January 21st

Lev Vygotsky.

This guy knows what he's talking about.  I agree entirely with this fellow regarding the influence of society in the growth of a child.  One Mr. Piaget doesn't really look into society at all, but I think it plays an incredible role.  Vygotsky has three main assumptions:

• Children move along a developmental trajectory.

Kids aren't just aimlessly wandering about and doing things for the heck of it, they are learning in a very particular and unique way.  This is a useful assumption for a future teacher, because there can be some prediction as to what comes up next.  Obviously, the predictions won't be perfectly accurate, but a teacher can plan a long range lesson plan more effectively with this in mind.

• Cognitive skills are structured by language.

At first I felt that I completely disagreed with this assumption, but the more I tried to find evidence to disprove this point, the more I found I agreed with it.  I think that children are thinking far before they speak, though.  I don't think that the ability to speak and understand words just hits kids out of nowhere.  There is a long process, and they are very responsive to language before they can speak properly or even at all.  I have a good friend that has been blessed with a beautiful baby boy.  This boy, Gabe, was being changed by his mom.  She was pleasantly talking to herself, or so she thought, and she said that he needed to roll over in order to fit his arm into his sleeve.  The boy responded with the exact motion she was speaking about.  This happened several times over the course of the change, and it is evidence of thought before verbal language.  Even when kids begin to "speak", they understand a great deal of what is said to them, and they respond well to it.  In my effort to refute this assumption, I thought about children who are deaf or mute.  Mute children can still understand and communicate, and sign language is a very beneficial thing to teach your young child.  Before they speak, they can communicate with their parents.  I have spoken to many parents, and they could communicate effectively with their children from very young ages.  Instead of having a fussing child that you didn't understand, the child could tell you what they wanted or disliked.  

• The importance of social relations and culture.

Figure 1

I am behind Vygotsky on this one.  Culture directly affects the development of children.  Our society is telling kids that they need to be rich, pretty and successful.  There is less and less common decency in the world, I feel.  You can hardly turn the radio on with out some person trying to get as much money out of you as they can.  "You need botox, a pedicure, a haircut, a tan, because you deserve it".  The person from this ad doesn't care about the happiness of it's customers.  What they want is money.  They want women to be unhappy with themselves so that they'll feel as if they need their product.  Little girls are dressing more and more like floozies, and there is a company that is modeling this for them.  In figure 1, you will see what I'm talking about.  A distorted image of beauty is being handed down to our nations girls.  Figure 1 shows what this kind of beauty is:

      - unrealistically full lips

      - seductive glances

      - copious amounts of makeup

      - little shirts

      -short skirts

      - high heeled shoes

      - visible mid-drift

      - perfect hair

These dolls can be so bad for the self esteem of little girls.  They look at unrealistic beauty like that, and they become unhappy with themselves.  Companies are sacrificing the happiness and self esteem of little girls everywhere in order to make a quick buck.  I definitely think that products like this will have far reaching consequences.  

       Vygotsky also believed in a thing called the zone of proximal development.  This was a space inside which learning occurs.  The role of the teacher is to "scaffold".  The teacher in the ideal situation gives the students goals that are just beyond their reach.  The teacher then builds them a "scaffold" of knowledge, instruction and encouragement to help the children reach those goals.  Interestingly enough, I have just had the great displeasure of meeting a teacher here at the college who doesn't believe in this nonsense.  He gives us goals that are beyond our reach, but he doesn't go out of his way to equip us to do well.  He is cold, unapproachable, and I disagree with so many of his teaching strategies that I can hardly stand it.  It hurts me to think that I've got to spend the rest of my semester with such a teacher.  But I guess you learn well when you are able to contrast the good and the bad.

January 19th, 2011

Jean Piaget!

This fellow had three definitions for cognitive processes.

I.  Schema: a concept or framework to organize information.
     A particular schema I have is for my crocheting.  I learned the stitches and a whack of other things associated with crocheting.  It's there in my mind, organized beautifully.

