Friday, September 23, 2016
Discussion of Information Processing Theory
Dr. Lauren Barth-Cohen
Foundational to the information processing approach to learning is the "human as computer" metaphor. That is, the human mind is like a computer or information processor. Information is gathered from the external world through the senses (input), it is stored, processed, and combined with previously stored information in the mind, and then there is a resulting behavioral response (output). Describe an example from your experiences as an Educator where this learning theory applies. What insights does this approach offer? What are some limits of this approach?
Having never studied education before becoming a teacher, I am very pleased to read that many of the concepts that we use (seemingly intuitive to the teaching profession) have been studied & labeled. It's like hearing a song or reading a passage in a novel & saying, "Yep - I know exactly how that feels," or "I knew I wasn't the only one who thought that was a good idea."
Perhaps it was my prior experience in the military that prompted me to use selective attention concepts to muster the rapt attention of students, recently in Saudi Arabia. I'd always group my classes of 20-30 students into 4-5 student teams at the beginning of a semester. I'd have each team select a name (soccer favorites, Marvel characters or, unfailingly, something plus “Ninja”) & create a motto for them to shout out when their team was victorious with a gamified & competitive class exercise. They would often add hand-clapping & song-like intonation to their respective team mottos. Motivated rehearsal is remarkable for creating a conducive learning environment. If I needed to get a certain group's attention (or perhaps the whole class), I could simply begin one of their team chants. Four men barking out the rest of the motto would usually bring the class to order, ironically creating a behaviorist-like response in the classroom & preparing them for the next order - bringing them to attention (they were soldiers, after all).
Teacher’s expectations & the projection of them onto students has always been sort of a secret weapon of mine. I am incredibly enthusiastic &, perhaps, overly-optimistic - starry-eyed, rose-colored glasses, even. As an instructor in Saudi, I heard many complaints by fellow teachers that these were the very worst students they had ever encountered. Perhaps these young men were very relaxed & less engaged (lazy & unmotivated in the words of my poopy-pants colleagues). I felt that motivation was my job, as the high-paid foreign consultant - get these Saudi boys fired-up. After some experimenting & tweaking & massaging this particular technique, I would remind each class I was assigned - at that point in time - that THEY were the best group I ever had - even if I was assigned three different classes that semester. You’d think it would get old for them to hear it so often. Flattery never gets old to young Arab men. Yet, eventually, they each became it.
We also used self-questioning in order to give greater meaning to concepts & better encode the information realized from the questions. We did this using the “OK Google” feature of the Google’s search app. Yes, they would be asking the question to “Google” but I believe that when Google is asked aloud, we are also asking ourselves. The female voice of the response from Google, or Apple’s Siri, was particular helpful & enabled encoding of information for these grown boys in the Saudi desert. It is my belief, that because they rarely hear the female voice, anything heard in a that lovely tone would become particularly more relevant to their mind.
The combination of selective attention, team “roars,” fun-focused exercises, student-centered lessons & high expectations gave me very motivated students. I consistently had higher-scoring classes because, I believe, I primed their mental computers for smooth functioning by continually rebooting their operating systems.
As a fascinating aside, I was considering my extreme desire to teach like my hair is on fire. This required, sometimes, near superhuman efforts with young Saudi males who had very little motivation for learning English (which they most likely never use) & higher education at all. Because of my desire to capture their attention & see sincere engagement, I found my lesson directed, from the lesson plan lead-in, toward entertaining these young men & to sneak in education where I could.
Now, there are certainly limits to my approach. I am always keen to admit that what I did in Saudi Arabia & China would not necessarily work here in the States - or be allowed. I was given so much liberty in the classroom - as a US “expert” consultant (hey, that’s what my visa said!) - that I could experiment with different tactics. What’s more, I had each group of Saudi men for only three-four months. I’m not sure if the maintenance of motivation would be possible within in a longer term & less flexible state-mandated framework.
