My EDPY Experience

Looking back on my last 3 months in EDPY many things come to mind; the friends I made, the lessons I learned, but most importantly the excitement I felt. After every class I left feeling excited, excited that in three short years I will be taking the lessons I have learned and using them in my very own class room with 20 to 30 smiling elementary students. I love children and most of all I love spending time with them and working with them. After taking EDPY I know I made the right choice to become an elementary teacher as I loved the course and its content, I found it interesting and I never once dreaded going to class like I did for English 219. One of the most interesting things and probably one of the most helpful to me was Vygotsky, I found his idea of Zone of Proximal Development very interesting and I hope to integrate his ideas into my planning and classroom activities. I also feel that I would like to help children that are exceptional and also children who have problems either emotional or behavioural. I would like to thank my instructor Robert Nellis for doing a wonderful job teaching the course it is something I will take with me for the rest of my career.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

With attending post secondary education I place myself in the cognitive needs level of the hierarchy. I am looking for knowledge in my program of study to one day have the requirements of a teacher.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Small Group Work

Some Benefits:

When working in small groups all the members are able to contribute their ideas to the group project this would speed up the brainstorming process. The work load is also decreased because the members can split up the tasks or work collectively to complete the assignment. Also having more people work on the assignment allows for the assignment to be bigger and for it to be completed fast than if one person were working on it.

Some Drawbacks:

Students tend to get off topic when working with a group of peers, for example, weekend plans become more talked about then the assignment. Students that are in the same group may not always get along or may have conflicting views, ideas, or opinions on the assignment and how it should be completed. In small groups there are always a couple of students who do not contribute to the assignment and leave all the work on someone else. 

Responce to Digital Nation Video

In today's class we watched a video called Digital Nation.This video really got me thinking about the internet, cell phones and video game usage within my family and how it affects us. Within my family there is always someone on the computer whether it be my dad or one of my three siblings. Sometimes we would literally fight over who gets to go on the computer first. This constant fighting drove my mom crazy because not only did we fight about who went on first but about how long each of us was on the computer. So my mom bought a timer and we were each allowed half an hour on the computer at a time. My mom is the only person in my house who doesn't know how to work the computer or know how to text message and she doesn't want to learn either. One of the most common punishments in our household is being grounded off of the computer or off of our cell phones. We are all completely addicted because when this punishment is given out we temporarily hate my mother.

My brother in ten years old and currently owns 5 video gaming systems: 2 play station two, Wii, game cube, and the newest addition a play station three. He is always playing video games and when his marks start to drop my parents take away the games and once again his marks improve.

This only proves how dependant my family and the world is on technology. I do believe it is an addiction as currently I am typing this blog, instant messaging on facebook, watching televison and using my blackberry.

Memory: Responce to Andi Bell's Video

Andi Bell is a very smart man who won the world memory championships. He was able to do this because he has a fool proof way of remembering information. This process of remembering is done by taking a route you know very well and pairing the places you go on this route with the information you want to remember. This proves to work very well for him. This video got me thinking of how I remember content for our EDPY midterms. When I read a question I picture my notes in my head and then remember where the information was located on the page this then leads me to remember the answer. It works for me all the time. For the last midterm I somehow missed two pages of my notes and when the questions came up on the test I realized I could not picture the text in my mind because I had not read it over prior to the exam. This is how I learn; by visually remembering the text on the page and it works very well for me.

Some aspects of oparent conditioning are:
- Positive reinforcement is when the teacher gives praise to receive more of the intended behaviour. An example would be that a student works quietly and gets his/her work finished in a timely manner. The teacher would reward this behaviour by giving the student a gold star which will motivate the student to display this behaviour more often.
-Negative Reinforcement is when a teacher gives, for example a glare and then takes it away to reinforce the student to do less of the disruptive behaviour. A situation where this could be used is when a teacher gives a pre-test in the area of spelling and if the student gets 100% then they no longer have to do the final test on Friday. This reinforces the student to always work hard on their spelling in hopes they won't have to do that final test.
- Positive Punishment is when the teacher gives a punishment like detention this will make the student do less of the disruptive behaviour to avoid this punishment again. An example is when there is a student that is acting out in class by constantly interrupting the class so the teacher asks the student to take a time out. This should get the student to stop interrupting.
-Negative Punishment is when the teacher takes something away to get better behaviour out of the student. Keri is continually late for class so her teacher takes away twenty minutes of her lunch hour. Missing out on lunch will prevent Keri from being late again.

Response to Richard D. Lavoie`s FAT City workshop.

In Richard D. Lavoie`s video he showed a handful of professional adults what it would be like to be a child with a learning disability. He showed them pictures and then proceeded to ask them questions at a fast pace. This caused anxiety and as a result the adults began to think and act like students with a LD (Learning Disability). Richard had a lot of very good points and I agreed with all of them. He mentioned in his video that teachers often pressure students for answers by saying "come on this on is easy" or "if you don't tell me the answer now you can't have recess", this tends to only make the LD student feel worse. When I have completed my schooling and am finally working as a teacher I never want to say anything like this to my students because I can only imagine how bad it is stressing them out. I want my LD students to succeed and do well in school. They won't be able to do this if I am treating them like they are not smart enough. I need to understand their exceptionality and treat it properly in order to help them succeed.

