Mini project 2-- teaching and learning theories spring 2015

Editor's Notes

• #3: I am going to discuss 3 specific theories and approaches to learning… , their main proponents, and their implications to knowledge and learning, the role of the teacher, students, as well as examples of teaching applications and strategies
• #4: The behavioral approach to learning emerged from the scholarship of Skinner and his followers who emphasized the importance of antecedents and consequences in changing behavior. Learning is defined as a change in behavior brought about by experience with no concern for the mental or internal proceses of thinking. Behavior is just what a person does in response to environmental influences.
• #5: Learning is nothing to do with the state of the mind. Learning occurs with acquisition of new behavior. Learning happens with the observable set of behavior. Learning happens if there is an incentive
• #6: The behaviorist teacher sets-up/ creates the learning environment, supervises and is control of the learning process. The teacher’s role includes: providing stimulus materials and prompting the correct response. Errors that occur during the learning process are viewed as cues for insufficient conditioning. Without repetition and proper conditioning, students will make mistakes.
• #7: In the behavioral perspective, the learner plays a passive role. The learner’s role is to wait and receive instruction/information, respond to stimuli, and practice until the behavioral change is permanent. No critical thinking involved. The purpose of education is to ensure that a student has appropriate collection of responses to specific stimuli and that these responses are then reinforced. Behaviorist teachers in school assume that students retain the knowledge and skills they learn in school so they can apply them in situations outside the classroom in the real world.
• #8: Many experienced and expert teachers use behavioral teaching approaches in their classrooms. The guiding principles they apply include: setting clear and specific goals/ learning objectives, establishing standard procedures for use of reinforcement & punishment in their teaching / classroom management, recognizing & giving praise to positive behavior, and attributing student’s success to effort and ability to build confidence. List on the slide are examples of the application of behavioral theory to classroom teaching. These are: …. The FBA is a collection of methods or procedures used to obtain information about the A – B and C to determine the reason or function of a problem behavior. Information from this assessment, could be used in developing a behavior intervention plan The PBS are based on FBA. These are interventions designed to replace problem behaviors with new desirable and appropriate behaviors. DI involves explicit teaching. It requires a sequence of carefully structured presentations and activities to help ….DI is directed by specific skill – based instructional goals and objectives that is the same for all students. Students learn pre requisite skills required for each new skill. Traditional teacher – directed methods and materials such as lectures / drills / worksheets are used. Much stress and focus is placed on individualized work.
• #10: Listed on this slide is what I think are the strengths and weaknesses of Direct Instruction. I believe that DI helps in acquiring procedural knowledge and aides in enhancing performance of a task. Research show that DI is found to be effective with at risk students as it focuses on building foundations of thinking/learning -- knowledge, comprehension, and application level in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Lessons and objectives are easy to observe and can be measured accurately. Studies show that students who receive DI tend to do slightly better on achievement tests. Listed in the right column are the weaknesses of the DI approach. The DI process is teacher centered. The learner plays a passive role and is given very limited choice in activity and opportunities for self-exploration / experimentation, and critical thinking. Instruction is kept on a factual level and emphasis is placed on rote learning. Research show that students test slightly worse on tests that require abstract thinking (creativity, problem solving, application )
• #12: Cognitivism refers to the study of the mind and how it obtains, processes, and stores information. This theory was a response to behaviorim. It was argued that not all learning occurs through shaping & changing behaviors. John R. Anderson has been long been at the forefront of the study of cognition, with accomplishments that have informed the way cognitive psychology is investigated, applied, and taught. The goal of his research is to understand the structure of higher-level cognition. His work has focused on analyzing the brain to get information about what is happening "under the hood" as people perform a complex task. This information is being used to help design instruction that will enable students extend their knowledge beyond the procedures that are taught. 
• #13: Cognitivism believes that there is a fixed body of knowledge to acquire. Information comes in as input, the mind processes the information, and informaiton is stored away to be retrieved later. Learning is shaped by acquired learning strategies and prior knowledge and attitudes called schemas.