Foundational to the information processing approach to learning is the "human as computer" metaphor. That is, the human mind is like a computer or information processor. Information is gathered from the external world through the senses (input), it is stored, processed, and combined with previously stored information in the mind, and then there is a resulting behavioral response (output). Describe an example from your experiences as an Educator where this learning theory applies. What insights does this approach offer? What are some limits of this approach?
Having never studied education before becoming a teacher, I am very pleased to read that many of the concepts that we use (seemingly intuitive to the teaching profession) have been studied & labeled. It's like hearing a song or reading a passage in a novel & saying, "Yep - I know exactly how that feels," or "I knew I wasn't the only one who thought that was a good idea."
Perhaps it was my prior experience in the military that prompted me to use selective attention concepts to muster the rapt attention of students, recently in Saudi Arabia. I'd always group my classes of 20-30 students into 4-5 student teams at the beginning of a semester. I'd have each team select a name (soccer favorites, Marvel characters or, unfailingly, something plus “Ninja”) & create a motto for them to shout out when their team was victorious with a gamified & competitive class exercise. They would often add hand-clapping & song-like intonation to their respective team mottos. Motivated rehearsal is remarkable for creating a conducive learning environment. If I needed to get a certain group's attention (or perhaps the whole class), I could simply begin one of their team chants. Four men barking out the rest of the motto would usually bring the class to order, ironically creating a behaviorist-like response in the classroom & preparing them for the next order - bringing them to attention (they were soldiers, after all).
Teacher’s expectations & the projection of them onto students has always been sort of a secret weapon of mine. I am incredibly enthusiastic &, perhaps, overly-optimistic - starry-eyed, rose-colored glasses, even. As an instructor in Saudi, I heard many complaints by fellow teachers that these were the very worst students they had ever encountered. Perhaps these young men were very relaxed & less engaged (lazy & unmotivated in the words of my poopy-pants colleagues). I felt that motivation was my job, as the high-paid foreign consultant - get these Saudi boys fired-up. After some experimenting & tweaking & massaging this particular technique, I would remind each class I was assigned - at that point in time - that THEY were the best group I ever had - even if I was assigned three different classes that semester. You’d think it would get old for them to hear it so often. Flattery never gets old to young Arab men. Yet, eventually, they each became it.
We also used self-questioning in order to give greater meaning to concepts & better encode the information realized from the questions. We did this using the “OK Google” feature of the Google’s search app. Yes, they would be asking the question to “Google” but I believe that when Google is asked aloud, we are also asking ourselves. The female voice of the response from Google, or Apple’s Siri, was particular helpful & enabled encoding of information for these grown boys in the Saudi desert. It is my belief, that because they rarely hear the female voice, anything heard in a that lovely tone would become particularly more relevant to their mind.
The combination of selective attention, team “roars,” fun-focused exercises, student-centered lessons & high expectations gave me very motivated students. I consistently had higher-scoring classes because, I believe, I primed their mental computers for smooth functioning by continually rebooting their operating systems.
As a fascinating aside, I was considering my extreme desire to teach like my hair is on fire. This required, sometimes, near superhuman efforts with young Saudi males who had very little motivation for learning English (which they most likely never use) & higher education at all. Because of my desire to capture their attention & see sincere engagement, I found my lesson directed, from the lesson plan lead-in, toward entertaining these young men & to sneak in education where I could.
Now, there are certainly limits to my approach. I am always keen to admit that what I did in Saudi Arabia & China would not necessarily work here in the States - or be allowed. I was given so much liberty in the classroom - as a US “expert” consultant (hey, that’s what my visa said!) - that I could experiment with different tactics. What’s more, I had each group of Saudi men for only three-four months. I’m not sure if the maintenance of motivation would be possible within in a longer term & less flexible state-mandated framework.
Discussion of Situated Cognition
Dr. Lauren Barth-Cohen
The authors we've read this week, Brown, Collins and Duguid and Lave, describe a particular kind of educational setting. Some might dismiss their views on Situated Cognition and Apprenticeships as impractical or unrealistic when thinking about contemporary schools and educational challenges. For our discussion this week, consider educational environments you've experienced, as a student or teacher where situation cognition might be applicable. What was being learned? What counted as "knowing"? What was the role of the teacher?
