Module 7 Reflection

In the early 1900's, psychologists wanted to prove and create psychology to be a field of science such as biology and chemistry. Currently, psychology is a legitimate field of science know for the study of mental processes. There have been many theorist along the way that believe mental processes or learning takes place in different ways. Some of the theorist that I have connected with or tend to relate to would be Pavlov, Skinner, Watson, and Thorndike. Ivan Pavlov's idea of classical conditioning can be altered to fit into a classroom if you get your students into a "habit" they tend to know what to expect. A lot of times, when kids know what to expect, they tend to relax. On the other hand, if you break routine it can cause confusion. I believe this is where class rules and expectations are learned-practicing over-and-over. B. F. Skinner's operant conditioning is a useful theory of learning because it deals with positive and negative reinforcement along with punishment. I frequently use these three aspects of Skinners learning theory while dealing with behavior in my class. If you can get a child's behavior under control, then they are in a place to learn. John Watson's theory of behaviorism incompasses Pavlov's and Skinners ideas on behaviors. Edward Thorndikes theory of connectionism is important because he feels a connection has to be made before learning can take place. Just as a rat must connect to the idea that if he pushes a bar, he can get to the food on the outside of the cage. One thing that struck me during this lesson was teaching kids to make connections during science. Thorndike suggests to let students work on labs or hands on activities before they read the lessons. This allows them time to make connections to the reading material, and then information becomes part of their knowledge. These aspects of the learning theories are my "take-aways" from some of the lessons.

Module 6 Reflection

In the article Advice about the Use of Learning Styles: A Major Myth in Education, there is a huge industry of books tapes, and consultants that have developed around learning styles in education. Some researchers felt that students who understand their learning styles improved their learning effectiveness in and outside of the class. Other researchers said that the better you know how you learn the more you should be able to concentrate on your study task. Based on researchers, there are several questions that need to be asked: First, are learning style instruments valid and reliable? Second, do students benefit when the type of learning matches their learning style. Third, is their evidence that learning styles improve concentration, memory, self-confidence and reduces anxiety? When answering whether or not instruments are valid, one must look at the "face validity" and "construct validity". A second battle, one must see if the instrument is reliable. As good as it sounds that teaching students in their learning style is good, there is no evidence to support this theory. This thought was based on the lack of well-designed investigations.
In the article The Myth of Catering to Learning Styles, the thought that children learn best when instruction is tailored to their learning style seems like it would be true, but, research has shown otherwise. Research has shown when students are taught according to their learning style they become overconfident in their ability to learn, and they put less effort into learning the content. On the other hand when students were taught in ways other than their learning styles, they felt the task was more difficult, thus putting more effort into actually learning.
Two ideas teachers should keep in mind when teaching lessons are that concrete representations should precede abstractions, and new information is always filtered through prior knowledge.
Teachers toward students' preferred learning styles has no solid research. Teachers need to scaffold between concrete and more abstract representations. Finally, when students struggle to understand a lesson, teachers need to look at both the nature of the content as well as the prior experiences of the student.
Both articles today present research that show when learning styles are used to teach, it does not benefit the student. On, the other hand, it may do more harm for the child than good. While reading the articles I was amazed at how much research was shown that teaching to specific learning styles does not benefit the child. After learning this fact and seeing the research I'm sure it will alter the way I teach my lesson in science. One of the articles mentioned you should do hands on activities prior to reading the text. It was also mentioned that a teacher should offer a wide array of teaching strategies. One valuable lesson I learned from the text is to try to vary my teaching strategies or styles and not limit myself to PowerPoints and quizzes.

