Learning Theories - T2P for Week 2

T2P: If students work in groups, then they will learn a lesson more thoroughly because they are hearing different point of views, thus they are learning from each other.


In today's class, we first discussed the Yere reading, which introduced that a teacher's beliefs are carried out in their lessons, even though it is unintentional. For instance, I think that group work is valuable to a student, which is something that will drive the way I teach. I also believe that relating science to real world situations (example - engineering, the way things are designed relate to physics) in a way that makes the subject more tangible makes physics more relevant to a student and thus enhances learning. Because this is my belief, it is something I will incorporate as a teacher. I had never thought of this before - how much our beliefs really will drive our teaching methods, and what we teach. If you think about it, that's kind of scary! But I suppose thats why school districts have spelled out curriculums, some with limited flexibility as a teacher, so that we all "stay on task".

We also discussed the varying views of Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget believed that there were four distinct stages of cognitive development that each occurred within an approximate span in a child's life at specific ages. Vygotsky believed that children's development occurred in increments, and that learning is built upon what a child knows (scaffolding). He also believed that a child's community, family and culture are most influential in a child's life in their cognitive development. This differs from Piaget's view in that he did not identify outside influences as having an affect on a child's cognitive development.

I personally believe that our family, community, and culture are very influential in our cognitive development. I believe that what we learn from these variables are sort of the foundation for where our cognitive development. I agree with Vygotsky's view also that we learn through scaffolding - we build up or cognitive knowledge upon a structure, that might be shaped by our family, community and culture. Perhaps in Piaget's Swiss culture, the four distinct stages of cognitive development are true and this theory also seems to apply to the American culture as well, but I don't think that it is cross-cultural and I think it is important to recognize that.

We also worked to develop an interdisciplinary lesson plan, which was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be! Everyone in my group recognized our objective, and we all managed to keep our lessons within each discipline focus on our objective, but it made me realize how easy it would be for a student to "stray" from their objective in a lesson. In another class we are reading the book "Understanding by Design" which promotes the idea of using a backward design method, or a "big idea" that you tell the students, and then you do your lessons. Each lesson needs to somehow lend to the understanding of this "big idea", and the activity of developing the lesson plan helped me realize how useful this can be to not only the students but to the student's as well.

I also learned through our discussions how important it is to recognize who our students are. High school students are sensitive and are going through an awkward time. We as teachers need to recognize this. As Maslow said, a student must be comfortable in order for learning to occur, so this is very important to be aware of. If this means that students should work in groups that they are comfortable with, then we need to understand that that's okay.

All in all, it was a really great class and I enjoyed it today.

Thanks!

Steph