In reference to what indeed a theory of learning is or should be & what are its tenets, Lave nails it when she states that:
Of course, yes?! Master tailors create master tailors. Islamic legal scholars mold future Muslim lawyers.
So then, what is school, formal education creating? I suppose for those who embrace what it is, it is creating good teachers & good students. Rather tautological albeit achieving & justifying its continued existence, non?! Our forum is a brilliant example of this truism.
I'll tell you what's not so brilliant. I studied business for my first Masters. None of the professors, although esteemed in the community as consultants & generally nice folks, had founded, been continuously associated or significantly contributed any successful business. Voila! I mastered the Masters of Business Administration, graduating with honors. I have yet to master business, some eleven years later - indeed, my many ventures have been startling failures (failure is fertilizer, yes)! ;)
What was being taught at me was the ability to analyze - in a very decontextualized atmosphere - business formation, management & it's relationship to society. Yes, we had projects that were sort of real-worldy. Did we engage in entrepreneurship? That's just silly. Who would back a bunch of apprentice MBAs? Many of my colleagues went on to executive positions in random corporations around California. I'm curious if they've been able to contribute much to their respective business employers from what they "learned" about business in business school. Did we learn about business in business school? Nope. We learned how to study business in business school.
Our deferred apprenticeships in the practice of business only began after the thick degree - albeit bereft of a true master. Curious.
"Knowing" about business in business school is declarative with a big D! Absolutely nothing procedural or truly metastrategic to it. We "knew" how to analyze business.
The role of the teacher . . . I'm really not negative about the whole experience. I "learned" a lot. I did not "learn" how to create a business - sometimes I think it was actually counter-productive to entrepreneurship. The role of the professors at that lovely school on the Lost Coast of California was to create certified MBAs. Which they did. Bravo.
The authors we've read this week, Brown, Collins and Duguid and Lave, describe a particular kind of educational setting. Some might dismiss their views on Situated Cognition and Apprenticeships as impractical or unrealistic when thinking about contemporary schools and educational challenges. For our discussion this week, consider educational environments you've experienced, as a student or teacher where situation cognition might be applicable. What was being learned? What counted as "knowing"? What was the role of the teacher?
In reference to what indeed a theory of learning is or should be & what are its tenets, Lave nails it when she states that:
"The term "learning mechanism" diminishes in importance, in fact it may fall out altogether, as "mechanisms" disappear into practice. Mainly, people are becoming kinds of persons." (p 157, my emphasis)
Of course, yes?! Master tailors create master tailors. Islamic legal scholars mold future Muslim lawyers.
So then, what is school, formal education creating? I suppose for those who embrace what it is, it is creating good teachers & good students. Rather tautological albeit achieving & justifying its continued existence, non?! Our forum is a brilliant example of this truism.
I'll tell you what's not so brilliant. I studied business for my first Masters. None of the professors, although esteemed in the community as consultants & generally nice folks, had founded, been continuously associated or significantly contributed any successful business. Voila! I mastered the Masters of Business Administration, graduating with honors. I have yet to master business, some eleven years later - indeed, my many ventures have been startling failures (failure is fertilizer, yes)! ;)
What was being taught at me was the ability to analyze - in a very decontextualized atmosphere - business formation, management & it's relationship to society. Yes, we had projects that were sort of real-worldy. Did we engage in entrepreneurship? That's just silly. Who would back a bunch of apprentice MBAs? Many of my colleagues went on to executive positions in random corporations around California. I'm curious if they've been able to contribute much to their respective business employers from what they "learned" about business in business school. Did we learn about business in business school? Nope. We learned how to study business in business school.
Our deferred apprenticeships in the practice of business only began after the thick degree - albeit bereft of a true master. Curious.
"Knowing" about business in business school is declarative with a big D! Absolutely nothing procedural or truly metastrategic to it. We "knew" how to analyze business.
