Activity 7.5

In the article, Seven Reasons Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work, Pink discusses the negative effects of rewards and punishments. In her opinion, giving rewards and punishments often “give rise to cheating, addicting, and dangerously myopic thinking” and in fact, “they can give us less of what we want-and more of what we don’t want.” (p. 2) Pink’s explanation for rewards having an ill effect is that they diminish intrinsic motivation and transforms an interesting task into drudgery.  On the flip side, Pink does explain that rewards can be effective when the activity is routine and uninteresting. (p. 62)

I can see how Pink’s opinion about rewards and punishments aligns with the social cognitive perspective. This theory focuses on the impact that self-efficacy plays on students’ motivation to learn. Instead of providing rewards or punishments to improve motivation and self-efficacy, Pajares discusses the teacher’s role to “improve the competence and confidence of the students in their charge. They can accomplish this by working to improve their students’ emotional states and to correct their faulty self-beliefs and habits of thinking (personal factors), improve students’ academic skills and self-regulatory practices (behavior), and alter the school and classroom structures that may work to undermine student success (environmental factors).” (p. 340-341) In addition, Pink advises, “praise and positive feedback are much less corrosive than cash and trophies.” (p. 67   ), Therefore, teachers should value and consider nontangible rewards.

 

Pink’s article doesn’t align with the Behaviorists Theory which argues that through reinforcements we can modify behavior and motivation. Pink discusses an experiment which looks at the effects of rewards on performance. In this study, researchers found that “higher incentives led to worse performance.” (p. 40) This is contrary to the Behaviors idea of behavior modification.

I believe that Pink would say that failure to learn is due to failure to motivate students. Failed motivation is done by making learning boring, redundant, and providing rewards for activities that students already enjoy. Each theorists would say that failure to learn is due to a different foundational component of their learning theory.

In my opinion, the recipe for success differs with every student. But teachers should learn their student’s personal, environmental and behavior factors. Determine each individual student’s interests and dislikes. Aim to cultivate a relationship with the student and strengthen their self-efficacy. Provide meaningful rewards to students for routine activities and take time to offer non-tangible rewards.  Just like any recipe, you can add to or leave out any ingredient to adjust the flavor of success.
Questions I still have:
1. What causes a person to have a fixed or growth mindset and what role does nature and nurture play in this?
2. Can a person's mindset be changed? For example, can a person with a growth mindset develop a fixed mindset or would this only be considered a moment of weakness or defeat? On the other hand, can a person with a fixed mindset develop a growth mindset? I think a lot of people have fear of failure. What happens when a person gets over their fears of failing in a particular area? Could they then be considered to have a growth mindset?
3. Can students have high self-efficacy despite certain environmental factors such as parents that are negative, unsupportive and emotionally abusive?  

Activity 7.4

Activity 7.3

There are a few misconceptions in regards to the social cognitive theory, which Bandura discusses in his article, But What About the Gigantic Elephant in the Room. The first misconception of this theory is that, “modeling, constructed as imitation, could only produce response mimicry.” (p. 2) In reality, modeling involves students abstracting information and reproducing it to “generate new versions of the behavior that go beyond what they have seen and heard.” (, p. 2)

The next misconception deals with the scope of modeling. The critics argue that modeling doesn’t build cognitive skills because, “thought processes are covert and are not adequately modeled actions, which are the end-products of the cognitive operations” (p. 2) This notion is incorrect as cognitive skills can be observed and models verbalize their reasoning strategies.

The third misconception argues, “Modeling is antithetical to creativity.” (p. 3) However, Bandura argues that diverse modeling allows innovativeness and new characteristics which “differ from the original sources.” (p. 3)    

Another misconception, pertains to the Bobo Doll experiment on transmitting forms of aggression through social modeling. Research shows that the exposure to modeled aggression, “ can teach novel aggressive styles of conduct; weaken restrains over interpersonal aggression by legitimizing, glamorizing, and trivializing violent conduct; desensitize and habituate viewers to human cruelty; and shape public images of reality by how it represents social and power relations and the norms and structures of societies. (Bandura, p. 3) Bandura explains that the Bobo Dolls were designed to clarify observational learning and not to teach aggression.

