Monday, November 15, 2010

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.

Monday, November 8, 2010

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.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

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.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

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.

Monday, October 18, 2010

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.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

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.

Friday, October 1, 2010

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.