The role of the teacher . . . I'm really not negative about the whole experience. I "learned" a lot. I did not "learn" how to create a business - sometimes I think it was actually counter-productive to entrepreneurship. The role of the professors at that lovely school on the Lost Coast of California was to create certified MBAs. Which they did. Bravo.
Discussion of Metacognition, Problem Solving, and Comprehension
Dr. Lauren Barth-Cohen
Imagine you are going to advise a K-8 school on a new math curriculum that focuses on problem solving. Take what you know from the readings to advise the school. What should be their learning objects? What should they look for in new curricular materials to help achieve those objectives?
Something that really struck a cord for me in the the reading (Gredler, p. 232) was the study discussed third to fifth grade student error detection in "more than" & "less than" mathematical word problems. Gredler makes a brilliant yet possible over-looked concept once one gets to involve in the academic analysis of learners (I believe at every level - not simply young ones):
"One reason for the lack of identification of unsolvable problems is that children develop a "WORD PROBLEM" SCHEMA in which WORD PROBLEMS are DIVORCED from REAL-WORLD problems (emphasis added by me).
I believe this is one of the core reasons (not to mention student-owned cliches) learning simple doesn't happen.
I've studied the teaching methods of Maria Montessori (Links to an external site.) in order to better understand the young men I taught in Rabigh, KSA. It was a vocational school in a remote village. Much of the teaching was done by text book or making wonderful, high-end Lenovo tablets into shiny e-readers or pretty platforms for engineering Philippino professor's pirated PowerPoints. They had wonderful equipment - conduits, pumps, operations boards & instrumentation panels - but the students were asked to solve word problems on paper for the majority of their two year program.
With that said, I've never been able to understand why anyone would study or learn math - except for those few who enjoy it. I know it does appeal to some - and that's absolutely fabulous.
From my experience of learning math in high school &/or hacking it or completely avoiding it wherever else possible, I would advise that a new curriculum be made virtual . . . though not necessarily virtual reality.
Montessori believed that students learned best by real world doing, touching, smelling & listening. The schools that are her namesake produce some of the finest young minds today - including Larry Page & Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. I believe metacognition - thinking about thinking - happens when the learner is thinking about she is doing. The need to remember becomes more "real" when the learner is in the act of doing something very real, & possibly failing at it.
I think math curricula should include much more touchy-feely stuff, like a Montessori (Links to an external site.) school or a vocational school. If there's a problem with how many buses would be needed for so many soldiers - rather than giving young learners an option of a remainder - materials in a virtual world (possibly something in the WolframAlpha (Links to an external site.) persuasion) could be manipulated by the students to understand the real world relation that is so vital for true learning & the long-term retaining of knowledge.
Montessori Method
Want to give the students a problem about cookies? Use real cookies - or Skittles.
I certainly realize that my approach has real-world financial limitations. It could be expensive. In the best of all possible schools, I would make those suggestions.
Imagine you are going to advise a K-8 school on a new math curriculum that focuses on problem solving. Take what you know from the readings to advise the school. What should be their learning objects? What should they look for in new curricular materials to help achieve those objectives?
Something that really struck a cord for me in the the reading (Gredler, p. 232) was the study discussed third to fifth grade student error detection in "more than" & "less than" mathematical word problems. Gredler makes a brilliant yet possible over-looked concept once one gets to involve in the academic analysis of learners (I believe at every level - not simply young ones):
"One reason for the lack of identification of unsolvable problems is that children develop a "WORD PROBLEM" SCHEMA in which WORD PROBLEMS are DIVORCED from REAL-WORLD problems (emphasis added by me).
I believe this is one of the core reasons (not to mention student-owned cliches) learning simple doesn't happen.
I've studied the teaching methods of Maria Montessori (Links to an external site.) in order to better understand the young men I taught in Rabigh, KSA. It was a vocational school in a remote village. Much of the teaching was done by text book or making wonderful, high-end Lenovo tablets into shiny e-readers or pretty platforms for engineering Philippino professor's pirated PowerPoints. They had wonderful equipment - conduits, pumps, operations boards & instrumentation panels - but the students were asked to solve word problems on paper for the majority of their two year program.