A key point made in the article is, “the social cognitive theory is founded on an agentic perspective toward human self-development, adaption and change. To be an agent is to influence the course of events by one’s actions.” (p. 4) According to this theory, people contribute to their life circumstances rather than just being products of them. To summarize, when providing modeling to learners, students take what they’ve viewed, contribute and expand upon it, and in doing so demonstrate their cognitive abilities.

I personally agree and connect with Bandura’s social cognitive theory of social modeling. As an educator, it’s imperative to model instruction to young students to aid in their comprehension. I always begin a lesson by modeling a basic component of the content, scaffold instruction for students to perform the task and then increase the content rigor and observe the students independently apply these concepts. At first students are mimicking the modeling what they’ve observed, but upon further practice the students develop and contribute their own understanding to the content.

I've found that social modeling opens the door of understanding to students that struggle to grasp concepts, are too shy to ask questions and would otherwise be inattentive. Students also love when they get to perform modeling for their friends or the class and "pretend" they are the teacher. It's exciting to see students enjoy learning and anticipate when it's their turn to model what they've learned.

Activity 7.2

An area of my life in which I hold strong self-efficacy is my ability to instruct children. As an adolescent, I worked with children, volunteered in classes and taught at camps. I was strongly influenced by my dad, who was an educator and I was encouraged by my own experiences with students.  My mentors and experiences built my foundation of confidence and passion for teaching children. Upon entering college, I knew I’d study education and use my skills to instruct children. Similarly, Pajare believes, “competent functioning requires harmony between self-beliefs on the one hand and possessed skills and knowledge on the other. Rather, it means that self-efficacy beliefs help to determine what people will do with the knowledge and skills they possess.” (p. 342) I had strong self-efficacy about teaching and possessed strong skills, which guided my beliefs and desire to become a teacher. On the other hand, I had weak self-efficacy and skills to be a doctor. Therefore, applying this same concept, my beliefs were guided that pursuing a medical degree wouldn’t be the right choice.

Activity 7.1

Behavior Factors:

·         Self-control and or self-discipline

·         Awareness and or alertness

·         Student’s attitude toward school, learning and teacher

·         Student’s self-respect and self-efficacy

·         Student’s feeling of acceptance by peers and teacher    

Personal Factors:

·         Cognitive abilities

·         Student’s strengths, weaknesses, skills, prior knowledge

Environmental Factors:

·         School and classroom environment

·         Home life including stability, nourishment, and shelter

·         Parents education and cognitive abilities

·         Parents attitude about content, school, teacher  

Behavior Factors directly influence a student’s personal factors when it comes to learning.  A student’s attitude toward school can negatively or positively influence his or her cognitive behaviors. For example, Sarah doesn’t like her math teacher and she performs poorly in math because she doesn’t listen, regularly misses class and doesn’t complete assignments.  Although, Sarah’s cognitive abilities are strong and she’s always been an excellent math student, her negative attitude toward her math teacher impedes her learning.  On the contrary, Sarah loves her new reading teacher and this positively influences her cognitive skills in reading. Sarah’s been an average reader but due to her positive attitude toward the reading teacher she’s now out performing her peers.

Similarly, environmental factors such as instability and nourishment can influence a student’s alertness or feeling of acceptance by his or her peers. Personal factors can also impact environmental factors by causing more tension in the classroom or at home. All three factors influence one another and inhibit or encourage the student’s ability to learn.  

Activity 6.5

I find Clay Shirky’s article, Why a leading professor of new media just banned technology use in class, interesting and relatable. In more recent years, I’ve found myself and others to be more inattentive and easily distracted. I connect this disengagement to Shirky’s statements, “Multi-tasking is cognitively exhausting” and “People often start multi-tasking because they believe it will help them get more done. Those gains never materialize; instead, efficiency is degraded.” Yes, technology does have its place, but it’s often pulling us in different directions and replacing deep meaning making opportunities with shallow ones. Thus, our quality of attention is diminished, our understanding disconnected and we are left in a cloud of second hand smoke, that permeates and fogs our minds. Paying attention is a constant effort, and technology use during instruction diverts the learners’ attention. Therefore, I agree with Shirky’s decision to ban technology in class, unless it’s required.