Ed Tech 504 Module 5 Reflection

The purpose of this article (Using Constructivism in Technology) was to identify and categorize the different views of constructivism, how they relate to each other, and explain their position in the field of education. The major forms of constructivism can be divided into two major categories. The first defines the constructivist position as on one end of a line as being objective, and the other end of the line being subjective. In this instance, the educator will either focus on increasing the learners ability to understand an objective reality, or on the capacity to understand more deeply the perceptions and sense of reality. The second category of constructivism defines knowledge as either socially constructed or individually constructed. Even though both views of constructivism are different, they have one belief in common. Both views believe we construct knowledge based on what we already know and believe learning is an active process. There are several different positions of constructivism. First, cognitive constructivism (critical constructivism) views learning as an actively constructed individual thought process. This view focuses on the individual, but acknowledges that we interact with our environment or social settings. The next position is Radical Constructivism, or Extreme Constructivism. This views that knowledge is based on our environment and experiences. Similar to cognitive constructivist, educators need to view learning as an individual process. However, cognitive constructivism sees the role of the educator as a catalyst, the radical constructivist views the educator as the guide or coach to learners. This position feels educators should not impose on the learners particular way to learn. Two more positions are situated constructivism and co-constructivism. Co-constructivism is the most prevalent form. This is sometimes know as symbolic social interaction. This position feels we actively build meaning and knowledge socially through language. Although each position of constructivism has different beliefs, they all agree the educator is a guide or helper and content is secondary to the learning process. While writing this reflection I realized that constructivism is divided into two main sections. One being objective/subjective and the other is socially or individually constructed. This idea has brought made constructivism seem more clear. If I were to look around my classroom the majority of my students would be social constructivist because they work better in social settings.

In the article, The Real World on a Short Leash, Several theories of constructivism are discussed. For educational technologist, there are three important theories, collaborative learning, apprenticeship, and cognitive flexibility. Collaborative learning believes that knowledge takes place in social settings where students are encouraged to work with others. collaborative learners do not believe you learn in isolation. Apprenticeship views mental abilities and knowledge as deeply embedded in the social realms in which they are used, and that less experienced learners are taught or led by more experienced peers. It is a natural learner - tutor arrangement. The cognitive flexibility theory explains that a well structured problem is on in which we are given systematic ways to decide when a proposed solution is acceptable. As an educator I can see where these type of constructivism could be seen in the classroom. In my classroom I tend to have a lot of collaborative learning where students work in social settings and help each other. Along with this idea, apprenticeship is similar to peer tutoring because my lower functioning students learn from my higher functioning students.

Ed. Tech. 504 Module 4 Reflection

A popular question among researchers today is how does the brain work and how do thought processes develop. Two developments that have helped scientist in their studies are the PET and FMRI imaging machines. These technologies have helped researchers look directly at the human learning process. There seems to be separate areas of the brain that specializes in different things such as hearing words, seeing words (reading), speaking words, and generating works (thinking). Coordinating and practicing these skills encourages learners to move easily among speaking, writing, and listening. There are two types of memory processes, declarative and non-declarative. Declarative memory deals with facts and events in a persons life, whereas non-declarative deals with skills and other cognitive operations. Research has also shown that the mind is always at work storing and recalling information. When a series of events are presented to someone in a random order, that persons mind will reorder them into a sequence that makes sense to them when they recall the info. One thing researchers have found is that practice increases learning. There is growing evidence that the mature and developing brain are altered when learning occurs. The brain is an influential organ, that is shaped by experience and by what a person does and has done.
The new information I picked up from this article is that the different areas of the brain specialize in different things such as hearing, reading, speaking, etc. Another "take away" for me was that memory is broken into two categories declarative and non-declarative. One thing that I will become more aware of as an educator is that some students learn better by hearing and seeing words while others need to read or think. The more practice students have helps their minds work more efficiently. One piece of information that I received from the text is that the mind is always at work storing and recalling information.


(CLT) has a working memory with a limited capacity when dealing with novel information. Our long term memory has a unlimited amount of space to hold cognitive schemas that has a variety of complexity. The working memory in a person is made up of about seven elements for storing information and two to four elements for processing information. Cognitive schemas organize and store human knowledge and greatly reduce working memory load. There are three types of cognitive load, intrinsic, extraneous, and germane. Intrinsic cognitive load is the relationship between information being learned and the level of expertize of the learner. Extraneous cognitive load are not directly necessary for learning and can be altered by interventions. Germane cognitive load deal with processes directly associated with learning such as schemas.
New information I obtained from this article is that our cognitive schemas are held in our long term memory. I also learned that the working memory in a person is made up of about seven elements used to store information and two to four elements to process information.