week 5

Big Idea: A mixture of nurture and nature develop knowledge in children. This includes their natural eagerness to learn and to become familiar with the world around them, as well as to associate with the people around them. This is very important from the time they are born because they begin to develop these skills as very young children. 

Activity: An activity that could include both of these aspects would be one in which each student would be given a different object to observe. Time would be given to this student to figure out the function of the object, to play around with the object, and to simply observe characteristics of the object. They are able to discover by themselves different aspects of the object. After students have observed their objects, they would form into groups of maybe three or four people. They would then share their observations in that group and see what the other students had to say about their object. This allows for social experiences for each of the students.

Reflection: This diagram is very different from my first one because it incorporates much more than hands-on learning, which is what I originally thought was the way in which most students learn. However, after reading Module 7 and Piaget's theory, I have expanded my thoughts on learning. I know hands-on learning is important, but other types of learning and ways of gaining knowledge are vital in early development. Piaget's four factors of students thinking (biological maturation, active exploration in physical environment, social experiences, and equilibrium) all play a significant role in development and should not be overlooked in the classroom. 

Week 3 model- Kathryn Reeves

     The module 9 reading about classical conditioning points out an interesting learning technique, classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is when “an unconditioned stimulus and its unconditioned response can be paired with a previously neutral stimulus. As a result, the previously neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus.” In putting this in practice in the classroom, ideally, without previous experiences to tell them otherwise, students do not know what to do when the bell rings. Therefore, when the bell rings (neutral stimulus), the teacher has to tell the students to leave (unconditioned stimulus). Upon hearing the teacher telling them to go, the students leave the school (unconditioned response). Eventually, though, the students hear the bell ring and get up and leave right away. Here, the neutral stimulus, the bell, became a conditioned stimulus.

     This learning mechanism can be extremely effective in the classroom if done correctly. In learning this, my model can altered to not just include visual learning. 

Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic learning are all important in helping students learn.

Classical learning is a great way to help students learn as well.

With a combination of both, students can excel in many ways.

Reflection:

After completing the reading and creating a new model, it is obvious that my first model did not include all the important aspects of learning. I am positive it still does not include all the characteristics, but it is improving. I believe classical conditioning learning is important to use in the classroom because it can save time (for example, turning the lights off and the students quiet down as opposed to having to continue to raise your voice while some students may still talk over you) and it helps develop the part of their brain that makes the connection between the two actions.