Constructivism

Outline a specific lesson you could teach using the constructivist 5 Es model of instruction.
1. Engage - teacher elicits intrinsic motivation through relevance, inquiry, etc.
2. Explore - students discover concepts through hands-on activities, research, simulations, games, etc.
3. Explain - students report their findings, teacher and peers clarify as needed
4. Elaborate - students explore the topic in more depth by creating examples or projects or performing research
5. Evaluate - students self-evaluate

En la escuela vocabulary



     When the students come into class on the first day of the unit they will have a laminated card with a Spanish vocabulary word printed on it on their desk. I won't tell them what their word means or why it is on their desk until it is time for the vocab lesson to start. Hopefully this will get the students' inquiry juices flowing and ENGAGE them.  I may even put a radish on their desk, too. :-) (Just for fun-of course!) Then when it's time, I will model the activity for the students. I will take the card that is on my desk, hold it up for all to see, say "la maestra" and have the students repeat after me a few times. I will then tape it on me.  I will have one student at a time come up and read his/her word, we will all pronounce it a few times together, and then the student will try to tape the word to the classroom object it names. The students can help each other. If no one can come up with the correct object I will quietly tell the student so he/she can label the object. This will be the way we EXPLORE the classroom and the new words.
     Then I will, very carefully, climb up on my desk and say "encima de. La maestra está encima del escritorio." I will hold up a card that says "encima de" and repeat the sentence a few times and have the students repeat it with me. I will then (carefully get down and) move about the room and teach them a few more prepositions of location in the same way: al lado de, en, cerca de, debajo de.... I will tape the cards with the prepositions of location on the chalkboard so they are visible to help the students with the next activity. 
Then I will have the students relocate about the classroom and EXPLAIN their location. I will ask, "¿Sarah, dónde estás? She will answer, "Estoy debajo de la mesa." I will ask all of the students their location. Then I will have them relocate a couple of times and EXPLAIN their location.     I will then have them ELABORATE by returning to their desks and writing 5 sentences describing the location of 5 classroom objects. I will have several students share their sentences.
     Then to EVALUATE their progress I can have the students go reclaim all of the cards and redistribute them so everyone has a different card than they started out with at the beginning of class. I will have them divide up in teams according to their rows and they will have a relay race. The first students will go put their card where it belongs and return to their seat, and then the second students in the row will do the same, and so forth. The first row to finish will earn a tally on the board. We will reshuffle the cards and play a few more times. The team who gets the most tallies will receive a few extra credit points. This game will help them know if they know the vocabulary well enough or if they need to study a little more.

As they leave I will reward them with the radish!  (Which by the way is "un rábano!" I will confess, I had to look that up.)


   


  

Information Processing Model

I love these quotes that were at the beginning of our class's Information Processing Module.

The more attention the brain pays to a given stimulus, the more elaborately the information will be encoded – and retained…Better attention always equals better learning.” ~John Medina

“It is unrealistic to believe that students who are constantly stimulated by the multimedia world will sit for hours each day passively listening to lectures, taking notes, and preparing for a paper-and-pencil test without dropping out mentally.” ~Donna Walker Tileston

 

As a teacher in training I am learning that the least effective way to teach is through droning, repetitive lecture and drill.

 

Our brains have incredible capacities and a lot of research has been done to figure out how we as humans best learn. As teachers we need to take the results of this research and use teaching strategies that will maximize learning in our classrooms.

 

I have brainstormed ideas I can use to make learning the Spanish subjunctive mood a fun and effective (meaning the students actually learn the subjunctive-the subjunctive actually makes it into their long term memory) experience.

 

• I will maintain my students' attention with variety in presentation and activities- lots of variety!
• I know I can’t introduce too much at once so I won’t use all of these activities in one lesson but over the unit. I will be careful not to over load them.
•  One day I can have the pictures I use to teach emotions hanging from the ceiling as the students walk in the classroom to catch their attention and provide visual imagery.  We will talk about the emotions and link emotions and feelings to the concept of mood, specifically the subjunctive mood in the Spanish language which will be a new concept. I will try to help the students feel when to use the subjunctive by focusing on the emotions, not just know.
•  I will also link the new information they are learning to previous knowledge by comparing the English subjunctive that they know (although they are unaware of it) to the Spanish subjunctive. 
•  I will tell the students the 3 key things they will need to remember when using the subjunctive:

1.  2 different subjects
2.  que
3.  2 different verbs – the first will always be in the indicative (but will be a W.E.I.R.D.O. verb) and the second will always be in the subjunctive. 

