Monday, December 6, 2010

Overview

Taking this education psychology course will help me throughout my career as a teacher.  I found learning about the different philosopher theories helped me to look at how children develop and their behaviors in a different way and gave me a better understanding. I also found the video we watched with Richard Lavoy educational and eye opening it gave me a new perspective for  helping and working with children with learning disabilities. This course also gave me a different view as why children can act the way they do that many external and internal forces play a role in a children behavior.  I think we all know that the environment plays a role in our environment but forget about it and blame the individual.  It is important for teachers to help shape children futures and the knowledge we gained, can help us to shape that path for each individual child in the way that is best for them cause no two student is the same.     

Assessing Students Learning

Assessment is the gathering of reliable information pertaining to students knowledge and understanding of critical concepts.   This is not to be confused with evaluation which is the process of making judgment, based in part on assessment data. There are four types of assessment:
1. Before instruction assessment 
2. During instruction assessment (formative assessment), assessment for learning to provide information on how they are doing
3. After instruction assessment (Summative assessment)-Assessment of learning
4.Assessment as learning, a self assessment reflecting upon your own learning 

Three features to assessment 
1. Reliability, results that are produced are reproducible 
2.Validity, test or a assignment that measures what it is intended to measure  two types 
           A) Content Validity, assessment instruments measures the content that you`ve covered
           B) Instructional Validity, assessment of what was actually done in class

It is important for teacher to be fair when assessing students all students should have an equal opportunity to learn and demonstrate their skills.  Some current trends used to assess student include the use of at least some performance base assessment, higher order cognitive skills, use of multiple assessment methods, having high performance standards and using computers as part of assessments   
  

Managing The Classroom

It is important when teaching and dealing with students while managing a classroom we deal with problems is a matter of timing and the best timing is before the issues become a problem.  To do this teachers need to take a proactive approach to managing the classroom.  As teachers we need to strick a balance between preventive and reactive.  When a problem arises in our classrooms we need to asses the seriousness.  To do this we need to look at 3 things 
1. Consider the sevairity of the behavior 
2. Consider chronicity of the behavior, pervasiveness of behavior throughout the year 
3.Frequency, How often 
 After you have assessed the behavior you can decided what type of intervention is required;
Minor intervention include 
-non verbal cues
-keep the activity moving
-moving closer to student 
-redirecting the behavior 
-give needed instruction
-directly and assertively tell student to stop
- provide students with choices 
Teacher need to ensure they are sensitive to the development needs of students and understand that relationships with students are important.
the 2nd type of intervention is Moderate intervention this includes;
-withholding a privileged
-giving a detention 
-removing/ isolating student 
The last type of intervention is serious intervention such as:
-In school suspension
-Out school suspensions
-Expulsions 
-Involving the law 
It is important for teachers to know how to assess a situation in their classroom and how to handle the situation to maintain and manage their classrooms. 

Orientation

There is 3 types of orientation:
1) Helpless orientation, where a person feels helpless like they can`t do anything.  There is two types of helpless orientation
       a)internal attribution, is blaming one self for not being able to solve a problem
       b)external attribution, is blaming an external source for not being able to solve a problem
2)Performance orientation, motivation is based on the outcome.  The danger to this type of orientation is if the outcome is not achieved it makes us vulnerable
3)Mastery orientation, is motivated though our own desire to succeed people with mastery orientation have a sense of curiosity, of self ownership of success or failure

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow developed a model to explain how humans motivation and behaviors 
 


The bottom four in the pyramid are a persons deficiency needs; the top four are the growth needs.  Maslow states an individual without deficiency needs can not move up the pyramid towards the growth needs.