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Chapter 13

  Chapter 13: Assessing Student Learning Before you assess your students, you must set a guide for how students will get there. It is very important to look at the standards while planning and step by step figure out how to make your students master the standards. The big picture must always be in the back of your mind as you plan your lessons week by week. As you plan you must break the objective down into three pieces: performance, condition, and criterion. Many schools have teachers place their objectives or learning goals in the classroom. The condition states how students will be assessed, the performance is generally the verb, i.e. will write, will answer 100 multiplication problems, etc. Lastly the objective states how the teacher will know that the student has successfully learned the material. As you are planning, teachers should take into consideration all of the skills students will need in order to learn the material or complete the assignment. These objectives and less...
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Chapter 11 Reflection

Learning Environments should be designed so that students and the teacher are comfortable and organized so that the class runs efficiently. Time is always an issue in the classroom. As teachers we feel as though there aren’t enough hours for everything we need to teach and get done. If a classroom is organized and efficiently ran, a teacher can reduce the amount of time that students are off task or dealing with other issues and give students the time that is desperately needed. How can teachers ensure that they are creating a positive learning environment? First of all you need to make sure that you are not wasting your instructional time. As soon as your students are in the classroom and ready to learn, you should begin instruction promptly. This helps students recognize that learning is important. One philosophy that I try to instill in my brain is to keep students wanting to come back. I like to  keep them wondering, “What is my crazy teacher going to do tomorrow?”  What c...
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Chapter 7&8 reflection

What is direct instruction? Direct instruction is where you, the teacher, teach the lesson. Students then practice the skill with help. Then, students are expected to complete the task independently where the teacher gives immediate feedback and can offer more support if needed which will then lead to an assessment. Teachers control much of this type of instruction.  When we go to teach we should first give students a reason why we are learning whatever new skill it is that we are learning. I like to find ways to relate the skills to “real life” scenarios. This helps students understand the importance of the lessons and hopefully instill intrinsic motivation. I find students take more accountability in their learning when they can understand why we are learning something and how we will apply it in the real world. As I was reading the text stated, “it must not be assumed”. This really stood out to me. As we are preparing our students for assessments, we also need to prepare them fo...
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Chapter 6: Brains are the real MVP

How do we get children to want to learn? This is a huge question for all educators. How can I trick a student into wanting to learn about something that might take an immense amount of mental effort? This really sat with me as I read this week’s chapter. My own son struggles in school and has often found it boring, meaningless, and altogether hard to remember when tons of facts are involved. As a teacher I regularly think about being in his shoes or my struggling students’ shoes. How can I make them want to learn this material? How can I make them remember this material so that they can master the standard?  From the reading I learned that first, you must have the students engaged so that they will pay attention to the content you are covering. You must also present the proper amount of material for your students. Students should not be bombarded with unnecessary information. Have students focus on what you are really wanting them to learn in digestible bits. How can teachers do th...
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Chapter 5 Reflection: Student Behavior

  Student behavior makes a huge impact on student learning. It affects our classroom, the outcome of learning for the majority of students, and it also affects the teachers. How can we create a positive learning environment for all students?  I think the majority of students can be appeased with operant conditioning, where students are praised for following rules. Most students love to hear their teachers give them a compliment. However, these are the students who will follow rules and do their best in school the majority of the time. The rest of the students who would not do well, will not be appeased with operant conditioning. They may not care about a compliment or smile from the teacher. What do we do with these students? Reinforcers can help strengthen or increase the desired behavior. What types of reinforcers are best? I have found in my experience that these can change from year to year and even class to class when I have taught multiple classes in a day. One class mig...
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Chapter 2 reflection: each student is different

Blog Entry #1 Educational Psychology Theory and Practice, Chapter 2: Cognitive Development I do believe that instruction needs to be developmentally appropriate for students. There are so many things that we try to teach our students, however they are not ready for them. So as teachers are we setting ourselves up for failure? Do we push the students higher to think as an adult and leave the others behind? As an educator I really have a hard time with this. I don’t want my students to struggle through standards if they are not developmentally ready for the type material being assigned to them. I want to be able to set all students up for success so that they can reach their full potential.  One thing I agreed tremendously with the side of neo-Piagatians in the reading was that the background of children makes a big impact in their learning and their ability to learn. I have seen this with my own eyes. I have taught in two different school districts. One was more affluent than the ot...
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