• #14: Cognitivism is suited well for problem solving, where the concepts are complex and must be broken into smaller parts. Ideas and concepts from these problems are linked to prior knowledge, which in turn helps the learner develop new information and stronger comprehension.
• #15: The cognitive view of learning is teacher centered. Information must be presented in an organized manner in order to achieve the most efficient learning. The role of the cognitivist teacher is to assist the learner’s application of the proper learning strategies. They view errors as unsuccessful attempts to understand, order, and act upon their environment in ways that make sense to them.
• #16: Cognitivist teachers create an environment with lots of tools for developing and understanding ideas and concepts. Teachers provide a variety of instructional strategies, and resources to help extend student’s understanding, ability to build on current schema for better recall of knowledge & experiences, and help learners control their own learning processes (metacognition)
• #17: In the cognitivist perspective, students play an active role. They process and organize new information, control their own learning, build on schema, strategize, and work collaboratively with others to converse, problem – solve or complete a task. Cognitivist learners learn by selecting information to be learned, thus engaging sensory registration, processing and manipulating information into knowledge, utilizing short-term memory, and finally, by committing knowledge held in short-term memory to long-term memory where it is stored and from which it can then be retrieved.
• #19: Some of the most important applications of cognitive theories are teaching students how to learn and remember by using learning tactics and strategies. Learning strategies are a special kind of procedural knowledge – which is “knowing how to do something.” Most of the teachers’ goal is to be able to teach students to “learn how to learn” Listed are some of the teaching / learning strategies linked to the cognitivist approach. Most of which im sure weve used as students… and probably still currently using in our day to day tasks. These learning strategies and approaches aid in information processing & storage and provide ways to give students more control over their own learning by developing and improving their own metacognitive processes.
• #20: Listed on this slide is what I think are the strengths and weaknesses of the Cognitive Learning Perspective . In cognitivism there is an organized structure to learning. Students are active participants in the learning process. It encourages and helps learners to learn to think and think to learn. This is also well suited for problem solving. Listed in the right column are the weaknesses of Cognitive Learning Perspective. The cognitive approach to learning is teacher centered. Learning is very structured and may be difficult to adjust when changes need to be done.
• #21: Constructivism is the study of a learner’s own formation of knowledge. Knowledge is constructed through one’s own personal experiences and interactions with the outside world. The learner takes in new information and gives meaning to it using his or her own prior attitudes, beliefs, and experiences as reference. One way to organize constructivist views is to talk about two forms of constructivism – the first one being… Psychological/Individual Constructivism. In 1985 Jean Piaget introduced this form of constructivism in which knowledge is constructed by either assimilation or accommodation. In assimilation, incoming information is associated with a schema, and in accommodation, incoming information does not match a schema Thus, the schema must be changed to accommodate this conflict.
• #22: Lev Vygotsky introduced social constructivism in which social interaction with others helps the learner put meaning to information. He noted a Zone of Proximal Development, in which learners can develop a certain level of meaning on their own but can grow even greater after interacting with classmates and instructors.
• #24: In Psychological / Individual Constructivism, schemes are developed as the basic building blocks of thinking. Two processes are applied to schemes. Assimilation involves trying to understand or fit the new info. with what we already know. Accommodations occurs when a person must change existing ways of thinking to respond to a new situation. Piaget’s perspective was less concerned with “correct” representation & more interested in meaning as constructed by the individual. Knowledge comes from reflecting on and coordinating our social environment as an important factor in development. He did not believe that social interaction was the main mechanism for changing thinking In the 2nd type of constructivism, knowledge is socially constructed. Knowledge is built upon what participants contribute and construct together. Environmental factors and elements such as: cultural, symbolic, & psychological tools, social interaction, and activities play very important roles in cognitive development. Examples of Cultural tools (real tools) : printing press, rulers, calculators, computers, internet; Symbolic & psychological tools : numbers, mathematical systems, different forms of language such as braille, sign, maps, art work, signs, codes. Higher order mental process such as reasoning and problem solving are facilitated and made possible through use of these tools
• #25: In the constructivist approach to learning, teachers are not seen as an authority figure, but as a learning guide. The teacher facilitates activities in which students are responsible for their own learning. The three main roles/tasks a teacher performs in a constructivist environment are: Modeling, Coaching, and assistance with scaffolding. Constructivist teaching places more emphasis on sensory input – having learners actively involved in activities and “the bigger picture” or the world around them.