Activity 6.4

The marshmallow test is fascinating to me because it demonstrates the direct connection between self-regulation and future success. I believe that the students ability to self-regulate their attention, will focus during instruction, instead of follow every whim or distraction that floats into the room. Learning isn’t always immediately rewarding or enjoyable but it yields fruit, which takes patience, self-control and determination. Although, these qualities are hard to come by in a “drive-thru” and immediate self-gratifying culture, I’ve observed students deny themselves, only to be rewarded later.

One good example, is the “buck” system that I had in my classroom.  Students that stayed on blue every day were paid a dollar. The color blue meant that the student followed the rules, completed their work and attended school for the entire day. Students could earn extra money for answering questions in class, being kind or helpful to others, or staying on task. Every Friday, the class store was open and students could “buy” items such as candy, pencils, bouncy balls, and other fun toys. Two of the most expensive items at the store were lunch with the teacher which costs $40 and extra computer time which cost $30. I observed students buy from the store and this was my observation. Many students with only a dollar or two would rush over to buy their candy or toy every week. They immediately wanted their reward, always spent their money and sometimes went into debt because I charged them money when they needed to borrow a pencil or didn’t turn in their homework.  Other students used self-control and saved their money week after week.  These students had a goal in mind and focused on attaining their goal.  Interestingly, the students that exercised self-control were my highest achievers. They weren’t always from a higher socio-economic status, actually some of them were rather poor. However, these students were very determined, responsible, and self-regulators. 

My example of the “buck” system, reminds me a statement in Self-Control in School Age Children, “self-control is the voluntary regulation of attentional, emotional, and behavioral impulses when immediate temptations conflict with more enduringly valued goals.” (p. 200) Everyone has impulses, but it’s the people that exercise control over impulses, that will glean from the teacher’s instruction during distractions, stay up late to study on a Friday night, and be the first to person in the family to attend college.  Just as learning is the process of problem solving, successful learning is the process of self-regulation and self-denial.

Activity 6.3

In this chapter, James opens up and admits, “the free-willists believe the appearance to be a reality [and] I myself hold with the free-willists.” (p. 93) This is perhaps, his most candid statement about the subject, as James often dances around “hot topics”, leaving the reader to wonder about his views. Another great remark that James makes, “to think, in short, is the secret of the will, just as it is the secret of memory.” (p. 91) I enjoy this statement because it demonstrates that although we have inhibitions we can and should think before we act upon them. Similarly, Robert Richardson summarizes James views by explaining that to will is to believe, and belief and action are the same. Our actions demonstrate our will, which in turn resemble what we believe. This sheds light on James’s opinion about the will; that it’s an observable behavior, which reveals the inward man.  

James continues in his talk by going into detail about the will or voluntarily action. In fact, he claims that there are two types of will, which include impulsions and inhibitions. The impulsive will is when inhibitions have no time to arrive, ideas discharge into action rapidly. The inhibition will is broken into two types. Inhibition by repression, in which the “inhibited idea and the inhibiting idea the impulsive idea and that negates it, remain along with each other in consciousness, producing a certain inward train or tension there.” (p. 93-94) Next is inhibition by substitution, “the inhibiting idea supersedes altogether the idea for which it inhibits, and the latter quickly vanishes from the field.” (p. 94) This was rather vague, until James explained that the teacher’s response to the students’ diverted attention by redirection would substitute for the distraction. I’ve experienced students’ attention being diverted and attempted to repress and substitute their attention. I have found that some students respond to repressed inhibition but the majority of students were still distracted. Whereas, substituting students’ attention seems to pull in the majority of the students and they forgot about the distraction.

Activity 6.2

I can connect to the Math Needs a Makeover discussion because I’ve worked with students that have a lack of initiative and an aversion to word problems. I agree with Dan Meyer, that the curriculum being taught doesn’t teach students how to problem solve but rather creates impatience with resolution.  Many of my past students simply wanted a math formula and were reluctant to converse about math problems or attempt to think or even solve the problem.  This also makes me think about the information processing perspective that problem solving is analogous to learning. Therefore, when students aren’t able to problem solve or refuse to, they stop the process of accommodation and learning doesn’t take place. 

