Personal Learning Theory

What? Write your new definition of learning. It is important to decide for yourself what that word means so that you can determine how you will teach and how you will know if your students have "learned." For example, remember that behaviorists define learning as a change in behavior, while cognitivists define it as a change in thinking. Then, summarize how you believe people learn. Do they learn through active exploration? through training responses to certain stimuli? through observation? through individual cognitive processing? This is your personal learning theory.

So What? Write a few robust, detailed paragraphs about how your personal learning theory will translate into instructional strategies. For example, if you believe that learning is a process and that students learn through active exploration, then you will design complex learning environments in which students can experiment and discover concepts rather than lecturing incessantly.

Now What? What are your "fierce wonderings"? What aspect of teaching or Educational Psychology are you super excited to learn more about?

My original definition of learning was that "Learning is a continual, active process made possible by new experiences, or new ways of looking at old experiences." and I still agree with that, but I would now add that you have to constantly add on to what you have previously learned to keep from forgetting. And that you have to be able to apply it to a worthwhile aspect for it to maintain relevance. In my future classroom, I want to be able to see a permanent change in my students that proves to me that they have learned something. It could be something as small as using scientific reasoning when confronted with something scientifically incorrect on the internet, or using some class vocabulary in real life, or ideally, they start recycling or doing something to benefit the world because of content we have covered in my class. Based on that, I have a pretty behaviorist idea of what learning is, but it is the constructivist ideas that really excite me the most. I want to use a bunch of the models we discussed in this class, and in curriculum, in my future class. I love how diverse they are, while all being student centered. It was lessons like this that were most impactful to me when I was in school. Like I mentioned before, I would really love to have my students do a service-learning project that deals with my content because it would be educational, exciting, applicable to real-life, and it would be a great thing for my students to put on resumes. I would probably use the service-learning as an alternative to a more practical project since service-learning projects would be pretty impractical, and biased. I think I would have at least a few students who would be interested in a service-learning alternative though, it would be awesome!
Overall, this class was a lot more interesting and useful than I had anticipated it would be. I hadn't thought it would really be useful to me, just be some little tidbits of information that wouldn't actually impact my future class. But, the theories we have talked about are actually really important to know so that I can know how best to reach my students, and how to engage them in my class. 

Lesson Reflection

Reflect on your teaching experience. Write a paragraph response to each of the following questions, and don’t forget to use and underline vocabulary from the theories we have learned to answer these questions.

• How well do you feel your lesson helped develop your students’ abilities to use metacognition to be successful? Explain.
• How well do you feel your lesson helped develop a growth mindset in your students? Explain.
• How well do you feel your lesson motivated your students? Which strategies were successful and how could you improve?
• How well do you feel your lesson met your students’ cognitive development needs? Explain.

• How well do you feel your lesson met your students’ identity development needs? Explain.
• How well do you feel your lesson met your students' moral development needs? Explain.
• Did the learning theory you chose work well for these students? Why or why not?
• How might using another theory have improved the lesson or made it less effective?

When I was planning my lesson, I didn't really think about developing my student's metacognition. But, the lesson I constructed did have a couple elements that could be applied to metacognition. For example, I had the students create a dichotomous key, but to do this, they first had to plan out a vague idea of how they would separate their candies. While they were creating the key, they had to monitor how it was going, and make sure they were including everything. And after they had finished their dichotomous key, they then had to evaluate the key, and go back and change their descriptions if there was anything that didn't fit. But, I don't know if this counts as metacognition since they were using those steps in creating a key, and not in evaluating their learning habits. So, although I think it was a good lesson to teach the concept, I don't think it would have been very successful if my goal had been to develop my students' ability to use metacognition.

Because I had placed in my lesson many different points for the students to check, and re-evaluate their dichotomous key, I think it worked pretty well to help promote a growth mindset. If I had not given the students plenty of room for error, then any small mistakes they made would have seemed bigger, and could have devastated a students want to improve. The different checkpoints I had the students go through, along with the scaffolding I used to first introduce them to the process, was designed to make sure students were confident knowing they would be able to succeed before they started making their own keys. And if they did make a mistake, it was not a big deal, they could just modify a few things and move on. Plus, they were working with partners, so they had an extra buffer in case they got stuck. Overall, I think it was a lesson that helped develop a growth mindset in the students.

