EdPsych 401 Blog Post 7: Student Generated Questions

1. Apply your knowledge of problem-solving strategies to create an algorithm for getting dressed in the morning. (Apply)

2. Create an ill-defined word problem and describe why it is ill-defined. (Create)

EdPsych 401 Field Trip Blog: "Girl Rising" Film

Tonight, I went to the viewing of Girl Rising at the UC Auditorium.  The film is a documentary chronicling the lives of nine young girls from various countries around the world, and each girl’s struggle to receive a decent education and chance at success.  The film was touching at moments, brutal at others, and inspirational throughout.  Following are three points from the film that I found interesting and which stood out to me.

            1.  The film served to remind me that school is not free for children in every country.  One girl in the film, Wadley from Haiti, had been enrolled in a local elementary school but, following the major earthquake that devastated the country in 2010, was turned away from the school when her mother could not afford the tuition.  Keep in mind, this was no college or university, but an elementary school with a tuition many citizens like Wadley could not afford.  Wadley would not stand for this, however, and she returned again and again to the school, and was turned away again and again until finally the teacher, realizing Wadley’s persistence to receive an education, allowed her to stay.  Wadley’s desire for an education was inspiring, especially when compared to the millions of children in America that take their education for granted, and that express hatred toward school and learning.

            2.  I was surprised by the threat of violence many young girls in other countries receive when they express a desire to learn.  For instance, during one act of the film, a girl from Afghanistan had to hide her true identity because, she claimed, if her husband, father, brother, or any of her fellow countrymen learned about her desire to receive an education, they would kill her without remorse.  Why do some men in other nations feel so threatened by the idea of a woman receiving an education?  Perhaps, in my last question, I should not have left out our own country.  Even in America, many men still hold ideas regarding where women “belong” in society.  American men don’t necessarily feel threatened by women going to school, but they do feel threatened when women try to advance in their careers, possibly eclipsing their male co-workers.  What is so threatening about a woman wishing to better herself?

            3.  The one aspect of this film that I want to talk about in-depth is a reaction a teacher had toward an inattentive student in her classroom, as I think this moment may have been the most pertinent to our Educational Psychology class.  During one scene in the film, a young girl from India was shown doodling in a notebook while her teacher instructed a math lesson.  When the teacher discovered what the young girl was doing, I was shocked by the educator’s response.  The teacher, in a scolding tone, called the girl to the front of the room and made her confess what she was doing.  After the girl confessed, the teacher verbally humiliated her, then dismissed her from the school for the remainder of the day.  I believe this teacher, based on her actions, subscribed to an aggressive behaviorist learning theory.  When she noticed that the young girl was exhibiting an undesired behavior (not paying attention to the math lesson), she introduced extremely humiliating and, in my opinion, inappropriate positive punishment (public verbal castigation) and negative punishment (asking the girl to leave the school for the rest of the day).  I suppose teaching theories in other countries are different from those many educators in America subscribe to, but I believe the educator’s response to the inattentive girl was disgusting.  How can an educator believe that he or she is doing right by a student when they humiliate them and send them away from the classroom?  The last thing an educator should do when wishing to instill knowledge in a student is to exile them from the one place where they can attain such knowledge.  Perhaps, when I become an educator, I should keep such cultural differences in mind when teaching students from different cultures and backgrounds; I will try to foster an accepting an inclusive learning atmosphere.

EdPsych 401 Blog Post 6: Constructivism

            If I could choose one application from the Constructivism chapter to implement in my high school English class, I think I would assign a project-based authentic activity to my students.  The project would be this: students would have to write and work together to produce a classroom “newspaper.”  Although the article is a little dated, Hanna (1923) provides a great structure for such a journalistic project.  For this authentic activity, students will have to pretend that they are part of a newspaper staff.  Some students will be assigned by me to be editors; there will be an editor-in-chief, a literary editor, a sports editor, a society editor, etc.  These editors will then have reporters working under them.  Literary reporters will have to find a news story going on in the school and write a 500-600 word article about it; sports reporters will have to attend a school sporting event and write a 500-600 word report about the event; a society reporter will have to write a 500-600 word article discussing social events going on in the school that week.  From this project, the “reporters” will be able to exercise the writing and grammar skills they have been learning in class while, at the same time, trying to write an interesting article targeted to a specific audience.  The “editors” will take up and read each article their reporters have written, decide which articles are the most interesting and well-written, and proofread and correct the articles for any grammar errors they may have.  Then, all of the chosen and corrected articles will be compiled into one class newspaper that all of the students will be able to read.  The goal of this project is not to teach journalistic behaviors (Hanna, 1923).  Rather, the goal is to get students to practice using the writing skills they’ve learned in class to write an effective informational article, and to get editors to learn to look for writing mistakes in pieces of work.  Hopefully, the students will also find the project enjoyable and fun.

            At first, my students appear extremely anxious about this project.  Many of the students are very nervous about writing an article that will be included in a “newspaper” that everyone in the class will be able to read.  I try to relieve some of this anxiety by telling them that there is no one correct way to go about doing this activity, and that, outside of doing a little research and writing a piece that is 500-600 words long, they are relatively free to do what they want; I will also let them know that I will be available any time that they need help brainstorming ideas or researching topics (Ormrod, 2011).

            A few obstacles arise:

            —Students get a little confused as to what their positions are and what they are supposed to do.  Therefore, after the positions are assigned to the students, I give each student a concept map in which their position and duty is labeled, and they are able to see how their position is tied to the positions of other students—in other words, a sports reporter will see who they are supposed to report to when their article is finished. 

