and adolescent development for educators. New York: Guilford Press.
Ed-Eureka! 