I found Tom Wujec’s results in the Marshmallow Challenge, interesting and relatable. The kindergarteners performed very well on the challenge because their approach was better than the businessmen. Also, according to the cognitive constructivist perspective, students are active learners that construct knowledge based upon past experiences.  The kindergarteners most likely had prior experience building and used those skills during the challenge.  In addition, the social constructivist believe that social interaction is important in the process of learning and development.  In this activity, the children were able to use prior knowledge and discuss their ideas with one another. First, I was surprised that the children out preformed the business men, but similar to my own experience as a teacher, students often have hidden skills and or experiences outside of the classroom, which the teacher knows nothing about.  

Activity 6.1

According to the information processing approach, problem solving is a key component to learning. The readings explain that learning is a process of assimilation and accommodation. When assimilating, a person experiences the familiar and incorporates new information easily. However, when learning the unfamiliar a person experiences a problem and must accommodation. According to the article, Recognizing, Defining, and Representing Problems, “when faced with any type of problem, an individual brings to the task his or her experience with similar problems, such as the knowledge about the domain and the individual’s expectations or intuitions about how to approach the problem.” (p. 19) However, approaching unfamiliar content using prior experience and intuition, won’t solve the problem, instead a person must think non-routinely. Therefore, all of learning is a process of assimilating and accommodating, experiencing the familiar and unfamiliar and solving problem after problem.

Activity 5.4

In the book, The Shallows, Carr describes the struggles that he and many friends experience when reading and focusing on a book. He attributes these struggles to the technology overload, which has changed the way that humans attend, receive information and stores memories. Carr explains, “the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” (p. 6) As a result, people aren’t able to “process” information the way they did prior to the influx of technology, and this has negatively impacted learning.

In addition, learning, storing and retrieving information has gone from focused and linear to disjointed and overlapping, changing the make-up of our brains. In fact, Carr explains, “the influx of competing messages that we receive whenever we go online not only overloads our working memory; it makes it much harder for our frontal lobes to concentrate our attention on anyone thing. The process of memory consolidation can't even get started. And, thanks once again to the plasticity of our neuronal pathways, the more we use the Web, the more we train our brain to be distracted-to process information very quickly and very efficiently but without sustained attention. (p. 194) Similarly James describes, “the total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties.” (p. 57) Therefore, if one part of our “faculties” isn’t working, such as our ability to mentally attend, receive or retrieve information, then the man isn’t mentally efficient.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Activity 5.3a

The video, Your Brain is You: Learning and Memory, discusses how the memory is used in the learning process.  Dr. Eagleman explains that when something is learned it causes a change in the brain. The brain works as a system of networks that functions by making associations.  Dr. Eagleman stresses the importance of connecting instruction to prior knowledge so that student can learn and maintain the information on top of their preexisting experiences. He also mentions that humans use the senses to perceive information and to make connections. For example, if we smell coffee we immediately connect that smell to what we already know about coffee and this help us to expect that someone is drinking coffee.

Dr. Eagleman’s explanation of making associations is connected to James statement, “We always try to name a new experience in some way which will assimilate it to what we already know.” (p. 78) Another connection to Dr. Eagleman’s discussion about coffee is how in information processing the brain receives an input and pushes that to the sensory registers. Humans use their senses and to retrieve prior knowledge from the long term memory and explain that they are smelling the coffee.   

Activity 5.2

During this week’s readings about memory, I was able to make connections from James perspective to the constructivist information processing perspective and to the article, The Critical Role of the Retrieval Process in Long Term Retention. James and the constructivist’s information processing perspective both support the idea that the mind needs a “cue” to retrieve information. Specifically, James states, “the cue determines its vast set of potentialities toward a particular point. And if you now look to see how this happens you immediately perceive that the cue is something contiguously associated with the thing recalled.” (p. 59)

I really enjoyed James description of the brain, “each of the associates is a hood to which it hangs, a means to fish it up when sunk below the surface. Together they form a network of attachments by which it is woven into the entire tissue of our thought.” (p. 61) James’s last statement is aligned with the constructivist’s information processing point of view, which also identifies memory as a network which makes associations with information.

