Preschoolers

In class we discuss teaching to the grade level. We discuss not teaching over our students. Another part that is important to talk about would be, when should we teach. In the article Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School Alison Gopnik explains that children at young ages realized what a teacher in teaching them. The children were shown a toy and a facilitator told one group of students here is my new toy I'll show you how it works. With another group the facilitator explored the toy in front of the children. Gopnik observed that the children who were told how the toy works only did what they saw the teacher doing. However, the students who saw the teacher explore the toy found new and different manipulations that created sounds. Gopnik focuses on how preschools should focus on children's creativity and exploration. Gopnik explains that the students tend to learn more when they are allowed to explore and are asked to find something about a toy.

Science Methods stresses the importance of the nature of science. One of the points that the class keeps discussing is that the nature of science is creative and that there is no "right" way of doing something. The article expresses that view. The exploration done by the children on the toy allows the children to know that there are multiple ways to make something happen. The facilitator showed the children the toy made noise in three moves, when the children were allowed to explore the toy they soon found how to make the toy make noise in two moves, which the facilitator never did. The creativity and exploration is an important goal for our students to access. Students should not be afraid to ask questions on why or how things work. They should be encouraged to explore and ask questions. Gopnik sees that importance too. She wants the exploration and the safe environment for students and children early on in their learning. She wants teachers to know when to teach and when the teachers need to allow the students to explore what is handed to her. In our class that is one of our standards, under teaching methods and strategies. Teachers need to learn when to do what methods. Also by allowing students to explore they are learning with other students which is important in social learning theory. And making sure teachers are not teaching over the heads of the students is developmental learning theory. Gopnik starts the children zone of proximal development. The children learn that when they explore they find interesting things and may understand more fully why or how a specific thing work.

Gopnik focuses on the fact that preschoolers should not be taught but be encouraged to explore and look at things. Her article really applies to what we are discussing in Science Methods. It is important for students to understand that they can ask questions and explore the world around them. We as teachers need to know how to differentiate between when to teach and when to watch. Children and students are intelligent. They will astound you in what they know and how they can explain things. We as teachers just have to listen, watch, and sometimes teach.

The aim was a little off

   I personally have made goals for my future students to achieve k-12. The goals that are set are not out of their reach and are easily accomplished when given the right instruction and push to succeed. Two videos that I have viewed, about two different science lessons, seem to have missed some of the goals that I have set for my students. A goal I did not list in the previous post was that the students enjoy the content they are learning. If the students enjoy their learning, they will be more inclined to actually try in the classroom setting. These videos did address this goal. I want to be able to give the students something they can remember and then start to connect learning with fun and enjoyable in their mind. Both videos the students are doing something that they can remember. The first video the students are holding up signs. Now that might not seem very fun however, the students will have a sense of accomplishment for picking the correct sign. Although the students seemed to be engaged in the lesson, the lesson missed my other goals for my students. The students were not asked questions to further their learning and to keep them engaged with what they are doing. Also the subject matter was only being skimmed. The full understanding of what causes certain things in the environment may be lost to the students.
   The second video was very entertaining for the students and very memorable. The "experiment" was fun but, the students were not engaged with their own learning. The students simply watched. They were not asked what they think will happen if the Mentos were dropped into the diet coke. After the first explosion, they were not asked what would happen if the teacher were to add more or less Mentos. The children probably will never forget watching the soda shoot straight of the bottle but they could have missed the entire meaning of the lesson because they were not engaged.
  The videos and lessons were interesting. However, the aim of the lessons and "experiments" were not aimed completely at the goals I have set for my future students to have. The lesson did not reach the target completely.    

Shooting for the Stars

      Through school there are specific expectations for students to reach. The expectations have to be general enough to apply to every subject and content area. If the expectations are too specific, the teachers begin to focus on that specific goal instead of the bigger picture of by the time these students are graduating high school what do I want them to have accomplished. Being able to reach an expectation and goal that stretches across content is something worth praise. The goals that should be set are high enough for the students to reach with help and a small struggle but not so outlandish and high that the students will never be able to reach it. Keeping in mind that the goals will stretch across all subjects and content area some goals I will hold for my students to accomplish over their education would include:

Students will develop an understanding of what learning is
Students will develop deeper understanding of subject matter
Students will understand how to keep engaged in all classrooms
Students will develop skills to further their abilities for the future
Students will develop an understanding of responsibility of their own learning


    Although not complete, the expectations and goals are meant to challenge the students and help them understand what the teachers are trying to accomplish. If teachers keep goals constant in their mind, they can keep pushing their students to become better and keep them reaching for the stars.

Keeping with the standard

   My standardized test was slightly different than the Iowa standardized test. It did not have just fill in the bubble but short answer and essay questions. I took this test from third grade through my sophomore year in high school. The problem with this test is the stressed importance. The students will receive a pamphlet the week before CSAPs showing them where their school fell in the intelligence range of other schools. There was almost an expectation that the school will do better the current year on the tests. The students were told that it was very important to assess the school and see how the teachers are doing in their classrooms. However, I was hearing from teachers that CSAPs were ridiculous and simply a waste of time. This could be a possibility because by the time we were sophomores in high school, we could really care less about the test. Assessment is not a bad thing. It is very helpful in informing a teacher where a student is struggling and where a student is exceeding expectations. However, standardized testing has been stressed, I believe, too much. The scores do help compare schools but, how reliable are they? Students with learning disabilities are factored in to the schools overall score, students with mental disabilities also have to take the CSAPs and their scores are factored in as well, they get different tests as well as extra time on the tests but everyone has to take it and everyone is incorporated in it.
    After taking that standardized test for so long and every year having teachers tell me, make sure you get a good nights rest before the test and make sure you eat breakfast too, the test has a bad connotation in my mind. Yes their are students who do exceptionally well on standardized tests, that does not mean they are particularly smart, they just may know how to take tests very well. On the other hand there are the students who do not take tests well, have test anxiety, and simply do not score well on tests because they stress out very much before the test. I personally in the beginning it may be a good inclination of how a student is doing and what information they are actually understanding but I do not think students should have to take the test for a multitude of years. Many of the tests are biased towards a specific set of people. This is seen with standardized tests as well. If there was a way to lower the amount of standardized testing that the school systems do, then maybe they would not have such a negative connotation to many students as the become older. The testing could possibly improve if created through learning theory. If the test makers include SLT, CLT, DLT, and BLT, it is possible that the test would be better at explaining where a student's level of understanding is. Standardized testing is not the only answer. 