When I first started the lesson, I had some students come up to the front of the class, and we made a dichotomous key based off their t-shirts. This was fun for all of the students, and having a live example motivated pretty much all of the students to participate. When I had the students work on their own dichotomous keys using candy, the candy was a huge extrinsic motivator because I told them they couldn't eat the candy unless they were able to successfully key it out first. I could tell some of the kids were more motivated by the candy than they were the activity itself, because they just hurried and made a key using similar descriptions as we had used in the t-shirt example, but some kids did seem intrinsically motivated to get as creative as they possibly could-that was really fun to watch. I hope some (or most!) of the students were intrinsically motivated by the clue/puzzle aspect of dichotomous keys that is really fun for me, but the extrinsic motivation of the candy was easier for me to see. Overall though, the students were motivated to understand and complete the task I set out for them.

The information I was giving the students wasn't anything too ground-breaking, but it was something new to them. Although they had never heard of dichotomous keys, they have been classifying things based on physical characteristics their whole lives. So, they just had to assimilate the new terms and organized way of using a dichotomous key to their already existing schema of classification. This system of classification works well with the concrete operational stage that they, as 7th graders, are still in, or just around there. One of the descriptions of the concrete operational stage is the ability to classify objects according to several features and order them in series  (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Motivation_and_emotion/Book/2013/Developmental_changes_in_motivation) which worked great for my dichotomous key lesson! So, I think the lesson worked well for the students cognitive development needs!

The lesson I made gave students plenty of opportunity to be creative and unique, which I think is important for the students because most of them are probably struggling with an Identity vs Role confusion crisis in their junior high age. It is important for them to be able to be creative so they can see themselves as a unique individual, while still accomplishing the task that I set out for them. The opportunity to accomplish the task works well for the industry vs inferiority crisis because, as I explained before, it was set up with fail-safes so everyone could accomplish the task if they tried. This would be good for them feel a sense of accomplishment, instead of inferiority if they were to fail, which nobody did, they all did great! So, I think the lesson worked well for the students identity development needs!

I didn't really put anything in place for the students to develop their moral reasoning in my lesson. But, because they all seem to be in the conventional stage of moral development, they all just accepted the rules I laid out for them, and just behaved how I wanted them to. I'm not sure if this was because they are in the interpersonal stage, so they were just doing it to make me and the teacher happy, or if it was more the law and order stage where they just obeyed the rules of our classroom society. I didn't really question it, because it just worked out pretty easily for me. Plus, the lesson I planned didn't really have anything that would have caused moral issues, at least not that I'm aware of.

Like I mentioned in my Lesson Description post, I didn't think to actively form my lesson plan around a specific learning theory, but the one that it most closely relates to is the Information Processing model, because my goal was to use as many senses as I could cram into a little lesson as possible. But, now that I've gone through the module on modern constructivism, it would have been cool for me to use some of those models to teach the lesson. For example, I could have tried a Problem-based learning experience where I just told the students their assigned task, and let them have at it. I had a couple examples they could use as resources if they wanted to. It would have been really interesting for me to see what they came up with! But, that might have required a little bit more time than I had. For my future class, though, that is something I would like to do! So, the information processing theory worked well for my lesson, but I think modern constructivism might have worked better.

Lesson Description

Identify the learning theory (behaviorism, information processing, social learning theory, modern constructivism) that most heavily influenced your lesson. Use and underline vocabulary from the theory to describe how you implemented it in your lesson, providing specific examples for each term used.

The learning theory that most influenced the lesson I gave was Information Processing because I tried to use a lot of different senses to try and get the information to be converted to long-term memory instead of just being forgotten from short-term memory after a couple days. The lesson I gave was about making and using dichotomous keys. So, I first explained to students what dichotomous keys are, how scientists use them in the field, and then showed them a textbook sized dichotomous key I had used in one of my classes earlier this year. So, by explaining it, I gave them aural stimulus hoping to activate their echoic memory. And then by showing them a visual stimulus, I hoped to activate their iconic memory. Then, I had some students volunteer to come up and we made a dichotomous key based on their T-shirts. Again, this used both visual and aural stimulus. Once we had made the dichotomous key, I had the students go through the key with me a few times to rehearse what we had done, so they would have a better chance of remembering how to do it. Then, I divided the students into groups and handed each group a baggie of different candies, and had them make a dichotomous key to differentiate the candies from each other. This was a rehearsal of what we had just done as a class, and added touch and haptic memory to the aural and visual stimulus. When they had made their key, they had to get it checked off with either myself, the TA, or the teacher, and then trade keys with another group to practice their keying skills (more rehearsal). When everyone had had turns practicing and were sure they knew how to do it, they were allowed to eat their candy. Technically, they might have been getting an olfactory memory from the smell, but all the candies were in wrappers, and since I’m sure most of the students were already exposed to those candies in other contexts, I doubt they made a long-term memory from the smell of the candies.