Finally, I noticed a connection between James and the article, The Critical Role of the Retrieval Process in Long Term Retention. James describes the retrieval process and associations, “but if we remember because of our associations, and if these are due to our organized brain paths, we easily see how the law of recency and repetition should prevail. Paths frequently and recently ploughed are those that lie most open, those which may be expected most easily to lead to results.” (p. 59) Similarly, the article describes the retrieval process, “the idea is that retrieval of information from memory leads to elaboration of the memory trace and/or the creation of additional retrieval routes, which makes it most likely that the information will be successfully retrieved again in the future.” (p. 24) These statements both explain that as information is constantly retrieved the paths become “plowed” and memory retrieval becomes smoother.

As a student, I can personally relate to making associations and retrieving information in order to understand the content that I’m currently studying. For example, I’m currently taking a sociolinguistics course and I’m required to retrieve the morphology, syntax, semantic and phonetic content that I learned in linguistics. In addition, I’m required to make new associations to sociology and connect ideas with my prior knowledge about society and language. The more I learn and retrieve my prior experiences, the more the paths are “plowed” and information becomes readily available. Given the right “cues”, I make connections, associations, retrieve and build deeper networks of memory.

Activity 5.1

I believe that learning does depend on memory. If we haven’t memorized the activity, information, process or experience then we haven’t really learned. I think that we if “know” something and do not act upon it then we haven’t really learned it. A concrete example is when children are taught the color blue. The child might be able to point to the circle and say blue after you’ve shown them.  But the next day, when you ask the child to find a blue object and they cannot, it’s because they haven’t really learned the color.

Sometimes people need to be reminded of things, and although he or she has “misplaced” that knowledge, the information is stored in their memory and he or she still understands the concepts. Again, I’ll use the example with the color blue. If the child can’t show you a blue object but you remind them that they see something blue every day. The child might remember that the sky is blue. Then, the child can connect their understanding of the color blue to locate a blue object.  

I think we remember things that we wish to forget because these things are seared into our minds and connected to bad experiences or deep feelings. Since feelings are senses it’s easy to recall the bad memories every time we are reminded by a song, a scent or a picture.  

Activity 4.5

Type a brief reflection in response to these short-term memory exercises. What did you learn?

I learned that my short term memory is weak. I often forget information due to time constraints and complexity.  It was easier to chunk the information when it was all presented at the same time rather than flashed quickly on the screen.  I also learned that recalling interesting facts, such as country names came rather easy, whereas remembering random letters proved to be difficult. I find it interesting  that old information can be lost due to new information and vice versa. After analyzing pictures, I completely forgot the sequence of the numbers which was previously an easy task to complete.

Activity 4.4

Kirschner and van Merrienboer’s article analyses and dismisses three urban legends in teaching and education.  I personally concur with the authors on points made about students as “digital natives”, the ineffective diagnosis of learning styles, and the internet savvy self-educator. The author’s goal is to prove that “although widespread, widely believed, and even widely implemented as well-meaning educational techniques or innovations, they are not supported by scientific evidence.  (p. 178)

The term butterfly defect is new to me but I instantly connected with students fluttering across information on technology devices and quickly moving to the next piece of information. My students have displayed the butterfly defect while using the computer or iPad for reading or math support. I’ve observed my students clicking away, unaware of the valuable information presented, only to fail their assessments.

In addition, I agree with the authors that students don’t learn only one way, instead, a student can learn in multiple fashions. The article used the term “pigeon hole” to explain how students were being put into distinct groups instead of fitting into several different groups. In my experience, using one particular learning style to teach a student, would limit the student, the teacher and cause frustration as learning and teaching becomes tedious.

Thirdly, the authors explain that the influx of information on the internet has led to the “Googlification of education, a watered-down version of resource-based learning.” (p.176)  While it’s important for students to be self-motivated and inquisitive learners, students shouldn’t be permitted to teach themselves how to research, explore and find valuable information on the internet. I agree that many students “trust the first thing they see” on the internet and they are trusting in unreliable information. (p. 176) Student’s need supervision to browse the internet, yet alone, need guidance and education about how to properly use and sort through information on the web.   

