Jalapeño Dilema

Everyday I go to Hubble North and get in the sub line to order a turkey sub with all the usual toppings such as lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, green peppers, mayo etc. Then I find myself always asking for jalapeños. Today, I thought about this behavior and asked why I do this? Come to think of it I don't even like hot food. I usually ended up sweating profusely and seem to never enjoy my sub. Every time I subconsciously just gravitate towards jalapeños. I believe the thinking behind this behavior can be explained by learning theories. As I thought about this I thought back to my early years when I started putting jalapeños on my subs, I have concluded that this behavior was very socially constructed which can be connected to social learning theory. I think I started doing this to be sort of a “more knowledgeable peer”, I thought for some reason that putting unique toppings on my sub made me some sort of sandwich connoisseur. I know this is really stupid, but I probably did this because it looked “grown up” and cool to put a lot of exotic toppings on my sub in front of your friends. This schema was formed, and I haven’t taken the effort to change it yet (cvt).

Questions about using all learning theories?

            As future teachers, our goal should be essentially to help our students learn and for them to reach their potential as a student. We should always be searching for ways to give the students what they need as learners. I believe it’s important to teach in a way that is informed by all learning theories; however, I don’t think it’s all that important to classify and nit pick whether or not every learning theory is being applied. If classifying becomes the focus, I believe more attention will be given to the theories rather than the actual students. I'm willing to bet that there have past teachers that have used all the theories to inform their teaching, but students still walked out of his or her classroom learning nothing. I would first ask myself are my students actually learning the material? I believe this question directly relates back to the learning theories because these theories attempt to explain how humans learn. Not one of these learning theory can completely explain learning which is why there are numerous learning theories. My teaching will be affected by all of the theories. I will ask myself how are the different theories being incorporated throughout each of my lessons. At the end of the day, however, I want to be able to look back and conclude that my student have learned, quite frankly I believe this conclusion must be proven by using assessments. These assessments will also be informed by the different learning theories to ensure that the students understand every aspect of a particular topic.

             One thing that we learned in class was that often times there are activities that can't be clearly traced back to one of the theories. For example when all the theories are used at one time it may be hard to distinguish what theory the ideas are coming from. This is probably when learning and teaching are at their finest because the brain is being forced to stretch and reconstruct. Teaching isn’t in a vacuum, as teachers we must use theories but not let the theories use us.

Things I have Learned in Ed 107

I feel like during the past class period I have gained a much better understanding of the practical applications regarding some of these theories (especially Developmental Learning Theory). Over the past few weeks of our Learning and Assessment class I have started to see that being a “good teacher” is so much more than just standing in front of a classroom and spitting out information. Secondary Teachers are given the huge responsibility of somehow teaching a group of (probably unmotivated) students about math, science, Spanish, (or whatever subject) all the while dealing with classroom management and relationships with coworkers and students. Instead of being overwhelmed by this, I want to look at this task as a challenge; I want my students to be able to look back as see how much they have learned when they exit my classroom for the last time. As teachers we will be given specific curriculum from the school, but we are given quite a bit freedom in how we personally run our classroom. I want my teaching to be continuously informed by these teaching strategies. It makes sense that everything I do in the classroom should have a very specific purpose that relates to the vision of where I want the students to be at the end of the year. Therefore the way I teach should be informed by the different ideas that come along with the theories we have learned in class.

I believe that I have already used many of these theories without even realizing it; I just haven’t put the labels on my actions. In class when we drew the pencil from the different viewpoints I subconsciously used DLT by turning my body position to have a more concrete visualization of what the pencil would look like from the particular “abstract” angle. I think by labeling these theories there may be confusion at first because as humans we like things to cut and dry or very definitive. These theories have a lot of gray area, partly because they are not methods of teaching. However, I do believe it is very beneficial that we understand how these theories can maximize the potential of our teaching.

Yesterday we learned about the Social Learning theory, one part of this theory focuses on the “more knowledgeable peer”; this was a very important role during my grade school years. I think it’s good to note that more knowledgeable peer is always rotating. This peer could be the teacher or it could be an advanced or experienced student. I can look back at times when I was the more knowledgeable peer. There were subjects like math and geography that students would come to me with questions, while other subjects like English spelling and science that I would get help from other students. Sometimes this help would even come questions that the student would ask in front of the class, because often times to ask an intelligent question you have to partially understand the material. I’m looking forward to learning more about the Social Learning Theory.

Developmental Learning Theory

Developmental Learning Theory – Sam Greeno

All humans take part in the lifelong process of learning, developing, and changing. Each person has to progressively develop; this development occurs rapidly in earlier stages of life as the brain’s mental capabilities expand. Regardless of the particular “learning style” a child may excel in, all children learn best by learning from actual concrete materials rather than abstract presentations.  This defines developmental learning theory. For example, if a teacher wanted to teach about the stages of a butterfly’s development, they should show the students a tangible demonstration of the butterfly life cycle rather than textbook figures. By doing this, students will make their own observations and be able to physically see the changes as they take place instead of abstract words explaining a process that may be too difficult for young students to fully comprehend. The brains of younger students are oftentimes unable to understand abstract information. These students shouldn’t even be “learning” certain information because their brains may not be capable of actually learning about the particular topic at hand.

Learning is a difficult concept to understand. The transfer of information or skill knowledge from teacher to student or from textbook to student is more difficult than one may assume. It is often challenging to differentiate between actual learning and memorization. These are problems that many educators have to wrestle with. At what point should learn in an abstract manner rather than a concrete manner. Is 8^th grade indeed the correct age for algebra? Teachers have many decisions they are expected to make; these decisions really do affect the learning of their students.

As future teachers, we must understand the ramifications of developmental learning theory. The old system of the behaviorist learning theory is broken and in need of repair. The American education system is slowly responding to change, this is due to the fact that change is difficult, especially when the status quo appears to be adequate for the time being. However, practically speaking, students do not learn best from sitting in a lecture style classroom, but in today’s fast paced education system, it seems to be the only feasible option.  Therefore, concrete learning that deals with critical thinking and exploratory problem-solving is overtaken by more abstract and quick teaching methods. This is no reason to get discouraged though. There are still obstacles in the way of the Developmental Learning Theory, but today’s education seems to be moving in the right direction as we begin to understand the importance of concrete based learning.