When I did the lesson, I wasn’t actively thinking “I need to use the Information Processing Theory to teach this lesson”, I just wanted to use as many senses as possible because I knew that would increase understanding, and hit as many different learning styles as possible. But upon further inspection, it's really cool how nicely it fits into the Information Processing Theory. I'm betting most lessons fall nicely into the different theories, and we just don't realize how they are being influenced. It is cool to know the theories though so we could intentionally apply them and get better results, more motivation, more student involvement, etc in our different lessons.

Modern Constructivism

Modern Constructivism: How does the teacher use modern constructivist techniques (e.g., discovery learning, inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, etc.) to promote student learning? Be thorough in your coverage of the theory, addressing multiple concepts to demonstrate your understanding. Cite specific examples and be sure to include a reference in your response. 

In the class I've been observing, the teacher is really good about using technology in a constructivist way as opposed to the behaviorist way I always used it in school. She uses computer games that really teach the students the concepts, and explains why they are right or why they are wrong.The technology I used in school was usually just online flashcards type of thing. One of the websites she used is called learngenetics.com and has tons of these really cool games that the students enjoy, and that really help them to solidify their understanding of the topics. Another one the students are crazy about is called CellCraft. She has been using it since the beginning of the year, and lets the kids play it sometimes when they have finished what they are supposed to do for the day. I'm not totally sure how it works, it seemed to be pretty complicated to me, but they are crazy about it! That's such a cool integration of technology into the classroom. The only technology thing that got me excited in school was a Bill Nye video, or Oregon Trail. And neither of those are as engaging and educational as the games I've observed in this classroom.
She also uses Problem Based Learning techniques pretty often. At first it even kind of bothered me because she would give them a problem and let them try to figure it out, without really giving them any background information. I didn't see how they would be able to figure it out, but they did!
Jigsaw is another technique I have seen used frequently, it's a fairly simple one. But, whenever I've been a student in a class that uses Jigsaw, I do become the "expert" on my topic, but then don't really learn from the other kids in my "learning group". I've always felt like it was high-pressure to become an expert, and then after that it didn't really matter because I couldn't be held accountable for the rest of the information because how is the teacher supposed to know if they taught it to me accurately? (I was apparently a pill in highschool).
Service Learning is the model that I find most compelling to use in my future biology class. There is so much that could be done in the community that relates to biology. Any sort of conservation, or animal-related service, or growing vegetables like in that video, would be awesome things to have my students use! This article (http://www.uwec.edu/SL/students/examples.htm) lists ideas for service learning projects in various content areas, it gives a few examples for biology, but there are so many other options that are available too. I could have students go volunteer some time at the animal shelter, or go help the conservation corps get rid of some Russian Olive Trees. There are so many videos of kids doing service learning activities on YouTube. Some of them are full blown organizations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRfE3CpTLUA), others are just kids doing something they would be doing anyway, but attributing it to service learning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXmE9yLSN2I). There is just so much that could be done with this! I'm really excited to apply it to my real classroom. I don't know if it would be more feasible to only make them do it once, as like an end-of-year final project, or throughout the whole year. Maybe use it as an alternative to regular homework or something. I don't know, but it's really exciting to me!

Information Processing

How does the teacher work with the students' information processing systems to promote learning? For example, how does the teacher focus students' attention, help them rehearse new information, and encourage them to encode and transfer information? Evaluate the teacher's use of wait time as part of this process. Cite specific examples and be sure to include a reference in your response.

The teacher I observe is really good about lecturing as little as possible. She usually introduces the new topic, and then has the kids do some sort of activity that helps them start to really understand the content. This works great because it keeps the students attention focused on the teacher for just a few minutes, so they don't really have time to get bored. One of the units I observed focused on how cells make up tissues, which make up organs, which make up organ systems, which make up organisms. On the first day of the unit, she had the kids do three or four activities that went over that same concept again and again to help them rehearse that new information. Then, every day of the unit she did some sort of activity that had the kids practice that concept. This was a good example of distributed practice throughout the unit. Since the activities the kids did each day were all different, it was a great way for the kids to transfer the information they remembered from the class before, to the new medium they were using that day. This link (http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/learning/memory/classification-of-memory/memory-process/) describes how encoding has the potential to lead to storage, and then to retrieval for future use. The activities used in class are a great way for the kids to encode information from the first time they learned the lesson, to then store the information through the fun activities, and then to retrieve the information in the class periods following the unit introductory lesson. The teacher I observed is also really good at using wait time in her process. Unlike the teacher in Ferris Bueller, she waits for the students to process the question before she prompts them to answer. Sometimes, if nobody seems to be inclined to answer, she will pull names from "the beaker of fate". Basically, she's been a really good teacher to observe because she is awesome at her job!

