Week 6 Post-Sarah Isaacson

Activity:

The teacher is working with the class on reading with the correct inflections.  The teacher will discuss with the class the importance of reading with the correct inflection and the students will participate fully and answer all of the questions.  The teacher will let the students know that they have already experienced as they read, and they have already witnessed it when their parents read to them and when she reads them stories.  The teacher will then give an example of this by reading a short story.  She will then give another example of this by inviting a local artist (not Morgan Freeman) to talk about the significance of reading with inflection and why it is important to do it.  The students will then read to each other and get input and then get input from the teacher and the local artist.  The student will be assessed by reading aloud to the class and showing that they can read with inflection. 

Explanation:

I kept my model almost the same, except I decided to add a local actor to come visit the class, because the local actor can show the students a real life reason why they want to be able to read aloud with accurate inflection.  This activity has some aspects of it that are supported by Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory.  One aspect that coincides is the fact that I am recognizing that children are “social beings, intertwined with other people who are eager to help them gain skills and understanding” (161).  I am doing this by letting the students discuss with their teacher, a local actor, and their fellow classmates.  This way, they actually have an opportunity to discuss what they are learning and determine if they understand everything that the teacher and local actor discussed.  This also allows children to be the teacher as well, and this “inclination to teach and to learn from teaching is what enables children to be socialized into their culture and to pass it on to others” (162).   This way the children can learn from each other and understand the concepts more fully as they explain them to their fellow classmates and critique their classmates’ readings.  This will also allow students to use social scaffolding, because they will be able to see their fellow students reading at a higher level since I have my classroom organized into pods where there are varying reading levels in each pod.  This way, the students will “become capable of working at a higher level than if they had not received such help” (164).  My activity also coincides with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) because the students will be exposed to a higher level of reading, but it will not be out of their reach, because the classmates are in the same grade, thus should be within a couple of reading levels, with a few outliers of course.  

Social Cognitive Theory-Week 4 (Sarah Isaacson)

Activity

The teacher discusses sounding out the letter sound “ph” and “gh.” The teacher is the model for the students, modeling through her discussion and then when reading aloud to the students.  The students then work in groups, being models for each other because the students are in pods where everyone has a different strength, but one of the students has strong reading skills already to be the main model during group work.  The teacher will continually remind the students as they are reading in groups that they can do this and that it is not much harder than what they worked on last week.  This will give the students the confidence to continue to read and really learn the concepts of the “ph” and “gh” sounds.  After sufficient practice, the students will be able to read aloud to the class with a book they know is at the right level for their reading level, promoting self-regulation.

Explanation

For this model/activity, I chose to use Social Cognitive Theory to modify my model.  I did not have to change that much about my model for this week, because my activity already had quite a bit of social cognitive theory aspects in it already.  Social Cognitive Theory, developed by Bandura, focuses on learning through observation and modeling, as well the belief in one’s own abilities.  The teacher is the model at the beginning of the activity; during her discussion with the students, she is modeling what she wants her students to do.  Because the students are learning by observing the teacher, they are using “vicarious learning” (174).  The teacher is a “live model,” which is where the students can learn directly and get immediate feedback. This way, if the students are confused about anything, the teacher can fix the misconception or explain the concept more clearly.  Having the teacher as the model at the beginning is also conducive for the students to learn because the teacher is “viewed as competent…[and] more likely to be imitated [because] he or she is someone with high status” (175).  This causes the students to feel confident in learning because they know that their teacher knows what he or she is talking about.  The book specifically states that, “teachers provide an excellent example of models in the classroom” (175).  This tells us that it is a good idea for the teacher to model the learning because the students will want to imitate the behavior from their teacher before a person who does not appear to know what they are doing.  This is why, during group time, the teacher set up the pods in the classroom, making sure that there are varying reading levels at each, providing another model who does not have the most knowledge on the subject, but might have more than others in the class.  This would improve the self-efficacy of the student who is better at reading, because they would realize that they are able to do the reading.  Another way to help boost self-efficacy, which is “an individual’s belief about his or her capabilities for success,” would be for the teacher to repeatedly tell students that they can succeed in this activity and that they can read those sounds.  Seeing their peers succeed in making these sounds and seeing them read could give the struggling students the confidence to “believe that they too can be successful” (178).  Students will be able to self-regulate when they pick the book they will want to read aloud and choose a book that is at an appropriate reading level.  This will also give the student more confidence because they will know that they can read that book. 

