This week's resources discussed cues, advanced organizers and questioning strategies as well as summarizing and note-taking. I failed to notice my cue to fill in my blog this week so I stand chagrined.
Cues of course are statements or comments meant to prepare students for learning, or to elicit some kind of response from them. Normally a teacher would provide cues either before presenting some material or while questioning students about their knowledge to draw information from them, from a behavioral context this is pretty straightforward in that you are attempting to model a behavior or elicit some kind of response from your students.
Advanced organizers are, in my opinion a great idea and I'm sad to admit I have not used them extensively in my teaching. I really like the idea of providing a formatted pre-view of the types of information and material that students will be presented so they can work their way through that material and gain specific information. Also in terms of providing structure and giving students a physical map of material to notice and maintain provides a great form of positive feedback. (I need to find and answer... oh, there it is! I fill in my organizer or content map and presto, I feel reinforced.)
The summarizing section of the book was also interesting. I like having students to self-directed summaries because it helps them to learn what information is important and how best to package that up in a format they can easily remember and recall. And of course the process of determining what should be summarized helps with the memorization and retention of material.
Finally, regarding note-taking - I must admit I was a terrible note-taker until I took Psych 101 my freshman year of college. The prof spend a few days teaching us how to take notes in a specific format and it helped me immensely. Again as far as our behavioral discussions, theres something very satisfying about taking well organized and structured notes and being able to quickly and easily find information when you want it.
At least I think that's what I wanted to say... let me look through these notes... um...
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
.50 cents and 110 Volts!
The basic concepts of behaviorist learning can be nicely summarized with a piece of technology we've all been exposed to for most of our lives...
The soda machine is an excellent model for the principles of behavioral psychology. Let's consider what a soda machine does for us.
A) You put your .50 cents in, click a button and get the proper can of soda.
This is positive reinforcement. You are essentially being rewarded for properly performing a task.
B) You put your .50 cents in, click a button but no can of soda comes out.
This is negative reinforcement. You have properly performed a task, but you were not given a reward.
Scenario B inevitably leads to a behaviorist activity called "extinction".
C) You press the button on the soda machine over and over again trying to get it to drop your can of soda.
Extinction is the heightened recurrence of a behavior in order to try to receive a positive reinforcement when you haven't been given one.
D) You may also put your .50 cents into a soda machine, press the button and due to an electrical short, receive a 110 volt shock.
This is punishment. While negative reinforcement is very likely to produce an extinction behavior, punishment is more likely to actually prohibit the repetition of the behavior. (Who wants to risk getting another 110 volt shock for a lousy can of soda?)
Some research into the inner workings of kids hopelessly hooked on sugared, caffeinated beverages suggests that sporadic positive and negative reinforcement does the most to produce recurrent behavior. For some reason, the possibility of occasional failure eventually rewarded with success leads to more common practice of the behavior.
so, with that in mind... how can this be applied to a classroom? Teachers have a number of ways of providing positive and negative feedback, and of course we can also deal out some punishment as necessary. A key element in the success of behavioral modification is in finding unique and enticing forms of positive reinforcement. Kids LOVE technology and for some unclear reason they will put a much greater deal of effort into a repetitive, uninteresting task if it can somehow be linked to technology. (Some would say positive reinforcement may be a factor here, wink wink...) The fact is, the simple task of having students create excel spreadsheets at home and track their own grades on that spreadsheet can lead to greater effort in the classroom. Students not only have the joy of entering values into their spreadsheet and seeing immediate feedback in terms of how that effects their grade, they gain a sense of control over their performance. No longer are grades arbitrary values assigned and managed by the teachers.
As for using technology for other actual learning tasks, teachers can easily motivate their students to take more time on their homework and put more effort into it by simply utilizing resources available on the web. Many activities and quizzes and forums exist on the internet that can be carefully culled and matched to your curriculum needs. These resources can provide students a pleasant break from more traditional learning activities and get them excited and involved. As an English teacher, projects and presentations are a major part of my assessment strategy. While my students are willing to present material up in front of the class, they are much more exited and involved when they create a multi-media presentation that can be viewed either with the good old DVD player, or better yet from the internet. Using technology tools to interest and motivate students provides them with immediate feedback, generally positive that helps them stay involved and excited in the class.
So... feel free to take your .50 cents and plug it into some interesting and incentivizing reinforcement strategies. Odds are you'll end up with more interested and better-performing students.
The soda machine is an excellent model for the principles of behavioral psychology. Let's consider what a soda machine does for us.
A) You put your .50 cents in, click a button and get the proper can of soda.
This is positive reinforcement. You are essentially being rewarded for properly performing a task.
B) You put your .50 cents in, click a button but no can of soda comes out.
