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