Sarah Isaacson 

Week 2 Model-Sarah Isaacson

For this week’s model, I stayed kept a few of the ideas I posted about on Sunday, but I modified and added that would correspond more to the ideas discussed in the book Theories and of Learning and Teaching-What Do They Mean for Educators?  This article discussed a few different theories, and it was not entirely clear to me, which theory was being discussed, but I am aware that they discussed the social theories of learning, which include social constructionism, sociocultural theory, and activity theory.  I seem to understand that they are all, essentially, the same theory, just under different names.   For my model, I chose to focus on this reading, not Module 6, which is about the brain and development. 

            My first image is a picture of a teacher working with students.  This is when the teacher would be teaching the students the lesson and using the students’ past experiences and “cultural differences…enabling [the teacher] to make more explicit and meaningful connections to students’ communities” (7).  This will help students feel more comfortable learning something new and finding comfort that what they are learning is actually pertinent to their lives.  I believe this is especially important in elementary school, because then it will help students feel more intrinsically motivated as opposed to feeling extrinsically motivated.  Because the teacher is discussing with students, the students are learning through participation, which means “roles are flexible…and the purpose of the activity is clear and meaningful to all participants” (5).  Students should then feel more of a pull to learn by working on a closer level with their teacher.  Then, the teacher allows the students to work in groups, reading together, which creates a community within the classroom.  Vygotsky says that sociocultural theory is where “learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon that takes place within the communities” (5).  The students will be participating more and will realize that reading is something that they will be doing in the real world.  They will make the connection that “knowledge is inseparable from practice” (4).  The teacher will be walking around the room, making sure that no one is really struggling, but the teacher is there as a guide and a facilitator, instead of having a “fixed role” (5).  My last image is of a student reading aloud.  This would be an assessment that ties in well with sociocultural theory.  Because sociocultural theory is based on collaborating and participation, it would seem prevalent that an assessment should also be social and the “norms for testing the quality of a performance [should be] determined by groups, not individuals, and one’s performance is assessed through genuine participation” (5).  In my model, this would be a student reading aloud during the designated time where the teacher would have a read-aloud time.  The student would get to pick a book that is at their reading level and read aloud, showing their knowledge of phonics and reading with accurate inflection.  This way, students could support each other in their community and also help assess their reading ability.  The teacher would have to make sure, though, that the students are supportive of each other, so that the students who are not as advanced will not feel behind or stupid.  That is why the sense of community is so important in the classroom.  

Week 1 Post-Sarah Isaacson

Hello!  My name is Sarah Isaacson and I am a junior here at IU studying elementary education.  I’ve changed my major a couple of times (elementary education, secondary math education), but now I am staying with this major because I know that I am meant to be an elementary educator.  I have wanted to be a teacher since I was about four.  My mom decided I was going to be a teacher when I was three, so I think it was a pretty definite thing that I would be educating.  I have also had quite a bit of experience with kids, so I am really looking forward to spending more time with kids, this time in a teacher role, with our field experience.  I’m pretty busy this semester.  I am subbing with the local schools.  I am also babysitting and tutoring math, so it will be an eventful semester!  I’m excited to learn a variety of learning theories this semester in this class and see how I can apply them to my teaching so I can be as helpful to my students as possible!

Now, onto my model for teaching…

For this first model, I was thinking about how I learned best in school and how the children I tutor learn best, and I built off of that.  My first image is one of a teacher lecturing off of a chalkboard (though in today’s world, it would probably be off of a Smart Board!).  This is how some teachers begin any lesson, by giving the information to the children and then see how they respond to it.  This would also be the time to scaffold for the students to show them that phonics and reading is not an intimidating activity, rather that they have already begun by writing their names and learning to read their peers’ names.  During the lecture portion, the teacher would model what they would want the students to do.  My next image is one of students in a pod working together on an assignment.  For simplicity, let’s say that it is a phonics worksheet.  This is not an individual assignment, rather a way for the students to communicate together to see how to complete the worksheet.  I believe that children can learn so much from each other, and they sometimes can learn more than from a teacher because they are able to discuss different possibilities and different words that they know sound a certain way.  This will also help their communication skills improve, which is always important for young children.  The next image is of a teacher helping a student.  As the students work collaboratively, the teacher would be walking around, making sure that the students understand the concept that the teacher was trying to convey during the lecture portion.  This will reinforce the correct understanding of the lesson, and if there are some students who are still struggling, the teacher will be able to step in a help the student understand and try to explain it in a different way to make it more concrete.  The last image is showing individual work, showing that the students understand the concept and feel comfortable doing the work by themselves without any assistance from their peers or teacher. 

This kind of learning was very commonly used when I was a student and when I cadet taught a second grade class my senior year of high school: model, work in groups, teacher reinforcement, and individual work.  I also saw something similar to this when I observed a reading camp this summer using the “Daily Five” approach.  All of the teachers that I talked with that morning raved about that teacher approach.   

I posted this on the blog on oncourse as well, but I wanted to make sure that I had it in both places!