Reflective Assessment on Learning Theory
Leah Brackin
Arkansas State University
Reflective Assessment on Learning Theory
Each of the three learning theories, Cognitivism, Constructivism, and Behaviorism, has worth and merit in my opinion. Yet, each one has its own unique qualities with one common factor, the learning process. It seems to me that the best teacher is one who would utilize all the theories of learning. However, if I look closely, I am most likely favoring one or two more than the others in my own instructional methods. I read the brief definition of these three theories and realized that I needed to examine a more in-depth explanation of each of them. The theory of cognitivism focuses on the mind of the learner
…show more content…
Learning occurs when each child is developmentally ready, and this happens at a different pace for each individual child. I experience this daily in my Kindergarten classroom. Although a lot has changed in education over the course of my career, I try to focus on the constant that each of my students can learn on any given day and that I must challenge all of my students to reach his or her potential. This is my school’s motto, and we recite it daily. Education has faced many challenges over the years with politics, the economy, students’ culture, and legal issues. Politics does play a crucial role in education. Different school systems and population areas receive more or less government funding. Educational dollars can play a key role in a school system receiving the latest technology, updated facilities, educational funds for teachers, and curriculum needs. I have been able to experience this for myself by transferring schools from the city to the county school district. The social aspect of learning affects children in different ways also. Different cultures of schools are negatively and positively affected as well. Having taught in an inner-city school for 9 years, I was able to witness firsthand the downfalls and negative effects that come into play for students who come …show more content…
The main instance that I use behaviorism in my classroom is through positive reinforcement. I praise, praise, praise my students all day. Students who are such young learners receive much motivation when they hear praise and specific praise at that. It allows them to be eager to please their teacher and provides a sense of self-accomplishment. In my classroom, I also use a treasure chest, reward coupons and PBIS reward money as major components of positive reinforcement. At the beginning of the year, I teach my students my classroom expectations and that I expect the best from them. This includes all of their daily work, including journal writing, morning work, etc. My students know what my desired outcome is. Student’s behavioral efforts are measured and collected on a weekly basis through a behavior chart. Their assignments are measured on accuracy and completeness in order to help them recognize the importance of their effort in finishing an assignment. I utilize a rubric on many of my assignments in order to help them achieve their best. Their meeting certain standards on their weekly behavior chart allows them to receive
California is one of the largest states in the country and has one of the biggest state budgets, but in the past several years, its school system has become one of the worst in the nation because of enormous budget cuts in efforts to balance the state’s enormous deficit. The economic downturn at the end of the 2000s resulted in even more cuts to education. It is in environments like this one in which students from poor backgrounds become most vulnerable because of their lack of access to support in their homes as well as other programs outside of schools. Their already financially restricted school districts have no choice but to cut supplementary programs and increase class sizes among other negative changes to public schools. The lack of financial support from the state level as well as demands for schools to meet certain testing benchmarks by the state results in a system in which the schools are no longer able to focus on students as individuals; they are forced to treat students as numbers rather than on an individual case by case basis. An article from the Los Angeles Times showed that majority of Californians give California schools “a grade of C or below” and half think that the quality of schools will continue to decline (Watanabe).While the economic downturn affected the public school system in a negative way, it was not the sole root of its problems. It just simply exacerbated already existing issues.
America’s public school system started off very rough, but through the dedication of many hard-working Americans, it was starting to shape into a system that allowed all children, regardless of race, gender, religion, or nation of origin, to have an education.
Reece & Walker states the behaviourism is teacher centred and relies upon the expectation of the provision of a stimulus to produce a response however, ‘students are often seen as passive’. Therefore, without a stimulus there would be no response and is only visible externally. The teacher provides the stimulus for a response to occur, resulting in a change of behaviour that can be measured.
Every year, education majors across the U.S. face a barrage of learning theories and models in their education courses. Professors waste no time in introducing them to Pavlov and his dogs, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Maslow’s Hierarchy, Piaget, Skinner, Gagne, Bruner and more (Marsh, McFadden, and Price, n.d.). From the work of these great men come such learning theories as behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, three paradigms that have shaped our current educational system. The next generation of teachers creates countless practice lesson plans based around these theories. Unfortunately, there is a wide divide between the psychology of how humans learn and the constraints of an American classroom. The SUCCEED instructional design model attempts to marry prominent learning theory with the realities of the classroom to create a model that is both fundamentally sound and realistic.
My second preferred learning style, visual, relates more toward a cognitivist instructional method. The cognitivist perspective stat...
Education is an integral part of society, school helps children learn social norms as well as teach them how to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. These schools have lower test scores and high dropout rates. In Trenton Central High School West, there was an 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often from low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial reasons to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and further teacher education, urban schools can be transformed and be better equipped to prepare their students for the global stage.