Behaviorism

How does the teacher use behaviorist techniques (e.g., shaping, Premack Principle, token reinforcement systems, etc.) to help students learn? Cite specific examples and be sure to include a reference in your response. How do students respond to this instructional method? *Note: this question refers to learning rather than motivation. 

When I first started observing my cooperating teacher, she told me how she had been having a really hard time getting the students to stop flipping their water bottles. She told them that if they could refrain from flipping them, she would let them do a water bottle flipping lab. It worked! I never saw any students flip their water bottles until the day when they got to do their much anticipated water bottle flipping lab. This is a good example of using the Premack Principle because the water bottle flipping was a preferred behavior for the students, that was then used as a reward (positive reinforcement) for good behavior.(http://study.com/academy/lesson/applying-the-premack-principle-in-the-classroom.html) And, although there is not a core standard for water bottle flipping, there is a standard for using the scientific method, so it was not a waste of class time either!
One of the punishment techniques I've seen the teacher use is making a rowdy student move up and sit by her desk. I've never seen her make them sit there for the whole class period, just until they start another activity, then she'll let them go back to their seat. But although it works for the time he is at the other desk, it's not very effective once he is back to his original seat.
It's a lot harder to notice the way these techniques influence how the students are learning since I kind of jumped in at the middle, I'm guessing it would have been more apparent if I had seen the kids at the very beginning of the school year. But, I do think the way the teacher uses shaping and scaffolding together seems to be really effective because the kids usually seem pretty eager to learn new content.

Erikson/Marcia

Which of Erikson's psychosocial crises are the children in the class facing (may be more than one)? Which of Marcia's identity states seem(s) to be most prevalent? What specific teacher behaviors do you observe that either help or hinder the students to successfully navigate this crisis? What more could or should be done? Be sure to include a reference in your response. 

I'm having a really hard time deciding which of Erikson's stages seem to be most prevalent in the class I've been observing because there are a few different options. But I think the one that is most prevalent would be "Initiative vs Guilt". I say this because the students aren't given a ton of opportunities to take initiative. They are given an assignment, and told to do it by following the instructions-they aren't really given an power, or control over the situation. It had never occurred to me until now that this isn't an ideal situation. The assignments and games played in class are often times fun. But, there is definitely a lot of reluctance from the students in getting started, or staying on task. I think if they had more control over the activities, they would be more engaged and more willing to learn. (This is the article I was using to develop my definition of "initiative" https://www.verywell.com/initiative-versus-guilt-2795737). The other stage that seems really apparent in the classroom is "Intimacy vs Isolation" because they students are so social! With every assignment, at least one person will ask if they can work with a partner, to which Mrs. Harmon almost always says "yes". It's interesting to see how most of the students have friends they want to work with, but are content to work with the person sitting next to them if told to do so. But, there is one girl who does not seem to be a fan of working with others. One of the assignments was to read an article with a partner, and then answer a few questions together. As I walked past, her partner started to read aloud, but she responded to him by saying in a rather unfriendly tone, "read it in your head". I'm not sure if that means she needs to develop her intimacy, or if she just is not crazy about her deskmate. Either way, it was funny to see how different the responses to groupwork and socializing was. Another stage that I've heard in the classroom (although it has always been about a different teacher, not my cooperating teacher) has been the "Trust vs Mistrust" stage. I've frequently heard students complaining about how "Teacher So-and-so docked me points because they hate me" or something like that. I would be really surprised if any of the students in Mrs. Harmon's class said anything like that about her because she seems to be really fair with all of her students, and has a really good relationship with each of them. She knows all of their names, and can mentally keep track of how they are doing in her class, it's very impressive! 
I would like to say that the "Moratorium" state is most prevalent in the classroom, but that probably wouldn't be entirely accurate. Although the students are learning and exploring, and still developing ideas, there is also a lot of apathy. At least when it comes to content material, a lot of the kids seem to just be going through the motions, and not caring at all about what they are supposed to be learning. It's tricky to say this for certain though, since I really only know the students in the context of the science classroom. I'm sure outside the classroom, they all have different areas where they are in different states of identity. I think Mrs. Harmon does a good job about getting the students engaged in the classroom activities, but not so much in the actual information. It's more like she is sneakily teaching the kids something they don't want to learn. I think it would be helpful to give more real-life examples and explanations of how the content connects to the real world. Otherwise, it is just going to be passed off as useless information.