This is negative reinforcement. You have properly performed a task, but you were not given a reward.
Scenario B inevitably leads to a behaviorist activity called "extinction".
C) You press the button on the soda machine over and over again trying to get it to drop your can of soda.
Extinction is the heightened recurrence of a behavior in order to try to receive a positive reinforcement when you haven't been given one.
D) You may also put your .50 cents into a soda machine, press the button and due to an electrical short, receive a 110 volt shock.
This is punishment. While negative reinforcement is very likely to produce an extinction behavior, punishment is more likely to actually prohibit the repetition of the behavior. (Who wants to risk getting another 110 volt shock for a lousy can of soda?)
Some research into the inner workings of kids hopelessly hooked on sugared, caffeinated beverages suggests that sporadic positive and negative reinforcement does the most to produce recurrent behavior. For some reason, the possibility of occasional failure eventually rewarded with success leads to more common practice of the behavior.
so, with that in mind... how can this be applied to a classroom? Teachers have a number of ways of providing positive and negative feedback, and of course we can also deal out some punishment as necessary. A key element in the success of behavioral modification is in finding unique and enticing forms of positive reinforcement. Kids LOVE technology and for some unclear reason they will put a much greater deal of effort into a repetitive, uninteresting task if it can somehow be linked to technology. (Some would say positive reinforcement may be a factor here, wink wink...) The fact is, the simple task of having students create excel spreadsheets at home and track their own grades on that spreadsheet can lead to greater effort in the classroom. Students not only have the joy of entering values into their spreadsheet and seeing immediate feedback in terms of how that effects their grade, they gain a sense of control over their performance. No longer are grades arbitrary values assigned and managed by the teachers.
As for using technology for other actual learning tasks, teachers can easily motivate their students to take more time on their homework and put more effort into it by simply utilizing resources available on the web. Many activities and quizzes and forums exist on the internet that can be carefully culled and matched to your curriculum needs. These resources can provide students a pleasant break from more traditional learning activities and get them excited and involved. As an English teacher, projects and presentations are a major part of my assessment strategy. While my students are willing to present material up in front of the class, they are much more exited and involved when they create a multi-media presentation that can be viewed either with the good old DVD player, or better yet from the internet. Using technology tools to interest and motivate students provides them with immediate feedback, generally positive that helps them stay involved and excited in the class.
So... feel free to take your .50 cents and plug it into some interesting and incentivizing reinforcement strategies. Odds are you'll end up with more interested and better-performing students.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Check out my big brain!
Hey everyone... good to be back on the blogging pipeline again.
I'm involved in a new course right now. We've started learning about different learning theories, (behavioralism, cognitivism, constructionism etc.) as well as a bit of discussion about how the brain works and how students learn and remember.
So far it's been very interesting and I'm looking forward to dusting off my old Pop-Machine metaphor for those of you who didn't see it in the previous classes.
Can't wait to get back into the swing of it. Talk to you soon.
Gregg
I'm involved in a new course right now. We've started learning about different learning theories, (behavioralism, cognitivism, constructionism etc.) as well as a bit of discussion about how the brain works and how students learn and remember.
So far it's been very interesting and I'm looking forward to dusting off my old Pop-Machine metaphor for those of you who didn't see it in the previous classes.
Can't wait to get back into the swing of it. Talk to you soon.
Gregg
Sunday, June 28, 2009
The Future is Now...
I have truly enjoyed my impact of technology on the classroom course. While I have been involved in software development for more than ten years, I must admit I have not used a number of the collaborative tools that are currently available and I have not given them serious consideration in regards to student education. However, the course has truly helped me to stretch my paradigms in terms of educational tools and how they may be used. Admittedly, from a pure technological standpoint I can't say I have specifically developed my skills. However I have grown in terms of my insight in how to use some of these tools to enhance learning.
Because of the course materials and discussions, I have had a number of opportunities to visualize how communication technology can be used to improve classroom education. I have always been a collaborative teacher, but I was admittedly mired in the somewhat constricting mindset of collaboration among my own group of students. The course has helped me to see that we can now provide collaborative learning opportunities that reach far far beyond our own classrooms. I have learned how our young students have quietly and inexorably surpassed us in terms of technological savvy and I now understand that we teachers must make great efforts to stay with the pack in terms of new technologies that are emerging around us.
As I mentioned earlier, I have always been a collaborative teacher and I've always preferred that my students knowledge come from their own exercises and practices rather than through my lectures. However, I have admittedly been stymied many times by what I perceived as a lack of resources to provide rich and contextual learning units that can challenge students and give them opportunities to direct their own learning. Of course I know understand this limitation has been self-imposed due to a lack of creativity. Resources abound for teachers to create, borrow, or steal for their own students.