There is an unequal balance in America's public school funding system. Every state and district requires different amounts of federal funding for their schools. Therefore, living in a poverty stricken community compared to a wealthier community, school funds would look a lot different. Wealthier communities typically have a greater pay for teachers, therefore attracting the best teachers. There would be more plentiful materials to help children learn as well due to funding. Less fortunate communities would be somewhat of the opposite. This inequality in the public school system is unfair to the most vulnerable - children.
The number of students created a diverse set of needs that often the one teacher couldn’t accommodate. Generally, they would ask the other students for assistance but sometimes would ask the teacher, those asking would occasionally be ignored and would result in being off task. Behavior was often corrected via a spoken mantra to be repeated or using a well-behaved student as an example. Good behavior was encouraged via a points system for prizes as well as choices in activity in free time. Behaviorism plays an important role in their class, focusing them and establishing good habits where it was paired with self-regulating
The government was not involved in education for 250 years. Before, it was all supported by various community and religious organizations (Hayes 3). Horace Mann, known as the “father of common schools,” pushed for federal educational support (Hayes 4). With the help of Mann, Congress decided that it was the schools’ fault that poor children were unable to succeed in society and they discovered the presence of racial and income segregation in standardized test scores and achievement rates (Hayes 4). It was this idea that led to the birth of No Child Left Behind and a so-called “educational war on poverty” (Hayes 5). Today, due to the creation of NCLB, schools are mainly funded and supported by state governments (Hayes 4). Due to government interference in education being such a new concept, the system has run into several issues, especially related to communication between politicians and the educators themselves. Lack of communication and common ground on large issues has led to ideas, like those found in No Child Left Behind, that sound good in concept, but fail in practice (Gerson). This can largely be blamed on the government’s business viewpoint. Incentives and threats of punishment work in the business world where profit is at stake, but in education there is much more involved. For example, focus on particular results and standards, the equivalent of assessment scores, are important to a company making a living, but classrooms also need to aim for skills, character, and experiences (Ravitch 102). This gap in communication between the law and the students the law is affecting is just one example of how the government’s new involvement in education led to the failure of No Child Left
My philosophy of individual behavioral management is the fact that most often students have a reason for acting/behaving the way(s) that they do. If for some reason there is that one student and/or a few students that needed a behavior management policy in place, as their teacher, it is my job to (1) figure out what drives them to act/behavior the way in which they are as their actions/behaviors do not come from "nowhere"; (2) it is then my duty to determine what specific area(s) need adjusting (for example, what actions/behaviors need to be "worked on"); (3) how can I "fix" these actions/behaviors. In the past, I have always used behavior charts with the end result/reward being something that interest the student(s). If the end result does
After researching and further examining the theories I will address the ways they have effected my planning and delivery of learning. I have identified that Behaviourism and Cognitivism are present in the planning and delivering of my lessons. I use behaviourism as this principle has the element of motivation due to my learners having low confidence and self-esteem there is a higher need to focus on building their motivation to successfully complete the course. Positive and negative reinforcement allows the management of behaviour in the lesson encouraging positive behaviour whilst removing inappropriate and negative aspects. I adapt my lesson plans to incorporate feedback and praise and address any areas for learners to improve upon.
One thing all Americans have in common is that we all had to attend some form of school. While some are home schooled or attend private school, the vast majority of people are the products of the American Public School System. A system that has been slow to change over the past decade despite the roller coaster speed of culture we live in today. So, two daring articles tilted “Major Challenges Facing Public Schools in the United States” by Mr. Admin and “10 Reasons the U.S. Education System Is Failing” by Mr. Lynch make the bold claim that there are problems that need to be addressed in the public education systems. Some of these problems include household dynamics, technology, and educators.
In closing, implementing only one theory of learning can be limiting to the success of students in a classroom setting. A more effective approach would be “draw from two or more theoretical perspectives… to better capture the complex nature of human thinking and learning” (Ormrod, 2012). According to Howard Gardner, there are multiple intelligences in human individuals that are based on biological and cultural elements (Brualdi, 1996). Since each of the intelligences work independently of each other, but also complement each other individuals learn, teachers should teach accordingly (Brualdi, 1996).
There are several approaches or perspectives to how an individual learns. The learning paradigms have been classified into five – behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism , humanism and design
These mental processes include thinking, memory, knowing and problem solving unlike in behaviourism theory which bases its judgment on the degree of learning on the changes in behaviour. In cognitivism theory, one focuses on the study of the mental process and can make use of the gathered information to tell if learning has occurred. This theory perceives the mind as a black box which needs to be opened so that it can be explored (Ertmer & Timothy, 1993). It believes that the mind receives information, processes it and then produces some kind of response which can either be stored in the mind or be exhibited through behaviour. Generally, knowledge can be viewed as schema where mental constructions are organised in the mind. It is made possible when the learner is actively involved in the learning process and the actions exhibited afterwards are a result of thought which have been stimulated by the information which has been given to the individual. When designing a learning environment to fit this kind of theory, I will be able to encourage curiosity, provide inquiry oriented theme topics and present knowledge in a staged scaffolding. This theory provides knowledge as absolute and