With that said, I've never been able to understand why anyone would study or learn math - except for those few who enjoy it. I know it does appeal to some - and that's absolutely fabulous.
From my experience of learning math in high school &/or hacking it or completely avoiding it wherever else possible, I would advise that a new curriculum be made virtual . . . though not necessarily virtual reality.
Montessori believed that students learned best by real world doing, touching, smelling & listening. The schools that are her namesake produce some of the finest young minds today - including Larry Page & Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. I believe metacognition - thinking about thinking - happens when the learner is thinking about she is doing. The need to remember becomes more "real" when the learner is in the act of doing something very real, & possibly failing at it.
I think math curricula should include much more touchy-feely stuff, like a Montessori (Links to an external site.) school or a vocational school. If there's a problem with how many buses would be needed for so many soldiers - rather than giving young learners an option of a remainder - materials in a virtual world (possibly something in the WolframAlpha (Links to an external site.) persuasion) could be manipulated by the students to understand the real world relation that is so vital for true learning & the long-term retaining of knowledge.
Montessori Method
Want to give the students a problem about cookies? Use real cookies - or Skittles.
I certainly realize that my approach has real-world financial limitations. It could be expensive. In the best of all possible schools, I would make those suggestions.
Discussion of Behaviorism
Dr. Lauren Barth-Cohen
Describe a teaching and learning situation from your experience in which you think behaviorism applies. What inputs trigger the behavior? What are the results? Critique your example, what aspects of the teaching and learning situation are not explained by a behaviorist approach?
Sep 1, 2016 Sep 1 at 7:50am
Prior to doing the reading, I penned this last week. It's raw but I believe illustrative of commonly practiced behaviorism. The first example involved "learning" by punishment of yours truly when I was a young Army recruit at Ft. Leonard Wood. The second was my application of a reward for a conditioned response, volunteerism, as I began teaching English to university students in Changzhou, China. I'll bullet the negative (NEG) & positive (POS) experiences under their respective sections.
Learning/teaching situation
NEG - As initial entry training (IET) privates, young soldiers were not allowed to smoke.
POS - As a new teacher in China, I found it difficult to persuade intimidated college freshmen to raise their hands & speak.
Triggers
NEG - Severe penalties, including physical fitness punishments (like hundreds of push ups, of course) were given to privates violating the no-smoking regulations. As a cocky & careless young GI, I was caught smoking. On a frigid, snowy Missouri evening in January, for my punishment I was required to move a yards of firewood - stacked three to four feet high - from one side of the long barracks building to other. I worked from around five in the evening until I collapsed just after midnight.
POS - As prompted by one of the veteran English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers at the Changzhou Textile Garment Institute of University City, I offered Hershey's Kisses (authentic American chocolates being a rare & expensive treat in the People's Republic of China!) for students' contributions - one chocolate for simply raising their hands; two for using full sentences; & three Kisses for English that was laughable (hopefully correct), entertaining and/or profound enough to spur additional students' responses.
Results
NEG - Very few soldiers were caught sneaking a cigarette - regardless of how many some of our drill instructors smoked. After witnessing my punishment - fellow recruits were able to see my labor of shame from the warmth of the barracks bay window - young soldiers were even more surreptitious of their own smoking habits. I was never caught smoking again. What do you know?! It worked.
POS - After the initial blushing & feigned indignance, Chinese college kids engaged in more hand-raising; students tried to surpass simple one-word answers & build complete, grammatical sentences in response to my questions; public speaking fear was reduced; & the practice created an environment of friendly competition & playful English retorts.
Critique
NEG - The Non-commissioned officers (NCOs) doling out these punishments have no idea what's going on in the young recruits' minds. Perhaps the soldier being punished might be thinking, "Hmm, I really deserve this. Must be more disciplined . . . somehow!" Or, just maybe, the shamed recruit might be planning a way to get even with this old guy, or the whole Army, for such unjust treatment somewhere down the long dirty road. Yes, in my case, the unwanted behavior was curbed. It certainly wasn't permanent & only increased my guarded-ness of the prohibited habit. I'm not sure it would work at all on some of the "thicker," stubborn young soldiers with which I have had the pleasure of serving.
