Contract #4

1. What are you doing well? I think that I learned the material pretty good. I worked hard when working on my own and when we had to work in groups.
   
2. What are you not doing well? At the end I felt a little rushed because I didn't stay up on reading the chapters. I also procrastinated a little on doing the bigger projects, which added unnecessary stress.
3. Are you making sufficient progress on your goals? I do think that I am and getting better at being a self regulated student. I stayed caught up for most of the semester.
4. List specific things you need to change in order to meet your goals. In the future I will need to start on larger projects as soon as I get them. It is easier to get them done early rather than later. I need to make time to do the reading, but more so i think i need to review my notes later. I caught my self not reviewing my notes after the test or assignment. But If I will review them then I will remember the information better. In my future classes I will have to make sure that I tie the information to things that I already know. In this class that was pretty easy because I have already take a psychology class before that talked a little about these subjects. In my other classes I will have to make a conscious effort to do that.

Multiple intelligence project reflection.

This assignment was good. It was different from any assignment I have ever had, but that is a good thing. I made a board game dealing with Erikson's eight stages of development. This type of project would be under mathematical/logical. This assignment was more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Not because of the freedom that was given but by the complexity of the project I chose. I didn't have a really hard picking what I wanted to do but putting it all together is what took a lot of work. Making the cards was one of the hardest parts, because I couldn't just put like a definition down on them but had to make real life situation or scenarios that explain different parts of each step. This required me to had a really good understanding of the stages and what goes on in each one. I liked this type of assignment because even though it was hard it was really enjoyable because we were able to pick a way of doing it that we like and understand. Because of this assignment I believe that I will try to incorporate something like it in my own classroom to help my student be able to express and learn in a way that they enjoy and that is most beneficial to them.

Chapter 9 Case Study

Ch. 9 Questions:

1. Does Mr. Kessinger's class represent a community of learners as defined in Ch. 7? Why or why not?

It is not a community of learners because the students and teacher are not working together to come to an understanding of the concepts. The teacher just asks questions and either says it is correct or not. He doesn’t give feedback that would help them to think and to expand their understanding.

2. Does Mr. Kessinger utilize presentation punishment or removal punishment with Robin? Justify your response. I don’t think you can just pick one. I think that he showed signs of both punishments. He uses presentation punishment when he gives yells at her and gives her negative attention. He also uses removal punishment when he takes away her concept map and rips them up.

3. Explain Robin's reaction in Ms. Yamashita's class from the perspective of classical conditioning. She had been conditioned in Mr. Kessinger’s class that when a teacher came over to her desk, looked and picked up her work (stimuli) that then she would be yelled at and be made to feel horrible (response). Therefore when the teacher picked up her work she felt bad and had to leave.

4. How might Ms. Yamashita encourage Robin to create concept maps in the future? Include behavioral concepts such as shaping, reinforcement, etc., in your response. She can encourage and reinforce (shape) when Robin takes notes in class. Then move towards her make the concept map. By reinforcing her good behavior a lot at first it will help to break some of the barriers (bad conditioned habits).

Ch. 10 Questions:

1. Which teacher in the scenario demonstrates vicarious reinforcement? Justify your response with an example from the case study. Ms. Yamashita demonstrates vicarious reinforcement by telling the whole class how good Robin’s concept map is. By praising Robin’s work she is reinforcing that behavior for the rest of the class.

2. Is Mr. Kessinger considering reciprocal causation in his class? Explain your response, including all aspects of reciprocal causation in your reasoning. I do not think that he is considering it at all. Reciprocal causation is how the environment, personality, and behavior are interlinked and influence learning. If he had considered it then he would realize that his classroom environment does not promote learning. The stress level in the classroom is very high because of how he asks his questions and has no room for mistakes.

3. Which self-regulated learning process is Robin engaging in when she creates her concept maps? Explain your reasoning. Self-motivation is the process she is using. She is motivated to learn the material and write it down in a way that connects the concepts to each other. She doesn't have to do this but as she said to the teacher is it about learning and that is what she is was trying to do.

4. How do you think Robin's self-efficacy has been affected by this experience? Be specific about which self-efficacies have been affected and justify your response with examples from the case study. I think that her self-efficacy has gone down in Effort and Persistence, and also Learning and Achievement. She never took notes again in Mr. Kessinger’s class which is a sign that has lost some of her self-efficacy in the area of effort. Her self-efficacy also went down in the area of Learning and Achievement. You can see this also by her not taking notes. You cannot learn things if you are not participating in that learning.

Chapter 6 Case Study

1. After participating in this activity, what do you think the students will remember? How might those memories differ from those students would have if they only read about the Civil War in their textbook? They will remember how cool it was and how much fun history can be. They will get a more personal view of what history was like and what people really went through.
   
2. How does Mr. West’s use of a Civil War re-enactment engage students’ emotions? What is the relationship between emotions and learning? When people associate a thought memory or event a long with a strong emotion they retain it a lot more. It enhances their learning.
   