Activity 4.3

I selected the University of Minnesota video, “What babies teach us about perception”, because it provides an insight into the human mind as to how information is received and distorted. Although babies can’t communicate, the babies’ reaction to the object tells researchers that the human mind compensates and plays tricks when it perceives an image. This is connected to learning because humans also perceive distorted information and unknowingly compensate in order to understand. The statement, “when there’s not enough information the brain makes assumptions”, is congruent with the power point on sensory registers. In this power point it’s argued that “the human brain can be fooled into perceiving reality into a manner that’s not congruent with reality.” This video taught me that humans are unaware when they distort information and teachers need to be careful so that students accurately perceive information.  

Activity 4.2

Chapter 11 Summarization

In chapter 11, James explains that in order to keep the learners attention the teacher must present information in an interesting manner. James says, “Let your pupil wander from one aspect to another of your subject, if you do not wish him to wander from it all together to something else, variety in unity being the secret of all interesting talk and thought.” (p. 56)

As a educator, I use several methods of delivery, concrete examples, visual stimulations and sensory objects to present information and keep the students attention. The book, Inspiring Active Learners provides strategies that help students stay engaged in the lesson, maximize their attention span and learning. Some of the strategies include, think alouds, learning centers, giving students jobs or responsibilities, partner work, keep lessons flowing, guided discovery, group work, and individual assignments.

Harmin, M., & Toth, M. (2006) Inspiring Active Learners. Available from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/103113/chapters/List-of-Strategies.aspx

Chapter 14 Summarization

In chapter 14, James describes apperception as “the act of taking a thing into the mind.” (p. 77) James explains that humans use their prior knowledge to assimilate the information but when the learner isn’t familiar with the content he or she will rearrange the “previous system of beliefs”. (p. 78) However, the process of rearranging often is challenging and unwelcomed as “we instinctively seek to disturb as little as possible our pre-existing stock of ideas.” (p. 78)

During whole group instruction, teachers often use schema to draw in students’ background knowledge and engage their attention in the lesson. I’ve observed young children struggle to rearrange their beliefs about the content taught, especially with abstract concepts such as main idea and author’s purpose. According to The Theory of Teaching and Elementary Psychology, using appreciation in instruction is both negative and positive. It’s negative because it limits the student to the prior knowledge that they’ve attained. On the other hand, it’s positive because it provides a foundation of information that students have learned and can presently use. (A. Sailsbury, p. 273)

Salisbury, A., (1905) The Theory of Teaching and Elementary Psychology. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=cP1EAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=using+apprception+in+teaching+elementary&source=bl&ots=SyC-ZiDmyC&sig=bNjOEzY9JS4UG78eTZ6KwceeD2E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mfQiVJKzA46TyAT9xYHYBA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=using%20apperception%20in%20teaching%20elementary&f=false

 

Activity 4.1

According to Cognitive information processing perspective, meaningful learning occurs when the learner has met the following conditions; learner must have selected relevant information, organize that information into a coherent whole by making connections and integrate the information into the appropriate existing knowledge.

The critical characteristics of processing information are outlined in the Dual Memory Model. According to this model, learners receive an input from the external environment, process this input through their sensory registers, then move input to the short term memory, into the long term memory and finally retrieve the input from the long term memory and push it to the control executive process and short term memory. The control executive process is the least understood component of the memory. However, input passes back through this area in the brain in order to be retrieved for specific purposes.

The sensory registers influence how input is perceived and processed because it is the modality through which all input is received. If one part of the sensory registers aren’t working accurately then the input is distorted. The sensory registers include attention, perception, sensory, duration/intensity, and imagery, the role of the context, physical environment, physiological environment, and meaningfulness. 