POS - Of course, I really had no idea what was going on in these Chinese kids minds. Was I truly embarrassing them but their weakness for chocolate overcame their shame of accepting candy from a veritable stranger? If I suddenly ran out of chocolates, would students cease the behavior (when I inevitably did, I would promise to bring more next time - which didn't always happen)? And then, it didn't work on all students. Some students had no desire for the chocolates & appeared to snub other freshmen for behaving immaturely - performing tricks for food.
Describe a teaching and learning situation from your experience in which you think behaviorism applies. What inputs trigger the behavior? What are the results? Critique your example, what aspects of the teaching and learning situation are not explained by a behaviorist approach?
Sep 1, 2016 Sep 1 at 7:50am
Prior to doing the reading, I penned this last week. It's raw but I believe illustrative of commonly practiced behaviorism. The first example involved "learning" by punishment of yours truly when I was a young Army recruit at Ft. Leonard Wood. The second was my application of a reward for a conditioned response, volunteerism, as I began teaching English to university students in Changzhou, China. I'll bullet the negative (NEG) & positive (POS) experiences under their respective sections.
Learning/teaching situation
NEG - As initial entry training (IET) privates, young soldiers were not allowed to smoke.
POS - As a new teacher in China, I found it difficult to persuade intimidated college freshmen to raise their hands & speak.
Triggers
NEG - Severe penalties, including physical fitness punishments (like hundreds of push ups, of course) were given to privates violating the no-smoking regulations. As a cocky & careless young GI, I was caught smoking. On a frigid, snowy Missouri evening in January, for my punishment I was required to move a yards of firewood - stacked three to four feet high - from one side of the long barracks building to other. I worked from around five in the evening until I collapsed just after midnight.
POS - As prompted by one of the veteran English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers at the Changzhou Textile Garment Institute of University City, I offered Hershey's Kisses (authentic American chocolates being a rare & expensive treat in the People's Republic of China!) for students' contributions - one chocolate for simply raising their hands; two for using full sentences; & three Kisses for English that was laughable (hopefully correct), entertaining and/or profound enough to spur additional students' responses.
Results
NEG - Very few soldiers were caught sneaking a cigarette - regardless of how many some of our drill instructors smoked. After witnessing my punishment - fellow recruits were able to see my labor of shame from the warmth of the barracks bay window - young soldiers were even more surreptitious of their own smoking habits. I was never caught smoking again. What do you know?! It worked.
POS - After the initial blushing & feigned indignance, Chinese college kids engaged in more hand-raising; students tried to surpass simple one-word answers & build complete, grammatical sentences in response to my questions; public speaking fear was reduced; & the practice created an environment of friendly competition & playful English retorts.
Critique
NEG - The Non-commissioned officers (NCOs) doling out these punishments have no idea what's going on in the young recruits' minds. Perhaps the soldier being punished might be thinking, "Hmm, I really deserve this. Must be more disciplined . . . somehow!" Or, just maybe, the shamed recruit might be planning a way to get even with this old guy, or the whole Army, for such unjust treatment somewhere down the long dirty road. Yes, in my case, the unwanted behavior was curbed. It certainly wasn't permanent & only increased my guarded-ness of the prohibited habit. I'm not sure it would work at all on some of the "thicker," stubborn young soldiers with which I have had the pleasure of serving.
POS - Of course, I really had no idea what was going on in these Chinese kids minds. Was I truly embarrassing them but their weakness for chocolate overcame their shame of accepting candy from a veritable stranger? If I suddenly ran out of chocolates, would students cease the behavior (when I inevitably did, I would promise to bring more next time - which didn't always happen)? And then, it didn't work on all students. Some students had no desire for the chocolates & appeared to snub other freshmen for behaving immaturely - performing tricks for food.
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| Changzhou Textile Garment Institute - September 2007, Changzhou, People's Republic of China |
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