Personal Learning Theory

WHAT?

My results from the quiz were 42 Humanism, 46 Cognitive, and 40 Behaviorism..

Piaget's Cognitive Development: Piaget had some really good insights on how children learn and what stages they go through during this process. I think he is right when he says that there are four stages. I have witnessed children going through these stages but something that I disagree with is his insight of when children experience what and at what age. I believe each child in different and each one learns differently and on their own time. Some are slower learners whereas others may be faster. Something I really agreed with and liked about Piaget is his thought on Assimilation and Accommodation. I most definitely agree that students change their information so schema is met. Chanign old information to be consistent with the new is the way we as teachers should be teaching. We want our students to grow on what they know and grow with their education. I also agree that they need to use old information in order to come up with the idea of new knowledge. This is where students are able to make the connections to their learning.

Vygotsky's Cognitive Development: Vygotsky was mostly likely one of the main theorist I agreed with the most. I completely agree that students their from society and therefore make their learning a sociocultural world of learning. Which is the process of internalizing out to in. his steps he suggested children go through are very correct. Having other students or adults help each other is one of the best ways I believe we learn best. We are having the guidance and collaboration with someone that is more knowledgeable in a certain area help us. We are able to walk through the problems together and come to a conclusion which in return allows us to understand the content being learned. I think it is important for students to learn how to use self-talk because I believe that is a stepping stone by understanding yourself first before you share the information with someone else. Another thing I really liked about Vygotsky that I find valuable is his belief on allowing other students in the same age range helping in the less achieved students learning. This is helping both students understand the true concepts of the lesson. Scaffolding is also the key to a students achievement because once that is achieved they are able to focus on the ZPD.

Erikson's Psychological Development: I would say Erikson did a much better job at identifiying the stages people go through more correctly than Paiget. His steps are more spread out and are followed throughout a persons lifetime, not just a child's. I would be considered to be in his Generativity verse Stagnation. It fits a lot of what my life is going through right now. I am in my adulthood life time and accomplishments are very important to be and Eriksons expresses this in this stage as well. I observed a fourth grade class and they were in the Industry vs. Inferiority. My students were using their ZPD and Scaffolding skills. I saw the more achieved students helping those that needed clearer understanding. I do believe we all go through these stages and also look back on previous stages and experience some thoughts he mentions again. I believe it is a constant process and just because we change in age does not mean we do not experience some roles expressed in other stages.

Kohlberg's Moral Development: I also agree with Kohlberg's theories. I believe moral reasoning is more than what someone might believe in. It is the thought of what is right verses what is wrong. Children start out from the very beginning taking on the beliefs and roles of their parents and adult influences. They learn from the beginning that there are rules and that there are not any exceptions for these rules and that if you follow these rules you are a good boy/girl. If not then you are a bad boy/girl. As the stages move forward, they then learn that they need to follow their adults in their lives. They tend to take on their beliefs and their desires and don't change. I think instead of just assuming children should follow their leaders and adults, we should do better at explaining why and what happens if we don't. This will eventually allow them to make their own decisions and have their own moral reasoning.

Goleman's Emotional Intelligences: I completely agree with Goleman and the order he places the intelligences. One of the most important factors of emotional intelligences in the ability to understand yourself. I believe this needs to be done before you can understand others. Goleman follows that belief. Another thing dealing with the emotions is the fact we need to understand them before we can take charge and manage them. This will make life so much easier.

Information Processing: I believe there is a process that leads information to where it belongs in the brain. I agree that there are interference stages where information can easily be lost if not obtained properly. I really liked the visual aid we did in class showing how our memory works and the route the information we learn takes as it is trying to be processed. We make sense of the world and connect our learning by using our sensory tools. This made sense to me as it was first on the list. Then we have working memory (short-term memory) and Long term memory. If the information travels safely and is used effectively it should get lost and we should be able to recall it later in life as it is stored in our LTM. I also believe there are three different storage places which are semantic, episodic, and procedural. Depending on what we are learning is where it will be stored.

Knowledge Construction and Higher Order Thinking: Learning should involve application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. I think this is a great stepping stone for the kids to get introduced into a lesson. I think its good for them to compile information they have already used and make a prediction of what the new information is about and what it has to do with what is being taught. I believe students learn better when they construct their own knowledge and are able to answer questions on their own, however this is not the best way to finish a lesson. Teachers need to be able to know if their students understand the lesson and with them constructing their own knowledge and using higher order thinking there is not a definite answer as to if they understood or not.