            —Some reporters in the class don’t know what to write about for their article.  I work with these students and help them brainstorm ideas.  With some of the students, we develop a “wagon wheel organizer.”  In the middle of the organizer, the student writes inside a big circle what topic they are writing about.  Connected to this bigger circle will be smaller circles in which the student will identify possible aspects of the topic they think are important to the larger topic, and which might should be discussed in-depth.

Hanna, O. M. (1923). The class newspaper. The English journal, 12 (3), pp. 205-207.

Ormrod, J. (2011). Educational psychology: Developing learners (7^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

EdPsych Blog Post 5: A

a)         Perhaps the most obvious principle of behaviorist learning theory that would help inform me of whether or not my students are successfully mastering lesson objectives is instrumental conditioning.  In instrumental conditioning, a student will steadily increase behavior or decrease behavior depending on the reinforcement each behavior receives (Ormrod, 2011).  In a classroom setting, a child’s mastering a lesson objective can be seen as academic behavior.  Let’s say that on a particular day, my lesson objective is to get my students to understand the appropriate punctuation that needs to be used in writing dialogue.  Let’s say I lecture the students for a few minutes about the correct uses of punctuation in dialogue.  Then I write this sentence on the whiteboard: Marsha said “I want a new pair of shoes.”  I then ask for someone to raise their hand and tell me what punctuation mark to put between “said” and “I.”  One of my students raises his hand and says, “A period.”  The student answered the question incorrectly, an academic behavior that I do not want him to display, so I gently tell him that he did not answer the question correctly (a form of punishment), and that there is a different punctuation mark that should be used.  Another student then raises her hand and says, “You should use a comma.”  This student displayed the academic behavior I do want to see, so I reinforce her answer by saying “Good job” in hopes of increasing this behavior.  Next, I would pass out worksheets in which students will be provided various examples of dialogue that are missing the punctuations, and their job will be to insert the correct punctuation marks into each sentence.  The students will complete this task, I will take the worksheets up, and I will grade them either by providing gentle punishment in the form of X’s and corrections for each missed question, or reinforcement in the form of check marks and “Good jobs” for each correct answer given.  Slowly, through this steady process of reinforcing good academic behavior and punishing undesirable academic behavior, the students will eventually master the lesson objective, which is to understand the appropriate punctuation marks used in dialogue.

         The main principle of the social cognitive theory of learning that I would help inform me of my students’ mastery of lesson objectives is modeling.  Let’s continue to use the lesson in which my objective is to get my students to understand how to correctly use punctuation in sentences with dialogue.  If I am abiding by the social cognitive theory, the first thing I do is lecture for a minute about the different ways to punctuate sentences with dialogue.  Next, I write this example sentence on the white board: Tom asked, “Can I ride the bicycle after you” This time, instead of asking students what punctuation mark should be used and where, I am going to model the correct academic skills I want to see from my students by inserting a question mark between “you” and the final quotation mark myself.  By seeing me model this behavior, the students will know that this is the correct answer and they will be more likely to imitate it on their own.  I would not have to stop there, though.  I could go on to provide cognitive modeling.  After inserting the question mark between “you” and the final quotation mark, I could explain the cognitive process I went through to determine what the correct answer was.  “Well,” I could say out loud, “first we know that this is a sentence with dialogue, so really there are two people speaking in this sentence: the narrator, and Tom.  Now, I tell myself that it sounds like Tom is asking a question, as signaled by the question-marker word ‘Can.’  So, since Tom is asking the question, the question mark should go inside the final quotation mark, because if it was outside the final quotation mark it would be like the narrator was asking a question, when we know that the narrator is actually simply telling us what Tom asked.”  Hopefully, as I do this, my students will pay attention, retain the information and demonstration I am providing, and, after I have passed out the worksheets with the sentences that need punctuation, reproduce the correct behavior I modeled on their own worksheet.  Perhaps on their worksheet I could require my students, as they complete the worksheet, to elaborate on each answer by explaining the cognitive process they went through to determine the correct answer, as I did in front of the class.  In abiding by the social cognitive theory of learning, I will know that the students have mastered my lesson objective when they are able to observe my modeling of the academic skill and successfully demonstrate these academic skills themselves, possibly providing an explanation of the cognitive process they went through to get to their answer as well.

         Another way to make sure my students master my lesson objectives when using the social cognitive theory is teaching them self-monitoring techniques.  In self-monitoring, a student is able to observe oneself in terms of how well they are progressing toward a certain goal (Ormrod, 2011).  As Friend and Bursuck (2012) posit, teaching self-monitoring is especially important when dealing with children with special needs, as it fosters a sense of independent learning and self-reliance in the student.  Friend and Bursuck lay down a clear, three-step process educators can take when teaching students with disabilities self-monitoring.  The authors suggest educators discuss with the student an effective strategy the student can take in order to display an appropriate behavior or academic skill, model for the student what behaviors you expect him or her to display, and reward the student when he or she successfully displays the desired behavior or academic skill (Friend and Bursuck, 2012, p. 400-401).  So, taking my punctuation lesson as an example, I could foster self-monitoring in a student with disabilities (or any student, really) by discussing what strategies they can take to determine which punctuation mark to use and where, modeling for the student the correct use of punctuation marks, and rewarding the student when they correctly imitate the behavior and demonstrate an understanding of the academic skill.

Ormrod, J. (2011). Educational psychology: Developing learners (7^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Friend, M, & Bursuck, W. (2012). Including students with special needs: A practical guide for classroom teachers (6^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.