Physical Development

Describe how the teacher implements a consideration of the students' physical development and/or Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Model into instruction, assessment, and/or procedures. What more could/should the teacher do in this regard? Provide specific examples and be sure to include a reference in your response. 
In the classroom I've been observing, the teacher is pretty good about keeping the kids moving for at least part of the day. I've never seen her have the class sit down and not move for the whole period. Even if the movement is only to stand up and get a worksheet, then sit down, then stand up and turn it in, it is something! But, usually she does more than that. In the class I observed just yesterday, she had different stations set up around the room and the students had to go around to each one and answer questions based on the different specimens that were at each station. I've never seen her do an activity that is anymore physical than that though (but in fairness, she does have very limited space, and only the kids on the ends are really free to move). During assessments, movement really only occurs when students go to hand in their quiz. Procedures are where most of the seemingly trivial movement comes in. Students have to stand up and find their bell ringers, then when they are finished, they have to stand up and put their bell ringers back in the basket. It's not very significant movement, but it's enough to change the pace just enough that I think it helps to get everyone to stay on track a little bit better. I would love to play some of the more physical activities that were presented in the MSE article, but a lot of them would need to modification to work with the curriculum. I really liked the "alphabet soup" one though, that could be modified a whole bunch of different ways, and it would be really fun!
I found this article (http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/field_day_games.shtml) that has a few really general games to play in a classroom, like 4 Corners, that would be fun to adapt into the curriculum. For example, in 4 Corners, instead of labeling the corners as "1,2,3,4", I could label them as "Mammal, Reptile, Bird, Fish" or something like that. Then, I could have the person that is "it" give a description that would eliminate one of the 4 categories. So, they could say "has hair" and that would kick out everyone standing in the mammal corner. That way, it would still be a fun, physical activity, but it wouldn't be totally unrelated to the content. We could adapt into pretty much any unit.

Vygotsky

What evidence do you see of specific teacher behaviors that are geared toward Vygotsky's theories of cognitive development? Cite specific examples and make clear connection to Vygotsky's work. Be thorough in your coverage of the theory, addressing multiple concepts to demonstrate your understanding. Be sure to include a reference in your response.

In the class I've been observing, the teacher does a lot of group work. This serves the dual purpose of getting the kids more excited and engaged, and from Vygotsky's point of view, it aids in the cognitive development of the kids by means of social interactions and acts as a form of scaffolding. It also gives the kids who are struggling an opportunity to get help from their partner (the more knowledgeable other), or if they can't figure it out together, they can ask another group for help. This article (http://www.childdevelopmentmedia.com/articles/play-the-work-of-lev-vygotsky/) talks about how problem solving with the mediation of a peer can be a great way to scaffold the information and help them get into the zone of proximal development. A lot of the activities I have observed have been categorization activities. For example, the students were given a stack of cards that had different types of cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, and organisms. They had to categorize the cards based on level of organization, and on the type of cell, tissue, etc. Those activities are a good example of high order thinking skills since it required the students to analyze and evaluate what was on the cards before placing them in the correct category. This was one of the first activities that was done in that unit, so the students didn't have the levels of organization memorized yet. I think starting out with HOTS activities is a better idea than starting out with LOTS activities because by analyzing or evaluating something, students will automatically have a better chance of remembering and understanding the information. One day in class, the teacher had four different activities for the kids to do that related to the exact same concept. This was a really good way to ensure that the kids were able to internalize the information through repetition. Plus, these activities were pretty fun game-like activities, which is a great way for students to internalize information.

Kohlberg

At which of Kohlberg's levels of moral development are the students in your class functioning? Cite specific evidence and explain your reasoning for selecting these levels. What did the teacher do, or what might be done, to help the students advance to higher levels with regard to the examples you supplied above? Be sure to include a reference in your response. 