• #26: Constructivist teaching places more emphasis on sensory input – having learners actively involved in activities and “the bigger picture” or the world around them. Learners are in charge of building their own knowledge based on prior knowledge and experiences. Instead of having a finite answer, constructivism teaches that the learner to create the answer as they see it. Students are encouraged to raise questions, challenge answers, interpret information, and build on their on knowledge of the world through their own experiences.
• #27: Examples of teaching approaches for Psychological / individual constructivism include conceptual change thinking, and pure discovery learning. These approaches focus more on the processes involved as the learner acquires, analyses, and constructs their own understanding to build knowledge through experiences in their own environment. Teaching approaches under social constructivism are: cognitive apprenticeship, reciprocal teaching, and cooperative learning Cognitive apprenticeship is where a master of a skill teaches that skill to an apprentice. Much learning occurs when children interact with more competent individuals such as adults and teachers. Through a process of scaffolding, a teacher can gradually guide students to develop their knowledge and skills while making connections with students’ existing schemes. According to this view, teachers have a central role in providing guidance and support to learners Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity in which students become the teacher in small group sessions. Teachers model, then help students learn to guide group discussions using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting The individual constructivist and social constructivist perspectives emphasize different paths towards knowledge construction, but there are important commonalities. They both require methods such as modeling, coaching, scaffolding, articulation, reflection, and exploration.
• #28: Listed on this slide are what I think are the strengths and weaknesses for the constructivist approach to learning. I believe that constructivist methods are student focused… learners are not just recipients of information. They are active participants in their learning and are able to engage in a variety of activities, and interact and discuss with one another. This perspective also is more tolerant of different cultures and encourages diversity than other theories as well. Listed in the right column are what I perceive are weakness of the Constructivist approaches to learning. I noted that it being highly student centered may cause lack of structure and opportunities for learners to acquire information/ develop skills in a more direct and speedy manner. Students are expected to be able to engage in high order thinking levels. – such as creative and critical thinking and problem solving.
• #29: The cartoons depict a comic interpretation of the theories and approaches to learning as well as some portrayal of issues teachers have in implementing associated strategies in their classroom. The picture on the top left hand corner represents behavioral & cognitive approaches to learning VS constructivist approaches to learning. The picture on the top right portrays the irony of applying constructivists strategies but with a traditional teacher who is set in his ways – possibly with DI. The picture on the bottom right depicts how certain theories and approaches to learning are more appropriate and effective if applied to certain subjects / body of knowledge. In this cartoon, DI seems to be a more popular and efficient way to teach math.
• #30: This slide is for the class. Tell me what you see is depicted and portrayed in these cartoons.
• #31: A balanced approach to teaching involves the integration of the best features and practices of the different theories. I have listed six things/aspects to consider to guide teachers in decision making / assessing when, why, how, and to whom these specific theories and approaches to learning would be beneficial. If the goal is to help students master information or be more proficient in a skill, I believe that the behaviorism or cognitivist approaches would be the best methods to use. If learners are more mature, capable of a certain level of self-regulation, and have an ample amount of relevant knowledge to build and construct upon. Then use of constructivist and cognitivist methods would be effective. This could be used for science education, creative work & tasks (writing process), as well as learning discussions related to principles /concepts in government, economics, mathematics, history, etc.