I believe the best way to continue my progress is to put into practical practice some of the great ideas fleshed out through our discussions. I gleaned several ideas from my classmates and I'd like to think I helped expand upon some thoughts they may have had as well. I want to stay abridged of the 21st century goals and I want to continue reading about the current and emerging technologies that may have educational applications. Thankfully, our exercises in RSS feeds provided all of us with a great way to stay abreast of these developments. I plan on continuing with my blog as my XML training curriculum continues to expand and hopefully some of my classmates will be interested enough to come check it out now and then to see how it's going. I also intend to keep up with their blog updates (again through RSS feeds.)
As for my long term goals. I've been very very fortunate. I have recently been informed that we have been approved for a budget request to enhance our training curriculum and resources. We will be purchasing 6 new netbook computers along with networking hardware and travel cases so we can take along a mobile computer lab on our training courses. These netbooks will be able to access the internet as well as a local network to pull resources for learning and practice. Further we've been told we may purchase a server where we will begin developing a specific Wiki to serve our customers' needs. We'll eventually enhance this wiki into a fully functional help-desk where our students may contact us live for questions.
As for long-term goals for the training program, aside from gathering the hardware and developing the wiki, I have been tasked with re-tooling the curriculum to create more collaborative and learner-centric courses. I intend to develop these courses such that the students may make use of the help-desk and our company resources right from the classroom so they may begin learning how to work on large-scale collaborative projects. I'll be working on individual lesson plans all the way up through the entire curriculum to create a highly interactive and dynamic series of courses.
Frankly, this would not have been possible had I not become so excited about the various tools and resources out there which my company can make use of for our training. My enthusiasm along with my new found ability to demonstrate the benefits of wiki's, blogs, podcasts and real-time remote conversation tools lead my management to approve the course upgrades. I'm excited to dive in and I look forward to the challenges of building this curriculum. I appreciate all your feedback and I hope to hear from you in the future.
Because of the course materials and discussions, I have had a number of opportunities to visualize how communication technology can be used to improve classroom education. I have always been a collaborative teacher, but I was admittedly mired in the somewhat constricting mindset of collaboration among my own group of students. The course has helped me to see that we can now provide collaborative learning opportunities that reach far far beyond our own classrooms. I have learned how our young students have quietly and inexorably surpassed us in terms of technological savvy and I now understand that we teachers must make great efforts to stay with the pack in terms of new technologies that are emerging around us.
As I mentioned earlier, I have always been a collaborative teacher and I've always preferred that my students knowledge come from their own exercises and practices rather than through my lectures. However, I have admittedly been stymied many times by what I perceived as a lack of resources to provide rich and contextual learning units that can challenge students and give them opportunities to direct their own learning. Of course I know understand this limitation has been self-imposed due to a lack of creativity. Resources abound for teachers to create, borrow, or steal for their own students.
I believe the best way to continue my progress is to put into practical practice some of the great ideas fleshed out through our discussions. I gleaned several ideas from my classmates and I'd like to think I helped expand upon some thoughts they may have had as well. I want to stay abridged of the 21st century goals and I want to continue reading about the current and emerging technologies that may have educational applications. Thankfully, our exercises in RSS feeds provided all of us with a great way to stay abreast of these developments. I plan on continuing with my blog as my XML training curriculum continues to expand and hopefully some of my classmates will be interested enough to come check it out now and then to see how it's going. I also intend to keep up with their blog updates (again through RSS feeds.)
As for my long term goals. I've been very very fortunate. I have recently been informed that we have been approved for a budget request to enhance our training curriculum and resources. We will be purchasing 6 new netbook computers along with networking hardware and travel cases so we can take along a mobile computer lab on our training courses. These netbooks will be able to access the internet as well as a local network to pull resources for learning and practice. Further we've been told we may purchase a server where we will begin developing a specific Wiki to serve our customers' needs. We'll eventually enhance this wiki into a fully functional help-desk where our students may contact us live for questions.
As for long-term goals for the training program, aside from gathering the hardware and developing the wiki, I have been tasked with re-tooling the curriculum to create more collaborative and learner-centric courses. I intend to develop these courses such that the students may make use of the help-desk and our company resources right from the classroom so they may begin learning how to work on large-scale collaborative projects. I'll be working on individual lesson plans all the way up through the entire curriculum to create a highly interactive and dynamic series of courses.
Frankly, this would not have been possible had I not become so excited about the various tools and resources out there which my company can make use of for our training. My enthusiasm along with my new found ability to demonstrate the benefits of wiki's, blogs, podcasts and real-time remote conversation tools lead my management to approve the course upgrades. I'm excited to dive in and I look forward to the challenges of building this curriculum. I appreciate all your feedback and I hope to hear from you in the future.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The 21st Century! Should we be terrified?