3. Based on the principles of dual-coding theory, what activities would be effective for Mr. West to use as a follow-up to the re-enactment? I think that a great activity is to do a mini re-enactment in the class, and write a paper about the life of someone in that time period.
   
4. Who do you think provides better instruction for his students? Support your answer from an information processing perspective. The second teacher would provide better teaching because of the different ways that the information is getting processed. Many different paths are being created to the same information.
   
5. How would you expect the students’ learning outcomes to differ depending on which teacher they had? I think it would depend upon the student but that generally the students from the second teacher would have a fuller understanding that would last with them for a longer time. Because of the variety of ways that they were able to learn the material. This way is aimed at many different learning styles instead of just one.
   

Contract review #2

1. What are you doing well? This section I have been doing really well. I have learned a lot of the things we have talked about in other psychology classes. So it has been good to learn about them again and in a little different way.
   
2. What are you not doing well? I think that I have been pretty good not too much to work on. Maybe to do the reading a little earlier and take better notes on it while I'm reading.
   
3. Are you making sufficient progress on your goals? I think that I am on track to reach my goals.
   
4. List specific things you need to change in order to meet your goals. I need to make more progress on my multiple intelligence project.
   

Chapter 3 case study

Ch. 3 Analysis Questions:

1. From a social development standpoint, how might we explain Laura's preoccupation with her appearance? In particular, consider this statement by Laura: "I don't want people to think I'm a geek!" Include information from Erikson's theory and social development in general in your response.
She is probably in the identity vs. role confusion stage. During adolescence kids usually focus a lot on others perceptions of themselves, because they are now able to think about things from others perspectives. They have what is called an imaginary audience. This is a time in their lives that they are trying o figure out where they fit in and she doesn’t want classified in the geek group because of the negativity the name takes with it.

2. In suggesting that Laura join the debating class, Ms. Watkins is hoping to pique an interest in classroom subject matter by capitalizing on Laura's desire to be the center of attention. What two other strategies might the school faculty use to motivate students who seem to be more interested in social matters than in academic pursuits?
One way I think would be is to talk about careers in the content area. To be able to talk about the perks of them and to let students know what type of work environment they have and the types of people they get to work with. And to be able to let them try out a little bit of what they might end up doing in the classroom.
Another way would be to have competitions in classroom with some recognition at the end. These would be done in groups where they have to work together to get it done. Another way that might work but might not be what we are looking for is the extracurricular activities and sports. Encourage students to be part of them because they are required to maintain a minimum standard of academic excellence to be able to participate.

3. From the perspective of Kohlberg's theory, in which stage of moral development is Laura? Justify your response. How might Mr. Marcalescu help Laura to advance her moral reasoning?
She is in a pre-conventional morality stage, because her decision making if only dealing with what she thinks is best for her and not taking into consideration all the extra work, time and strain that her idea would cause on people. She hasn’t really been able to internalize why pollution is bad but it is hard to get rid of because necessary things that we have cause it. Mr. Marcalescu could help her by asking her to put herself in those other peoples’ shoes, and see if she would like to have to run to the dump that is miles away and move away and go to a different school with no friends because it takes too much time to walk to school.

4. In what ways might a debating class contribute to students' cognitive, linguistic, social, and moral development?
Debate classes can be really good because it makes you have to have a reason for all the things you think and believe. It also makes you have to think of it from other people’s perspectives by having to defend a point of view you might not agree with. It helps students to be able to calmly take through disagreements. They have to be able to communicate the things they are thinking through words clearly enough to convince someone of their point. They learn how to deal with people that have different views than they might have.

Case Study #1

Ch. 2 Analysis Questions:

1. From the perspective of Piaget's theory, in which stage of cognitive development is Laura? Justify your response.

Although according to Piaget’s age groups she would be in the formal operations stage. She is in the concrete operational stage. She can only think of a thing that have physical symbols to them and is un able to understand and grasp the deeper questions and concerns that her teacher is bringing up. She can’t look at the situation from another person perspective.

2. How is Laura's reasoning affected by her knowledge base--that is, by what she does and doesn't know about pollution?

She only thinks that pollution comes from gasoline, so we should just get rid of all of it. She is right that getting rid of gasoline would cut down on air pollution, but she is doesn’t understand all of the things that our society depends on from gasoline. She doesn’t realize that there are many ways that pollution is happening. She doesn’t understand how landfills work and the amount of trash that people go through in a day or week. It sounds like she thinks this would be an easy thing to change and that it wouldn’t affect people’s lifestyle that much.

3. By posing a series of questions, Mr. Marculescu continually challenges Laura to reconsider her thinking about the pollution problem. What are potential benefits of this strategy? Use terminology from Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories in your response.

By doing this he is trying to create disequilibrium in her so that she has to think more. She is just assimilating the situation and he is trying to show that she needs to at least accommodate it. He is using scaffolding or guided participation to try help her come to a reasonable solution.

4. How does this scenario represent Piaget's and Vygotsky's conceptions of play?

She is able to act out the scenarios in a fun environment. She gets interested in it when she understands that people want to hear what she has to say. She is able to manipulate the scenario continually when the teacher brings up new things.