II.  Assimilation: the new information being obtained fits unobtrusively in with what's already known.
    When I was still acquiring my crocheting skills, there were many stitches I needed to learn.  I learned the single crochet stitch, which is terribly basic and dull, and from there I learned the double, half double, and treble crochet stitches.  These stitches were all variations of the single crochet, so they fit nicely within my previously constructed schema.

III.  Accommodation: the new information doesn't fit into the schema, and requires that information be reorganized.
    One day I decided that I was going to learn to knit.  My husband dreamed of having a knitted argyle hat, so I set to learning this new skill in order to surprise him with a lovely hand-knit hat.  I had to completely leave behind everything I knew about crocheting.  I originally thought that it might fit into my schema, but I had to shuffle a bunch of things around.  Instead of one hook, there are two or more needles.  Loops can fall off and destroy your work, and it is terribly difficult to take stitches out.  I was very surprised at how hard it was for me to pick up knitting.  I had years of experience with crocheting, but it didn't prepare me for the challenge.  I successfully learned to knit and surprised my husband with a lovely argyle hat.
    A few more examples of this:
   -I grew up in an amazing town in Ontario that was right on the vast and majestic Lake Huron.  We were wonderfully close to the beautiful beach where I spent many warm, summer days.  My younger brother, Josiah, was about 3 or 4 when my parents gave us all a warning about undertows.  They weren't terribly common on our beach, but they happened enough to strike fear into the heart of my mother.  We had our talk, and then we were released into the clear, blue waters.  Josiah stood on the shore and fearfully asked my mother, "how big are undertoads?"  It took some convincing to get him into the water again, but thankfully he accommodated this information into his schema and we had many good times in the water.
-A friend that I acquired on a trip to Panama told me a story from her childhood.  She said that one day she was informed that it was physically impossible for a human to stand on a cloud.  She said it was one of the saddest days in her child hood.  She also had to accommodate this new information she had been given and alter her previous assumptions.

    This Piaget guy also had four levels of development.

One:  Sensorimotor
- from birth to around two years of age.
At this stage of infancy, there is no thinking involved.  The children in this stage are simply feeling their way through their environments.
I have a nephew that is in this stage.  My sister, Sherah, is ready to have her second child any day now, and her first boy is a whirling ball of energy.  Their home is under some minor renovations and they are missing some cabinet doors in their kitchen.  One day, Simeon grabbed the glass blender out of the lower cupboard.  My sister saw this and instructed the boy to bring it to her.  He must have known that bringing her the blender would end his fun with this dangerous toy, so instead he ran with it in the opposite direction.  He can't think about what he is doing and he doesn't understand the danger that comes with playing with a blender.  All he knows is that he wants it.  Other than playing with the blender, he has always got his hands on something.  When he finds himself naked, he's got two hands on his man-bits, and he doesn't know how inappropriate that is.  He lacks the ability to think with any complexity.

Two.  Preoperational
-  two to seven years of age
My other nephew, Isaiah, is just shy of two years old and he fits nicely into this category.  He is just beginning to use language to communicate with those around him.  He'll pick up the phone and talk on it, and he'll repeat things he hears with a considerable amount of accuracy.  He is also experiencing ego-centrism.  His perspective is the same as everyone else's.  When his lunch is late, the whole world stops and everyone may as well follow his example and bang their heads on things.  All of his decisions are based on intuition.  It's not logical to think that you can sit on an immobile lawn mower for hours on end, but Isaiah wants to do it.  His mother takes him off and he is consumed with anger.  He doesn't show his anger like most children, though.  He glares and then sneaks in a good bite.

Three.  Concrete operational
-seven to eleven years of age
Operational refers to mental operations that are reversible.  At this stage, conservation is obtained.  Conservation: the idea that some characteristic of an object stays the same even though the object might change in shape.  The volume of water stays the same, even though the height and width of the glass holding it may change.  These children need to have concrete physical objects in order to understand concepts.  Often small objects will be found inside classrooms for these kids to work with.  My school had small animals, and plastic teddy bears of different sizes and colors.  Addition and subtraction can then be translated into physical objects.  Three animals minus two animals leaves one animal behind.  Therefore, 3 - 2 = 1.  I remember a time when we were taught about ratios and each of us were given a bag of delicious jelly beans.  I don't remember encountering any difficulty in understanding the concept, and I am fully convinced it was the jelly beans.