I'm having a really hard time determining which moral development stage the 7th grade students I've been observing are probably at. I think a lot of it is circumstantial, and could be argued to fit into more than one stage. They don't cheat, but I don't know what they are thinking, so I don't know why they don't cheat. But, I would argue that in this instance, lots of them are in Stage 1 of Pre-Conventional Morality because they are scared of being punished if they were to be caught cheating. I bet a lot more of them would cheat if they knew they wouldn't get caught. (I sometimes think that when I'm stumped on a test question.) But, some of them are probably in Stage 4 in Conventional Morality too, since they wouldn't cheat even if they knew they wouldn't get caught because they would feel guilty. This article kind of mirrors my reasoning, in that multiple stages could be possible for cheating, just depending on how you want to argue it: https://siobhancurious.com/2007/08/21/cheating-and-moral-development-part-3/.
As a whole though, I think most of the students generally follow the rules because they don't want to be seen as a "bad kid". This would put them in the Conventional Morality, Stage 3 group. They behave because their friends are behaving, their peers are behaving, their parents want them to behave, etc. They aren't necessarily behaving because they really want to.

Piaget

What evidence do you see of specific teacher behaviors that are geared toward Piaget's theories about cognitive development? Cite specific examples and make clear connection to Piaget's work. Be thorough in your coverage of the theory, addressing multiple concepts (e.g., stage(s) of development, process of adaptation/equilibration) to demonstrate your understanding. Be sure to include a reference in your response. 

The teacher I observe is really good about incorporating both concrete operational and formal operational techniques into her lessons. The two classes I've been observing are both 7th grade classes, so they're all either 12 or 13 years old, so they're probably in the Formal Operational stage, but there is a lot of gray area between the two stages, so some of the kids could still be in the Concrete Operational stage. This works out great with the way that the teacher teaches. She usually gives the new vocabulary words and has the students brainstorm about what they think they mean, and try and describe them. Then, she almost always has a learning activity that the students do before they discuss the more abstract concepts. In fact, she usually has multiple activities. These are great ways for the students to enhance learning in the Concrete Operational stage because it gives them a real-life learning experience, instead of just reading it in the textbook, or listening tot he teacher describe it. This article talks about "discovery learning" which is basically what is happening in the class I've been observing. Although, the type of activities I've observed seem to be more structured to not allow very much misunderstanding.  (http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/5352). And, I would say that when the students are using multiple senses like in the classroom activities, they are more likely to get the new information into a state of equilibrium since the multiple senses give them multiple facets to assimilate the content.
After these activities, she opens up the floor for more discussion using the new concepts the students have learned about. She lets them adapt or assimilate the new information by letting them give their ideas to the rest of the class. For example, last week the lesson was on traits and genes. She asked the students what the difference was between the two terms. My favorite response was something along the lines of "traits are like in Harry Potter where Harry is a really good seeker because his dad was a really good seeker, and Harry didn't even have to have Madam Pomfrey teach him how to fly, he just knew how. So, when Draco stole that Remember-globe from Neville, Harry just flew off and got it". The whole class totally agreed that this was a good definition of a trait. It was funny (not just because of the three Harry Potter trivia mistakes) because they had all been giving slightly different meanings to the two words, but everyone seemed to agree with everyone else's contrasting ideas and somehow assimilated them into their rough understanding of the word "trait".

M&M&M Analysis

Write a one page, single-spaced paper (or blog post) responding to the following prompt:

Based on your field experience observations to this point, what are the students' needs with regard to:

1. Metacognition
2. Mindset
3. Motivation

For each of these areas, write a robust paragraph analyzing the students' needs and how you plan to address those needs when you teach your lesson. Use and underline vocabulary from the theories as you complete your analysis and to justify your plan.

1. Metacognition is basically "learning how you learn". This isn't a really easy thing for me to evaluate as an observer. But, I have noticed that most of the students in the 7th grade classes I've been observing seem pretty content with just doing whatever the teacher wants them to do. For example, when starting a new unit, she gives them a notes sheet with fill in the blanks for them to use as a study guide for the rest of the unit. I haven't noticed any of the students choose to take notes in a different way. Which is not a bad thing, they all get the answers they need and have something to use as a resource. But I wonder what their note-taking techniques will be once they have to fend for themselves. I remember when I was in 7th grade, I never took real notes because I didn't feel like I needed them-it was all pretty self-explanatory. This was fine in junior high and high school, but once I got to college, I didn't know how to take informative, efficient notes. I would basically just try to hurry and write down every single thing the professor was saying. Because of this, I think it's really important to help students figure out what works best for them. So, when I teach my lesson, I want to also teach the visual notes technique that we covered earlier this unit. This will give the students an alternative option to bland note taking, and will help them figure out if this is a good technique for them to use. And, I think if they had more freedom in their note taking, it would allow them to feel more freedom in their learning as a whole. It would help them transition from passive learners, to active learners as they are allowed to develop a conditional metacognitive approach that they could choose to apply in any of their other classes as well. The only problem with this, is the fact that it won't be perfect on the first try. Visual note taking seems really unnatural the first few times. Since I probably won't be teaching more than 1 or 2 mini lessons, they might not have a chance to really solidify how they feel about this technique. But, hopefully it will be enough to spark their interest, and give them an alternative to the boring note taking.