Motivation Factors

   Motivation in a classroom is very important to the success of the student. However, from reading most of the blogs we all understand that. I personally believe that motivation is something that most students have at the beginning of their education path. This is seen from kindergarten, students are excited to finally be in school and start to be a big kid. And then some where along the way the motivation becomes blurred and has to be reiterated by the teachers. This motivation can be forced upon students as well as it can be easily accepted by students. During the discussion in class we had discussed the forced participation that some of the students have felt during their education. From making participation 20% of the students' overall grade from getting the students motivated by good teaching.
   Forcing the students to participate in class can have some motivation but possibly the wrong motivation. The student is just simply responding to a negative stimulus of the grade and reacting accordingly, yes the teacher can get the students to participate but are the students motivated to learn or keeping their grade up? Then on the other hand the students can be motivated to learn by the scaffolding presented by the teacher. The scaffolding can be built up by establishing a respectful student-teacher relationship. Showing interest in how a student is doing and how well they are doing is very important for the teacher to express to show the student that the teacher respects the student's right to an education and is willing to help them along the way. Also it is important to have the facts of the lesson or the day relate or be important to the students. If the students do not care about what is being taught, the motivation of them is going to be really low. Having the information relate to them and have it interesting will keep the students more motivated than if the teacher just sat at the front of the classroom and lectured about pointless material.
    Keeping students motivated in a classroom is very important to the success of a student. How a teacher is going to accomplish this task may differ to each person. To me the important factors are establishing a respectful relationship with the student as well as understanding that if the information relates to the student they will be interested. And a teacher has to realize the importance of motivation, without motivation what is the point of education?

Managing a Classroom

   Managing a classroom is something some teachers do well and some do not. For myself I find it important to establish respect at the very beginning to start managing your classroom. We discussed in class having high expectations for each student. I also see that as respecting a student and their learning. To connect respect to learning theories it can be related to Behaviorist Learning Theory. The students receive a stimulus and respond to the stimulus. If they are shown respect and what I expect from them, they are more likely to respect myself and the classroom. Another important part of classroom management is making sure students are on task. This relates to the motivation factors of each student. If I relate the information to them in a form they can understand and relate to, they will be more willing to understand the information or to complete the task. Linking this to learning theory corresponds with Contructivist Learning Theory. I connect the new information to their previous schemas they will have a better understanding of the new information.
   Another portion of classroom management is how to handle situations. If a student walks in with a bad attitude and is throwing things and creating a scene I would first walk over and stand by him and see if that stopped his actions. If this did not stop his actions and they continued, I would ask him to stay after class and ask him questions about his actions in class. If he is truly disruptive during the entire class to where I am unable to teach, I would set the students on a question they needed to discuss in groups and then I would as the person to come up and talk to me. Then I would ask possibly the same questions I would ask at the end of class, how is your actions appropriate, why do you think that the actions that are being displayed are possibly interfering with their own education and the students around him. This can be connected to BLT while managing my class. Also I feel that I would treat each outburst or attitude in the same fashion. This way one student will not complain that she received a different treatment than he did.
   I truly feel that respect is the main thing that needs to be established when dealing with classroom management. That can come down to the respect of the students and their learning. Their motivation and their overall education would be coming from me. If I give them no reason to be motivated, no reason to want to learn, I am not respecting them, and my classroom will not run as smoothly because they will not feel the need to turn in homework, participate in class or behave in my class. Learning theory can connect and help structure the way a classroom is set up just like it can inform a teacher on how to prepare lessons. Keeping the learning theories in mind will make the classroom run smoother. 

Group 1: Eating well. I really enjoyed this presentation. They used an interesting polling website that I found could be very useful in the classroom. They also brought in concrete examples of healthy food as well as not so healthy food. It was very interesting when we all were able to look at lard. It was gross as well as educational. I have used Crisco before and know the texture, but it was interesting seeing the reactions on the other student's faces. I really enjoyed this presentation. DLT and SLT could be seen in their presentation. They used concrete examples of healthy food and not so healthy food. Also it was a discussion between peers and the presenter themselves.

Group 2: English homophones. This was fun to see how many people could think of different homophones. The lesson was not really concrete but they used SLT very well to inform their teaching. The riddles given at the beginning of the lesson were fun as well.


Group 3: Paper Bag Princess. This group use CLT  and SLT more to inform their lesson. They first started asking questions about what we believe respect was and how to show respect. They also keep active mental engagement while reading the book by asking questions about the book and what was going on while Cate was reading.


Group 4: Alphabet. This one got us to move around. This would be very helpful with children especially little ones who may have lots of energy in the end of the day. The use of finding and matching of the letters was fun and had to keep you thinking about where the letter could be and what the lower case looked like. Yes we are college students, but it was still something that we had to think about. Then using our peers as teammates through the race was influenced by SLT.

The lessons today all went rather well. Each group tended to use SLT a lot of the time and others did try to incorporate DLT, CLT, and BLT. I felt the presentation went smoothly today.