Activity 3.5

Discussant Role:

The strengths of B.F. Skinner’s perspective are that the students’ interactive behavior demonstrates that they understand the content. However, observing behavior alone can be deceiving as the group work allows struggling or shy students to get lost or left behind during the group activities. The strengths of Lev Vygotsky’s perspective are that the lesson permits scaffolding and assisted learning. However, the adult-student interactions are limited and although misconceptions are discussed at a group level, they are not addressed on an individual level with struggling learners. The strengths of William James perspective are that the students have received an impression and are reacting and expressing that they’ve learned the material.  However, this same strength is a weakness as not all students have the opportunity to be individually formally assessed. This leaves the instructor without a clear understanding of the students that have mastered the mathematical concepts and the students that are struggling. The strengths of Piaget’s perspective are that the students enter disequilibrium in order to solve the equation and that students assimilate and accommodate information in order to achieve equilibrium. The weakness of Piaget’s perspective are that the lesson requires students to have schema about the content. In addition, the teacher assumes that all students are equally familiar with terms, content and strategies necessary to solve the equation.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lbUgQZDDj0sDsljBXRICr8A_RPEHx9cgyCAK50Z201k/edit?usp=sharing

Activity 3.4

O’Donnell would recognize that the new school environment that Bart is placed into has examples of endogenous, social, and dialectical constructivism. The first example of endogenous constructivism is when Bart is instructed for math. The teacher expects Bart to have some kind of “schema” about the math computation that she’s reviewing. Bart’s math lesson can be compared to O’Donnell’s statement, “the environment requires the use of existing structures and prompt the creation of new ones.” (p. 62-63) In addition, Bart is permitted freedom to explore during lab experiments which O’Donnell explains as “instruction is to promote the development of logical thinking through the child’s exploration of the environment.” (p. 63)

Examples of social constructivism are the social interactions that takes place during class debate and discussions. Similarly, O’Donnell explains, “learners participate in a community of learners and construct meaning from the discourse practices in that community.” (p. 63)

Lastly, dialectical constructivism is shown when Bart’s able to choose his class assignments and “learns to direct his activities.” (p. 63)

Activity 3.3

Vygotsky’s social constructivist theory states that learning cannot be independent of social forces and the importance of assisted learning. Through assisted learning and social interaction, the student can be instructed at their ability level and their zone of proximal development will be the students’ actual development level the next day. So what a child needs assistance with today he or she will be able to complete independently tomorrow. (Mind in Society, p. 87) A real life example is when a teacher guides a student how to add two digit numbers without regrouping and the next day observe as the student independently solves similar problems.

Vygotsky believes that the social interactions between the instructor and the student plays an essential role in the student’s cognitive development.  James supports this idea in Talks with Teachers, “the child will always attend more to what the teacher does than to what the teacher says.” (p. 46) According to Vygotsky, not only will the child attend more to the teacher but the child will also learn more due to this social interaction and assisted learning.  James also states that the educator's principle task is to "break up bad associations or wrong ones, to build others in, and to guide the associative tendencies into the most fruitful channels." (p. 42) Again, James supports the teacher’s role as the guide in the learning process which connects with Vygotsky’s beliefs that assisted learning is essential to cognitive development.

Activity 3.2

 

Piaget’s stages of development follows four sequential stages which begins at birth and stretches across a person’s lifetime.  At each stage the learner is achieving cognitive development and building upon their past experiences in order to understand the present cognitive challenges. 

Similarly, James states, “That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of logically associated or systematic whole.” (p. 49) In essence, James is expressing that humans make associations with information and build upon their prior knowledge just as Piaget’s stages of development follows a cognitive progression.  James statement also supports cognitive constructivism because it follows the idea that students are “active” learners that assimilate or accommodate information as they learn.

Activity 3.1

Piaget’s constructive learning theory describes learning as an active construction process in which people learn through their own activities. The purpose of the instructor is to help student construct meaning. Constructivists believe that the individual is “active” and that individuals seek cognitive equilibrium or “self-regulation” in order to understand and categorize information.

The learning process can be broken down into an organized construction process.  The learner begins with disequilibrium which is the major source of motivation.  Next, the learner adapts to his or her environment and organizes knowledge through the equilibrium process of either assimilation or accommodation. A learner assimilates when they fit new information in to their existing knowledge structures.  However, when a learner can’t assimilate the learner will accommodate by modifying their existing knowledge structures to fit reality.