EDAT 6115- Shorter- Reflections

Reflective Journal #3 Description: Chapter six discussed the cognitive theories of learning including how students process information.  This chapter defined how research on the brain has allowed us to understand how it works when processing new information.  It also defined how the intentional teacher can use strategies and techniques to help students process information and make meaningful connections to that information. Analysis: As our students sit in our classrooms each day, they are constantly being flooded with new information.  We teach them an array of facts, details, concepts, definitions, and problems.  Year after year, the content knowledge grows and the level of difficulty to retain the information they are learning increases.  The question becomes how do we as intentional teachers use the information we have about how the brain works to help our students process all of this knowledge.  Information-processing theory is a "dominant the...

Reflective Journal #2 Description: Chapter five discussed leading behavior and social theories when it comes to learning. Leading theorists Pavlov, Skinner, and Bandura proposed that many conditions and motivations play an important role in children learning behaviors. This chapter also defined how teachers can help to implement appropriate behaviors in students and help them to self-regulate their own behaviors in the classroom. Analysis: All students have the capacity to learn new things. Sometimes students may learn what you want them to learn and sometimes they may learn a behavior that you did not mean to teach them. This type of learning takes place through observation and conditioning. Learning "is defined as a change in an individual caused by experience (Schunk, 2012)" or "long-lasting change in the learner's knowledge as a result of the learner's experiences" (Slavin, 2015, pg. 100). Two leading theorists, Ivan Pavlov and B. F. Skinner, bot...

Reflective Journal #1 Description: The focus of the readings this week was on the cognitive, language and literacy development of children.  As teachers, it is important to understand how our students develop so that we may tailor our instruction accordingly.  Intentional teachers must use what they know about development to make decisions about their instruction that allow their students to be successful. Analysis: It is no secret that during the time students spend in the childhood, preteen and teenage years lots of changes take place.  These changes can be seen in a physical form most obviously, but many changes also occur in the way in which the brain is developing as well.  Two leading theorists ,Piaget and Vygotsky, charted this idea of human development many years ago and their theories still remain prevalent to this day. The first theorist, Jean Piaget, “the most influential developmental psychologist in the history of ps...