Behaviorism: I believe there are two parts to behaviorism, the part that works and the part that does not. The part that works is students are more conscious if they did something wrong by the way the teacher reacts. The student form the conclusion of how they want to respond. If they want to get into trouble then the teacher doesn't scare them. Those that try to always stay on task and never misbehave have been trained. The token economy can work as well as not. It all depends on how the teacher handles this in the classroom. If the teacher freely gives out rewards and praise the students will not care about it, but if the teacher is sporadic, the students behavior is more likely to behave because they never know when they could get something for staying on task or doing something right.

Social Cognitivism: I like the fact that learning is an internal process and have control over their own behavior. I think students are great teachers for themselves and can learn a lot from others, and nobody ever know they were being observed. I like that students have the choice of how they want to behave. I don't like this however, because I don't believe students productively learn. I worry about the teachers being able to assess because they don't know what they students are really learning and what they are not.

Group and Individual Differences: I think stereotyping a child because they are different is wrong. I think deep down inside each student is the same. Culture does play a huge role in how a child acts but it is not our job to make an assumption that they are different and they can't do something. In my field experience, there were two ESL students we were working with teaching them to read in English. Our teacher did not think they could do as much as they could. She judged them. In real fact, they were very bright and understood a lot. Their reading was a head of what our teacher thought they could do. I think groups are a great learning tool because students are able to learn from each other. However, there are several things to look at when placing students in groups, which includes, their academic level, their ability to work in groups, their behavior to groups, etc.

Motivation: I really like the concept of motivation and how it works for me but there is also a negative side. Intrinsic motivation is where the student wants to learn and is doing their best for themselves. Extrinsic motivation is when the students just look for the ending result, which could be a token or anything that is not long lasting. Motivation does work for me. It helps me to enjoy what I am doing. It also helps to see great ending results. Teachers can play a major role in whether or not motivation works or not.

SO WHAT?

Looking back on my results from the test, I believe in a little bit of each learning style. Just like everything in life there is always the good with the bad and I believe each theory follows that same rule. I believe behavior does have a say in how a student acts towards an assignment, the teacher, or the classroom. I believe behavior acts as a tool to either help the student get out of something or it can be a factor of just giving up. I definitely believe in Cognitivism. I think a students best tool is themselves and their brain. This can also be done socially which learning from others is a great way to achieve. Some of my favorite theorist is Vygotsky because his ideas on Scaffolding and ZPD are ideal for what children really go through in school and what impacts them the most. Students have their learning in their own hands and if their motivated they are going to achieve beyond measures but without motivation they will slowly fail. I am a big fan of discovery learning and allowing students to figure out things on their own and make a connection to help them remember what they did. Using their sensory part of the brain is where it all begins and discovery learning definitely enters that stage. I used discovery learning in one of my lessons in field dealing with clouds. I saw how the students reacted to this lesson, which was they loved it. They remembered the clouds much easier. They are also adding emotion into what they are doing which makes a difference in their learning and how they remember things. Last, cooperative learning great in a classroom. Students really learn from each other and the results on tests can proven to be much higher. They are able to see more point of views other than just their own.

NOW WHAT?

Now I know what I think works in the classroom, I will use what I have learned and put it into action. Students learn by discovery so I will have more hands on activities and allow them to figure things out by themselves. I will however be there to help guide them if they need help. I will use cooperative groups because it will allow my students to reach the understand and thinking. They will have to learn to work with others which is very important in today's society. For instance, if I was to teach weather, like I was in field, I would have my students go outside and try to find the clouds. I would have real life weather instruments and allow my students to play with them and allow them to really see what they do and how they work, together and by themselves. I believe allowing students to do both ways of learning is important and it stretches their capability to do things.

I would really like to learn more about behaviorism and how it impacts a classroom. In field we had a student with behavioral problems and I want to know if something can trigger that and how to come to some conclusions and common grounds with this child. I would like to learn more on what is conditioned behavior and what is Operant behavior. Actually seeing real like situations would help make this more clear and would allow me to better understand some of my future students better. I would also like to learn more about motivation and how to motivate my students more.