2. Mindset is incredibly important in junior high! I would assume that most elementary school kids come into junior high with a growth mindset, but that it can very quickly change to a fixed mindset as they start comparing themselves to their peers and feel the mounting pressure of a higher level of education. In the classes I've been observing, most of the students seem willing to explore new concepts, actually seem interested in learning, and are not just putting down answers to get a good grade. But, there are definitely a few that seem to have resigned themselves to failure. And interestingly, the only students I've noticed who appear to have a fixed mindset are females. I'm not sure exactly what it is about girls and science, but it is definitely consistent with the self-worth concept we covered in class: Males tend to overestimate themselves, and females tend to underestimate themselves. This is very apparent when the teacher asks for someone to volunteer an answer, there are way more boys willing to share their opinion (even if they are consistently incorrect) than girls willing to share theirs. But, I would still say most of the girls in class have a growth mindset about the subject, but for whatever reason, they aren't willing to share their ideas, and that's fine. Where I feel like I'm getting the most conclusive fixed mindset vibes is when I'm walking around the class as the students do an activity or worksheet. There are 4 girls in particular who seem to be pretty set in their presumed state of failure. I'll go around and ask them if they need any help, and they will say things like "I'm not good at science" and try and get me to just give them the answers instead of helping them figure it out for themselves. I try and encourage them to think about the material in a new way, and applaud them when they start to understand, but it is really hard to change their opinions on their own intelligence. I honestly don't know how to address those needs when I teach my lesson. The only ways I can think of to help this would be to have multiple small activities where the students can go over the material multiple times at their own pace. And to ask a few questions before the lesson that they don't have any base of knowledge for, then ask again after the lesson so they can easily see how they have learned something since the start of the class period.

3. Motivation is probably one of the most important things for our students. In the two classes I've been observing, there are only a handful of students who seem to have little, or no motivation to do their own work. But, they do all have strong social goals. They would much rather talk to (or get answers from) their friends than do their work. This only seems to be a problem when the students are doing independent work. When the teacher has them doing group work, they are actively engaged and seem to be having fun. I would say this is an interesting combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. They are extrinsically motivated by their social goals, but they are also intrinsically motivated because they are more likely to get into a "flow" state where they don't even realize how much time has passed while they are doing the activity. Plus, when they are doing group activities, they tend to have a lot more fun (cognitive and emotional arousal), so they are more likely to remember the information. Not only that, but when they are working as a group, they feel like they will succeed in the task set before them, so they are way more likely to try. I actually hadn't planned on using a group activity until I started writing this, but now that I'm really thinking about it, group activities are awesome! The teacher I've been observing does group activities all the time, and I guess I just never really considered why. But, obviously she knows what's up: group activities are a great way to motivate students to learn, much better than scaring them into learning so they will get good grades. But even with group activities, I think relevance is the most important motivator. Or really, irrelevance is the easiest way to un-motivate someone. At least, this was true for me: if a lesson wasn't relevant, I didn't care; if there was a fun, but seemingly irrelevant activity, I labeled it as busy work. So, in the lesson I give, and in all future lessons when I'm a teacher, I want to make sure to relate most, if not all, of the content to something applicable to the students lives, or show them why the information is important. And by combining both group work, and relevance, I think the motivation for the students to learn will definitely go up.

