Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation

Implementing self-efficacy and self-regulation strategies could really benefit Lisa in the classroom. Because using self-efficacy encouragement is useful to students that are not having trouble in the classroom, this could be something that Lisa really needs to experience in order to participate in groups and be attentive in class. I would start out with the basic encouragement to build her confidence. If we allow her to work by herself and build her confidence in her individual work, then we could try telling her things like, "You've done so well by yourself, I'm sure you will do an even better job if you work with your friends." Even if it takes some positive or negative reinforcement along with the encouragement, with enough support it could work. I could also give her a chart to fill out that would allow her to write down what she liked or didn't like when working in a group, then allow her to pick her own group based on what she likes. This would allow her to regulate herself and what she likes, as long as she tries to participate in the group. We could have one-on-one meetings with Lisa after her group work and point out all the good things she did and contributed to the group and how she conducted herself. It is important to make sure that she realizes the benefits of her group work for her to gain the confidence built by an increased sense of self-efficacy.

This article discusses the difference between high and low self-efficacy and how it affects student's work habits and their understanding of locus of control.

Case Study Consideration

Our case study, about Lisa, leaves room for a lot of different theories to be attempted. From a behaviorist's perspective, you could implement a system of reinforcements for Lisa if she is willing to work in a group and cooperates the whole time. Trying to show her how the appropriate ways of interacting within her group can help her learn can be reinforced. Also, if an individual reinforcement system doesn't work, there could be a class-wide system that would end with a "big" reward, like a pizza party or no homework for a week. These rewards would only be offered to those that participated in their groups and did not cause disruptions. These reward systems would be offered in hopes that Lisa would eventually participate in and see the benefits of group work.
From a constructivist perspective, we could try smaller groups with brand new activities so that it was different every time we did group work. We could try allowing her to pick her groups to see if she would be more willing to participate if she had more control over who she worked with. Even allowing her to pick new activities or having a group come up with their own activities could be attempted.
The difference between these approaches is that the behaviorist approach could both punish and encourage Lisa depending on which system was being used and if the systems helped her. The benefits to the behaviorists theory are that the rewards could be what helps her join the groups but then the reward itself serves as one reward and then the benefit of working in the group could be another. A deficit of the behaviorist approach is that if the rewards don't interest Lisa at all, then the system will not work.
The benefits of the constructivist approach is that Lisa gains more control over her work and who it is she works with and the children also have input into picking their activities. The deficits are that, again, if Lisa does not like working in groups with anyone in the class, then having the freedom to choose will not encourage her cooperative behavior. Also, she may like to pick the work she does but will not like to do it in groups either. If she is denied being able to do the activity she chose without being in a group, that could have a negative effect on her desire to do the activity at all.

I believe my overall classroom management will strictly depend on the students. I find I am interested in a little bit of each theory so I can not settle for just one for my classroom. I am open to using them all at different times of one for each child if necessary.

Here is an article discussing the use of Behaviorism, constructivism, and cognitivism.
http://abanksto.myweb.uga.edu/portfolio/bankston_learning.pdf

Metacognition

The process of thinking and understanding is what we as teachers hope every student can achieve in our classroom. Enhancing students' metacognitive processes is the first step. I believe Math is a subject that would best allow students to see and understand their progress throughout the lesson. From watching my fifth grade observation class at Farragut, the teacher provided ample amounts of feedback and explanations that would help foster the children's understandings. The teacher would have students walk her through the steps to a math problem to check for their understanding of the right sequencing of operations. Their ability to do the right operations is immediately reflected in their answering of the problem. The teacher can ask questions throughout the lesson of how and why the students went in a particular order. This will allow students to correct their understanding as they go instead of waiting till the end of a lesson.
Another subject that is great for having children think is Reading. While beginning a book at Farragut, the students would look at the title page and pictures and predict what the story could be about. The teacher would ask them why they made their predictions and what evidence there was to support it. This checking of understanding and reasoning can help the teacher aim questions at the students to provoke more thinking on the students' part. The more questions we encourage students to ask, the better we can help them piece everything together and further their ability to think and understand.
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Ch. 7 Mastery of Skills