Four.  Formal Operational
- eleven/fifteen years to adulthood
Here there is a move beyond concrete thinking towards abstract thinking. Syllogism is introduced here:  2 premises, wherein if the two premises are true, then the outcome will be true.  An example provided in class:  All men are mortal.  Socrates is a man.  Therefore, Socrates is a mortal.
     Hypothetical deductive reasoning happens in this stage as well.  Definition: the concepts that adolescents can develop hypotheses about ways to solve problems, and systematically reach conclusions.  Due to the fact that these are adolescents, the conclusions reached are not always constructive.  I shall use my father as an example.  When he was an adolescent, he noticed that feed bags held air well.  He also harbored enmity towards cats.  (I'd like to point out that this story probably isn't going where you think it is).  He would take a cat, gently place it in a feed sack, and he would attach a parachute made out of another feed sack. He would then climb up the silo and toss the hapless cats off.  There were always a few guys at the bottom with a sheet just incase the chute didn't deploy, but it always did.  I guess if there was a family of risky felines that lived on top of a silo, you would want to know that there is a quick and safe way to get them all to safety.  My father saw that potential issue, and he successfully developed and tested a hypothesis, solving the problem.
    Perhaps the most nauseating trait that comes about in this group is adolescent ego-centrism: the heightened self consciousness that is reflected in adolescents beliefs that others are as interested in them as they themselves are.  The nausea arises when I think back to my own adolescent years, as I am thankfully subject to few adolescents these days.  Every little thing that happened to me was a huge, monstrous deal, and everywhere I went, I knew that people were looking at me.  I simply had to perform.  I thank the Lord that I'm past that self-involved stage of my life, and I'm praying for patience when I have to see it happen in my own children.

January 17th

Class five.  Today we watched a video of a young teacher in Saskatchewan who implemented a 20 minute physical activity program into her math class.  It was quite an interesting video.  As the video started, I began copying the notes from a friend for the last class that I had missed.  It was on being a wise consumer of information.  I will go down the list and decide whether I think the information in this video is safe to consume.

I.  Be cautious of popular media reports. 


Popular media exists for the single purpose of manipulating it's readers/viewers.  There is no such thing as a perfectly biased report on anything, because there is always an objective. There are always people wanting you to see their side of things, and they typically decide to report on only some aspects of a story.

II.  Avoid drawing conclusions about individual needs based on group research.


While there were many advantages to the students in the movie, I wonder whether it would be as successful for every type of student.  The group in the study was a troubled bunch of teens, some that had behavioral and/or learning disabilities.  This approach may have been ideal for them, but I wonder if it would have worked so well for bright young students, or for younger children.  Seeing the results of this study, I would not attempt to apply this too all ages or all stages of development.

III.  Recognize how easy it is to overgeneralize about a small or clinical sample.


As I began to explain above, what worked best for this group of students won't necessarily work as well for other students.  I would be interested to see how it would work with dedicated and successful students.  Would there be as drastic a change?  Also, what would the effects be on different age groups?  I doubt very much that putting a 4 year old on a tread mill will help with much.  Just because it's true for this one group, it is not true for all.

IV.  Be aware that a single study is not usually the defining word.


In science, a hypothesis can never be found to be true.  It can only be proved not false for the same reason as this fourth point.  Scientists know that years down the road things could be drastically different, and their research could possibly be trumped.  Technology and human kind will both advance, and it is impossible to predict where either will go.  Just because a study is found true today, new evidence could possibly arise to contradict it.


V.  Always consider the source of information and evaluate it's credibility.


As a reader, it is important to consider the source of the article that you're reading.  As a viewer, it is important to consider the makers of that video.  It is vital to realize that every news piece is trying to pull it's readers/viewers in a certain direction.  I know that if I went to the green peace website, I would be flogged with articles yelling at me to take action against those that are abusing the planet.  If I were to go to a children's toy website, I would be told about how wonderful the toys are and how they can help with the development of my child.  What these articles fail to mention is that the Rainbow Warrior was kicked out of Alaskan waters for not having an emergency oil spill plan, and that lead paint is used to decorate those wonderful kids toys.  You can never take an article or video for it's face value.  You need to look into the story and try to figure out what they didn't want you to.  Only then will you be a responsible consumer.