Motivation

Extrinsic motivation is so much easier to identify than intrinsic! In the classroom I've been observing, there are a lot of extrinsic motivators. The teacher calls on the students by using popsicle sticks with their names on them. Because of that, the students want to understand so they don't get embarrassed in front of the rest of the class. That's maybe not the best way to motivate a student, but it's definitely effective. All of the students also are motivated by grades at least to some degree. Some of them want to get an A, some only want to pass. I know some students aren't motivated by grades, but all of the students in the class I've been observing definitely seem to be, hopefully that doesn't wane after 7th grade.
I think the teacher I observe is really good at making all of the students in her class feel like they belong. Again, maybe it's just an abnormal class, but there are always group activities and everyone seems really comfortable working with each other. This isn't obviously an intrinsic motivator, but belonging is one of the main points of the self-determination theory, which seems to me like it is closely related to the growth mindset theory and thereby intrinsic motivation. If the students feel like they belong, they are less likely to worry about looking foolish for asking questions, or be interested in an "uncool" subject. So, if they feel like they belong, they are more likely to allow themselves to develop an interest and some intrinsic motivation to go with it.
Motivation is probably the biggest issue I experience as a student. Especially in high school when I really didn't care about the topics, it was really hard to stay motivated by anything besides the grade. I think it would have been really helpful to me if my teachers talked about the relevance of their topics more than they did, or if they tried to make it more fun. Those are both definitely things I really want to do in my classroom.

Growth Mindset

In the 7th grade science class I've been observing, the most obvious way the teacher promotes a growth mindset is by encouraging the students. Whenever she calls on a student who doesn't know the answer, she is always positive and never belittles them or anything. One thing I would do differently if I were her is her popsicle stick name drawing technique. I think it's a great strategy to call on students, but once she takes chooses one name, she takes it out and puts it into a bag. She keeps doing this until all of the kids have been called on, then empties the bag back into the jar. The problem I would expect to see from this (although I haven't actually seen it happen yet) is that once a kid is called on, there won't be any reason for them to pay attention, or try and work out the questions she asks the class because there isn't a possibility for them to get called on. I think it would work better if she put the names back into the jar, even if that's not totally fair to the kids that have been called on already, it would keep them all on their toes. I think that would encourage a growth mindset because that would encourage them to keep learning.
A really hands-on way the teacher encouraged a growth mindset was when they were dissecting a frog. She gave them instructions on what to do and what to look for, but once they finished that they were allowed to explore the frog however they wanted to. Initially, most of the kids weren't excited to do a dissection. They were all pretty grossed out. But, once they started getting into it, they really started to enjoy it, and were genuinely curious about what else they could find. It was a really low-stress situation for them to just explore the frog and ask whatever questions they wanted. It was really fun for them, and really fun for me to watch them!
One more thing I've noticed about this teacher: she frequently uses activities on the SmartBoard that are really only for one person, but the whole class helps out that student. For example, one of the activities was an online game where it would tell you which organ system this empty body needed. The student would then have to drag the right organs into the body. Only 1 student could do the game at a time, and I think only 2 students ended up doing it. But, the whole class was involved and encouraging the one student who was up at the board. It was fun for all of them to collaborate together like that.

This article talks about 4 simple strategies you can use to encourage a growth mindset in your classroom. I hadn't previously thought of collaboration of the students until I read this: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-10-24-4-ways-to-encourage-a-growth-mindset-in-the-classroom

Assessment

I've been observing a 7th grade integrated science class at Lehi Junior High School. The first day I was there, the teacher gave a formal, summative assessment for their unit final. They used laptops to take a 15 question, multiple-choice quiz. The assessment also included one free response question on a separate sheet of paper where they had to draw and explain osmosis. It was definitely a valid assessment because they had covered the exact same information in class, she even reviewed with them the exact information right before they took the quiz. The quiz questions seemed reliable to me, and based on the positive scores most of the students got, I don't think they had any issues with the clarity of questions. It was practical since the classroom already had laptops, and they only used 1/2 sheet of paper each to answer the free response question. It wasn't entirely fair though. Even though each kid had the same test questions, some of them had a hard time logging in to the system, and some of them read faster than others. I'm sure this created an anxious environment for the ones who didn't finish as quickly as the others.
The teacher I observe does informal, formative assessments pretty much all of the time. She always has activities for the kids to do (matching, categorizing, etc), and she goes from group to group to see how they are doing, how much they are understanding, and helping them out whenever they have questions. This technique is super valid, since it's occurring while the instruction is happening, and it's fair because everyone in class has the same resources. I have noticed some instances of a lack of reliability though. This morning, the objective of the activity was for students to sort about 20 really small pictures into either "cells" "tissues" "organs" "organ systems" or "organisms". Most of the students knew what they were supposed to do, and probably would have gotten most of them right, if they could figure out what the tiny little pictures were supposed to be. As I was walking around the class, I found that the only help most of them needed was clarification to what they were looking at.

This article talks about the four points of an assessment we talked about, fairness, validity, practicality, and reliability, but it also adds a fifth element: usefulness. It talks about how an assessment should be useful to the student in their learning, and should provide feedback.
http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/celt/pgcerttlt/assessing/assess3.htm