I recently read an article regarding the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. I was pointed toward the website (Partnership for 21st Century Skills) and much of the information from the article is pulled from the website.
Essentially the Partnership proposes a new direction in education that focuses on the potential needs of students in the future. Our students must be taught to think critically and solve complex problems often through collaborative efforts. Certainly core curriculum skills are still the bedrock of this concept of education and in fact 9 separate core areas are listed as opposed to our traditional three R's. (This information is available in the core subjects section of the Partnership website.)
Beyond these 9 core areas, the program stresses the need to include additional core skills or knowledge areas in the curriculum. These include Global Awareness and Financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial awareness among civic and health awareness.
The inclusion of these additional areas is indicative of the concept of "world-flattening" wherein technology is making professional and personal resources around the globe available to employers everywhere. In order to compete burgeoning business world our students must essentially be trained to become managers in that they need not only work skills, but they must also possess managerial, collaborative, and economic responsibility capabilities.
Other sections of the website discuss this need for our students to be able to think critically, come up with innovative solutions to difficult problems and most importantly to collaborate with others in producing these solutions. The future workforce must be able to work with others and they must be able to communicate with people from different continents seamlessly. To do that, they must be taught the current technological skills and they must be taught how to continue learning as new technology becomes available.
This leads us to a third component of the Partnership vision, that of teaching information and media literacy, not so much as a means to teach students how to use these emerging tools today, but to enable them to continue learning how to use new tools in the future. The ability to understand and use information and communication technologies will be a tremendous asset to our students in their futures.
Lastly, the program discusses the need to teach our students the professional life skills that will help them later in life. These are really many of the same life skills we've always needed. For example, students need to be flexible and adaptable. They need to be prepared for career changes and project direction switches. They also need to be self-motivated and aggressive workers. With a flattened world with many resources, our students simply can afford to be complacent. Our students need to learn to manage their own tasks as well as the tasks of a group. For this they also need to learn leadership.
Clearly this is all very daunting when it's taken in all at once. The idea is to begin to develop curricula that work these skills into daily lessons in all subjects. Further discussion is lent to the idea of developing assessments that can adequately monitor progress in the targeted improvement areas. While incorporating these principles into our schools may be difficult and time-consuming, ultimately we'll produce students better able to succeed in the future job market.
Essentially the Partnership proposes a new direction in education that focuses on the potential needs of students in the future. Our students must be taught to think critically and solve complex problems often through collaborative efforts. Certainly core curriculum skills are still the bedrock of this concept of education and in fact 9 separate core areas are listed as opposed to our traditional three R's. (This information is available in the core subjects section of the Partnership website.)
Beyond these 9 core areas, the program stresses the need to include additional core skills or knowledge areas in the curriculum. These include Global Awareness and Financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial awareness among civic and health awareness.
The inclusion of these additional areas is indicative of the concept of "world-flattening" wherein technology is making professional and personal resources around the globe available to employers everywhere. In order to compete burgeoning business world our students must essentially be trained to become managers in that they need not only work skills, but they must also possess managerial, collaborative, and economic responsibility capabilities.
Other sections of the website discuss this need for our students to be able to think critically, come up with innovative solutions to difficult problems and most importantly to collaborate with others in producing these solutions. The future workforce must be able to work with others and they must be able to communicate with people from different continents seamlessly. To do that, they must be taught the current technological skills and they must be taught how to continue learning as new technology becomes available.
This leads us to a third component of the Partnership vision, that of teaching information and media literacy, not so much as a means to teach students how to use these emerging tools today, but to enable them to continue learning how to use new tools in the future. The ability to understand and use information and communication technologies will be a tremendous asset to our students in their futures.
Lastly, the program discusses the need to teach our students the professional life skills that will help them later in life. These are really many of the same life skills we've always needed. For example, students need to be flexible and adaptable. They need to be prepared for career changes and project direction switches. They also need to be self-motivated and aggressive workers. With a flattened world with many resources, our students simply can afford to be complacent. Our students need to learn to manage their own tasks as well as the tasks of a group. For this they also need to learn leadership.
Clearly this is all very daunting when it's taken in all at once. The idea is to begin to develop curricula that work these skills into daily lessons in all subjects. Further discussion is lent to the idea of developing assessments that can adequately monitor progress in the targeted improvement areas. While incorporating these principles into our schools may be difficult and time-consuming, ultimately we'll produce students better able to succeed in the future job market.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Collaborative Lesson Planning
I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to start putting together a collaborative cross-curriculum unit through the blogs. Anybody interested in seeing what we can come up with? I've got English an French... Specifically 9th, 11th and 12th grade English experience. Does anybody want to play around with putting together a cross-curriculum unit for fun and seeing what comes out of it?
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