The activity my group created was a Social Studies based lesson. In order to master any lesson in that field, a student must first be able to think "historically." This means students must first be able to ask questions such as, "Why is the law (x) frowned upon?" or "Why do we use (x)?" As teachers it is our job to first teach students how to question, so once that is done, they can do it on their own. The next step would be to make sure the students can understand the time frame and how society was different at that time. Our job is to give them as much background information on a different time in society as we can and help students understand how to relate that to their everyday lives now to more fully understand the concepts. The next skill would be working on their memory. While the Social Studies curriculum is trying to move away from a reputation of pure remembrance of facts and dates to a more useful, applied curriculum,  there is still a need for memory to serve as a main part of any course. Helping students remember important information, using mnemonics and other memory retrieval functions, will greatly improve students' success in this subject. I would say the last skill needed to fully understand this lesson would be the ability to piece all information together. Having students understand what went on at a previous time in society then understand how those actions impacted the society they are a part of now. As teachers, we must make sure that we lead our students through this sequence of understanding so that they can fully understand everything in the activity. 

I had a discussion in my Elem Ed. 422 class about activities for Social Studies. This activity included having children research their family backgrounds and creating a timeline of parents, grandparents, and as far back as they could research. Once that was finished, you could extend the lesson into the actual Social Studies timelines of important history so they have an idea of how each event leads to the next. Another activity is to engage the students with a story about a president or other historical figure, then have them research a person from a time period around the one you read about. By doing this, you allow them to then connect each individual students research to a timeline of history. 

PLE #5 Memory Processes

I really enjoyed having the presentations on memory functions last week. From what I learned about the specific processes I believe it will definitely inspire me to include different techniques during my lessons. I always learn better by using mnemonics and rehearsal, so I feel like there would be many students in my class that would benefit from that same type of learning. The decisions I would make based on what I've learned so far would be to both teach my students how to create mnemonics and also use my own examples throughout my lessons so that if some students can't think of one, maybe what I give them will help. I will also try my best to use the elaboration technique so that I can begin the processes of connecting old information to the new stuff we are learning. I think a word wall would be essential in any part of the memory process, either to recall the words that need work or to build better mnemonics with the words available.
Also, based on the time span for short and long term memory, I will be sure to somehow work in a review session as often as possible just to keep the basic ideas of the information fresh for the students. In order to help with this, I could see myself having an assignment for the students to create their own type of mnemonic so that their creative aspect for whatever the lesson may be will at least be one thing that maybe sticks with them.


Article on Mnemonics
Mnemonics Article

PLE #4 Cognitive Processes

The skills that I want my students to learn is a mix of all skills needed to help them succeed in school. As cheesy as that sounds, I think that because all students learn best in different ways, it would be of everyone's best interest to be able to adjust their learning processes depending on the subject and difficulty of what they are learning. I want my students to be able to use their short-term and long-term memory in conjunction with the construction process as they create and understand new meanings. I want them to be able to create mnemonics for themselves and be able to really learn in no one, set way. What I really want  to convey to my students is that they are capable of creating a way of learning that really works for them. I really want to try to show them different strategies they can use and I'll do this by in a way, becoming a constructivist or behaviorist, and helping lead each individual student to what will help them the best. 

This article simply discusses using assessments of cognitive functioning in order to help children achieve higher. I thought it was appropriate to incorporate assessment with cognitive processes.
Cognitive Processes Article

Ch. 14 Assessment

Getting ready to go into elementary education, it is essential to realize what kinds of assessment would be appropriate for a social studies lesson. Seeing as how different grade levels would need different kinds of assessment. For this post, I will take inspiration from the class I'm getting my practicum experience with, a 5th grade class. For informal assessment, I would use a question/answer session during the lesson to make sure that the students were following along and understanding as I teach. I would use questions like, "So what year was X?" so that the students would have to feed back the answers. The second type of informal assessment I would use would be to have the students each read a little something out of the section in the book we were in. This would allow me to tell whether the students were following along in the lesson and also allow me to measure their reading skill outside of the time set aside for specific reading purposes. Another way I could assess their knowledge would be to have them create a timeline as we go through our lessons each week, monitor the classroom to see if they had any questions, then take it up at the end of the week to serve as both an informal and formal assessment. There would also need to be a written test at the end of the section to assure that they students have retained their information. I would also like to use things such as history-related poetry, and story-writing assignments as formal assessment. I would use things such as having the students situate themselves in a particular moment in history and writing as if they are keeping a diary of everything that is happening around them, maybe do something like having certain groups of students be situated in certain times of on different sides of a particular war to see what kind of emotions I could bring about from them.There are many questions you could do with facts about the presidents and also states and their capitals. Any of these assessments could be used for any of the different lesson topics with the Social Studies curriculum.