January 14th, 2011

This week has certainly been adventurous!  On Monday afternoon, I was backing our car up our driveway, and an mound of packed snow grabbed the bumper of the car and nearly yanked it off. I didn't notice this, and my husband came home and thought that I had hit something.  He set it back on, but it can be easily thrown off again.  Last night, it snowed about a foot, and we live in a residential area ad our street is literally never plowed.   If I had attempted to drive out of the drive way, I would have knocked the bumper off, and then run it over.  I thought I'd try to avoid that.
I copied the notes from a friend.  I missed the lecture on being a cautious consumer of information about educational psychology.  I find that these tips can be used in all areas of life, though.  I am trying to be a wise consumer of all information, and these tips will help me out.

I.  Be cautious of popular media reports.
      I don't believe that there is such thing as an objective media report.  Each person has interpreted the story in a particular way, and they will each put a little spin on it in order to manipulate the readers.   I don't think that this is always done intentionally, but I believe that it always the case.  I believe this is true concerning educational psychology, as well as everything else.

II.  Avoid drawing conclusions about individual needs based on group research.
      You can't look at a study done on a group of people and expect that every person in that study responded to it well.  There are always a few that it doesn't effect.

III.  Recognize how easy it is to overgeneralize about a small or clinical sample.
      I can understand how easy it would be to look at a small group, take a result there and assume that it is going to be as effective everywhere else.  I would call that wishful thinking. If you are supportive of a certain study, then you hope that it will be effective everywhere, and it is easier for those people to overgeneralize.

IV.  Be aware that a single study is not usually the defining word.
      This is quite obvious.  If a study has been done, the chances are quite slim that the exact same results can be found anywhere else.  There will always be variation in the study groups, the methods, and the evaluation of the results.

V.  Always consider the source of information, and evaluate it's credibility.
      Humans lack the ability to write objectively.  Whether they intend to or not, they view things with a certain lens, and therefore report with a biased perspective.  They will expound on certain aspects while neglecting others.  Consumers have to consider this as they read reports on really anything.  What news paper or website has published this article?  What is the background of the writer?  For instance, I wouldn't read an article on the Green peace website and take it as complete truth.  I would first investigate, gather facts from other sources and then come to a conclusion concerning it's credibility.

January 12th, 2011

Today we learned about many different aspects of effective teaching.  I found a few particularly interesting.

• Effective teaching involves social and ethical matters.
• Not only is the teacher responsible for presenting the curriculum in an understandable way, but they are partially responsible for teaching and encouraging them how to behave socially.  
• The teacher also lays down the moral law in the classroom.  At the beginning of the school year, it is made known to the children what is unacceptable under that teachers authority. 
• Those things are so important for children to learn at early ages
• Effective teaching involves multicultural students.
• When I worked at a summer camp, I was the leader of a few children from foster homes.  I would consider this a multicultural difference.  I tried several different tactics to attempt to convey my desires to these campers, and I couldn't understand why they didn't work.  I discovered that they were from foster homes, and I had to alter my methods to accommodate them.
• Children from other countries would be challenging to teach, especially if they were raised for some time in another culture.  Those children would have a hard time trying to adjust to new teaching methods, a new language and a new culture all at once.  This would require exceptional sensitivity and grace from the teacher.
• Effective teaching depends on subject matter competence.
• In my past, I have attempted to write essays after doing almost no research.  Essentially, your objective is to teach someone that doesn't know anything about your essay topic.  I remember staying up into the wee hours of the morning and painfully trying to wrench an unwilling essay out of the depths of my mind.    I would imagine that teaching a class about something you don't know would be something like that.  You are standing before a gaggle of students, all of whom have different styles of learning, and you have to convey to them a certain concept.  If you have only one way of explaining this concept, or know nothing about the concept, then you probably won't be prepared for the students questions.  Referring back to Blooms taxonomy, you need to be at the level of at least understanding, but ideally the level of analyzing.  If you know the reasons why and can see past the surface of the concept to the "moving parts", you will be able to convey the concept to your students in more effective ways.
• Effective teaching is dependent upon commitment.
• In grade 5, I remember one teacher in particular who didn't care whether certain students did well or not.  There was a young man in our class who came from a rough home who didn't accomplish his homework one day.  She had him write a letter explaining why he didn't finish his coloring assignment.  He had apparently struggled with writing because he wrote that he "forgot his colors".  I know what he wrote because she laughed as she read it, and then read it aloud to the whole class.  This teacher had no concern for the boys success, otherwise she wouldn't have embarrassed him so.  She should have been more sensitive and gracious, and most certainly wouldn't treat him the way she did.  The boy was mocked and teased by certain other children, and that is entirely the fault of that teacher.  She was not committed to his social or academic success.