Gender Roles: The Ideal Male and Female

Look at your parents; does you mom clean the house and cook the meals? Does your dad do the yard work, heavy lifting chores and work another job in town? Mine do. That is how it has always been, if my dad picks up a broom and sweeps the floor we wonder if he may have bumped his head. These observations are stereotypical gender roles, this is how society views males and females, though not all families conform to this. Another stereotype about males is that they are strong, masculine and the tough guy in society. Woman  are seen as fragile, innocent, gentle and emotional. Some people may conform to these gender stereotypes but there are many people that do not. These stereotypes should not be placed on young children, they should be able to decide their own identity and gender on their own. There for to be an effective teacher you should support your students for who they choose to be.

Kohlberg's Levels and stages of moral develpoment.

In Kohlberg's theory, there are 3 levels and 6 stages, each level has 2 stages. The levels are preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. The stages under preconventional are punishment and hedonism. The stages under conventionalism are nice boy/girl and law and order. The stages under postconventionalism are social contract and universal ethical. When I think about all these stages and read what each one entails I feel like I am under the nice girl/boy stage and the law and order stage. I always think about how my actions are going to be seen by other people, and I never do something if the rules say that its not allowed. I do not like getting in trouble so that could also place me under the punishment stage as well. I have some friends that are straight hedonism; they do what they want, when they want. These particular friends are not worried about getting in trouble at all. That is how I relate to Kohlberg's theory.

Erik Erikson's Stages and where I am at.

When I look at Erikson's 8 stages of development I see myself in two stages. The first stage that I see myself in is the Identity vs. Identity confusion stage because I feel as though I am still experimenting on my identity. I change my style, hair color and ideas frequently. If someone were to ask me who I am and what I am like I wouldn't exactly give the same answer every time. I also feel as though I am in the intimacy vs. isolation stage too because I am constantly looking for a new boy to start seeing and when I get dumped I feel alone briefly. That is the way dating goes though. I like Erikson's stages because you can sometimes feel as though you are in two stages.

Responce to Richard St. John's video.

In yesterday's class when we were watching Richard St. John's video about the 8 steps to success, I couldn't stop thinking about my lululemon athletica shopping bag. These shopping bags are covered in quotes or little tips to improve our lives. I remembered two quotes on my bags that are; "Successful people replace the words "wish", "should", and "try" with I WILL" and "Live is full of setbacks. Success is determined by how you handle setbacks". I personally love these quotes they really make me think about what success really is and how it can be reached. Richard St. John defiantly touched on some points that were very similar to these quote. I hope that in being an effective teacher I can change my students perspectives to "I WILL" and I hope I can be there to help them deal with setbacks.

Piaget or Vygotsky?

Today in class we were asked the question, "Of the two theorists of cognitive development discussed, Piaget and Vygotsky, which do you find to resonate more with your personal inclinations and preferences for teaching? Why?". I began thinking about this question and thinking about my previous experiences with teaching skating and about what kind of teach I want to be, and I feel as though I side more with Vygotsky's theory, though I still do incorporate Piaget too. I believe you need to have a balance of both theories, both these theorists were very intelligent people and they both know what they are talking about. I believe I can benefit my students the most if I incorporate both theories. With Piaget I believe that all people do have schema's where we store information for later use. His methods of assimilation and accommodation are very effective methods of getting new information into our schema's. Assimilation is relating new information to information you already possess, and accommodation is when we change our schema to make room for the new information. To me these two definitions make sense. The part of Piaget's theory that I am not too fond of is his stages of sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. These stages are too definite on their age groups; I believe that all children develop at different rates and putting an age to it seems to definite to me. When I look at Vygotsky's theory I can see myself adding some of his theory to my everyday classroom assignments and procedures. I also believe in developmental trajectory, children have to build on their knowledge in order to learn they have to take it step by step. When I am teaching my future students I am going to make sure I use apprenticeship. Apprenticeship is when the student is guided through learning by a teacher, coach or older peer. This seems very beneficial to me because I believe that in order to learn the student has to be taught by someone who is more knowledgeable than them. The teacher then can increase the difficulty of the students assignments to increase the students knowledge. This is known as scaffolding another of Vygotsky's theories. I will use this when I teach my future classes.

Response to Allison Cameron Video

In today's class we watched a short video that had a great effect on me. It made me think about the kind of teacher I want to be; what kind of difference I want to make in young peoples lives. First off I will give some back ground on what the short video was about...it has to do with students that attend a school that is kind of like a last resort because these students have problems staying in school and succeeding in school. One of the students they focused on is Barney, he is a 14 yr old boy that could not read and write. This all changed when one of his teachers Allison Cameron introduced exercise to their daily routine. Allison noticed drastic improvements in her students grade and in their concentration. This video really made me realize that I aspire to be an innovative teacher. One who can experiment and find positive outcomes. I want to be able to make an impact in a child's life; be that person they can think back on fondly. I want to make a difference.

Constructivism

In class today I found myself trying to absorb every single bit of information that was thrown my way, with it being the second educational psychology class I have ever sat in on I was bound and determined to catch everything. I was doing this perfectly fine until my professor mentioned constructivism. Constructivism is when a person gains knowledge threw interaction and hands on activity. This definition made me think about my last twelve years of figure skating. I thought about how I simply could not learn something by just being told how to do it; it seemed to go in one ear and out the other. It wasn't until I had the chance to try the new move or jump that I would finally grasp the concept. I realize now that I not only learned but taught with constructivism all the time, when I was teaching my young skaters the basics of skating. I would explain and demonstrate how to stop for example and then I would ask them to do it themselves. I feel this is one of the best ways of learning and using constructivism is one of the building blocks to being an effective teacher.