And so it begins...

I walked into my first educational psychology class late: not a good start to a hopefully informative and interesting class.  I sat down and was pleased to see that my professor was a pleasant fellow, with a sense of humor that I understood well.
One of the first things he asked us to consider was our current definition of educational psychology.  I have never taken a psychology course before in my life, and the only thing I know about it is it's correct spelling.  He also asked us to think about a particular question we had about educational psychology.  My question is this:  what is educational psychology?  Given that this is my one question, I know that I'm going to learn a lot from this course.
      We learned about Bloom's taxonomy, which are 6 different forms of engagement.  These are the different levels:
I.  Knowledge
II.  Understanding
III.  Application
IV.  Analyzing
V.  Evaluation
VI.  Creation
I had never before heard of Blooms taxonomy, but I can see how important it is for a future teacher to understand.  I am pleased when I learn about a concept or theory, and can immediately see it in my own life experiences.  It helps me to understand it and remember it well.  I saw these stages in my hobby of crocheting:
I.  Knowledge.
      I began crocheting in high school in my family studies class.  I have many women in my family who have done things like knitting and crocheting, so I had seen it happen but never done it myself.  The first step was learning what a crochet hook looked like, and how to hold both it and the yarn in my hands.  After that, I learned the most basic of crochet stitches.  I could do almost nothing with them, but I remember taking my tiny ball of yarn and crochet hook to my English class and practicing until I was scolded.
II.  Understanding.
      The next step for me was to understand the differences between the crochet stitches, and how to do something with them.  My first attempt at an actual piece was a hat.  I didn't get too far as I couldn't read the pattern and had to wait for my teacher to come around and inform me of my next steps.  But I slowly began to wrap my mind around the stitches, what they looked like and how they might be used.
      I also began to learn how to read patterns.  I didn't want my inability in that area to hold me back.
III.  Applying.
      The application of the knowledge and understanding showed up in my first ever afghan. I had a friend help me out and I began to crochet a blanket for my sister.  I learned new stitches, and put them all together successfully in a lovely blanket.
      A little while later, I also had my first success in reading a pattern on my own.  I made my mother an afghan which I figured out almost entirely on my own.
IV.  Analyzing.
      Before I began crocheting, I remember spending time with my grandmother and looking at various hand made items.  When she looked at them, she could tell which were crocheted, which were knitted, and even some of the stitches used in them.  I was baffled by this because all I saw was yarn.  But eventually, I began to see it too.  Crocheted things have a very different look, and they don't feel quite the same.  I could even look at a hat and figure out the pattern to make one myself.  The first few things that I made were quite rough, but I made them on my own.  Sweet success.
V.  Evaluation.
      I continued to crochet, and began to evaluate my earlier pieces.  I made some changes that improved both their comfort and quality.  I could also look at other peoples work and see opportunities for improvement.
VI.  Creation.
      I took everything I knew and developed my own pair of very unique slippers.  They took some time to perfect, but I think I have it.  I have ideas sometimes for crocheted things, and I love sitting down with yarn and figuring out the best way to bring those ideas into reality.