• I will teach them the W.E.I.R.D.O. verbs (a Mnemonic I got from How to Learn Spanish (using free online resources) http://howlearnspanish.com/2010/12/the-spanish-subjunctive-explained/):

Wishes                           
Emotions                      
Impersonal Expressions
Recommendations       
Doubt/Denial              
Ojalá                            

• I will point out that these things are key. (The word key, that I will emphasize, will catch their attention and help them focus again.)   
• And I will have them write the key things in their notebook.
• I will have them turn to a partner and explain the key items.
• As a bell ringer for one day I will have the students go outside and draw on the sidewalk The WEIRDO Mnemonic in different colored chalk.
• I will have the students get in groups and play games using the subjunctive mood, for example one student could call out his/her desires for the other students and they would have to act out what  the student desired of them: “Yo quiero que uds. ….”
• I will have them write a few subjunctive sentences. I can have them write a chore list from their parents and then maybe a chore list for their parents. I can them elaborate on the qualities they desire in a boyfriend or girlfriend.  
• We can listen to a popular Spanish song that has a lot of subjunctive in the lyrics and I can have them circle the WIERDO verbs and underline the subjunctive words.
• I can even give them the “problem” of teaching the subjunctive to a struggling student and see what ideas they can come up with to teach the subjunctive. This activity will solidify their own learning as they prepare to teach the concept.

Basically, there is no limit to what I can do to make the subjunctive or any other topic more interesting and therefore more memorable. I'm excited to start implementing these strategies!

Schooling the World

I just watched the film Schooling the World and it has changed the way I think about education. 

I had never really considered the negative aspects of education before. I’ve always thought of gaining an education as a good thing. How sad though—to educate away a culture, traditions, and way of life! How sad that we are becoming a monoculture and our diversities are being destroyed!

The whole film was very powerful, but some of my biggest take-aways are that there is more than one "right" way of being and living in this world. We shouldn't insist that our way-the western way--is the only educated way, because if we as westerners aren't careful we are going to destroy cultures and languages and leave the people we are trying to help in between cultures with no where to really belong. This tragedy is what has already happened to so many people living in the slums. They've lost their history and culture; they've lost everything and that is why their existence is now so miserable. We have to realize these people we consider "uneducated" have thrived for generations living in their ways. They know things we don't know. We have much to learn from them. They have answers we need. They have wisdom that we as westerners could benefit from because our western culture seems to have moved from wisdom to knowledge, and from knowledge to information. Some of our information might help them. But some of their wisdom would benefit us.

The film pointed out that our western culture isn't totally desirable. We have poverty and slums. Our children are on drugs and kill each other. We spend our lives seeking money at the expense of quality time with family and friends. Our children are locked in cinderblock boxes for six-eight hours a day to learn about nature that they no longer get to experience first hand.

This monoculture inducing type of education has happened and still happens in the United States today. The United States is known as the "melting pot" where people have come from all over the world and lost their cultures and languages to become American. It hasn't been until recently that being bilingual has been thought of as desirable. In the past students and families from different cultures were strongly encouraged to stop speaking their mother tongue completely in order to speak English. And even today, immigrants are expected to assimilate and their cultures are to a large degree lost and not passed on to their children.

This film is related to Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory in that culture shapes cognitive development because culture determines what and how the child will learn about the world. Previously in these unwesternized countries the children were taught alongside their parents to live off the land, to weave cloth,  and to practice their religions and traditions. The children interacted  with their parents and other family members to learn how to survive in their world.

Now these children are not learning how to survive in their world from their parents and family members. They are learning from westernized teachers how to survive in a globalized economy. This change in education is changing their development, the skills they learn,  the languages they speak, the way they live, their culture, and their identity.

The solution that I came away with from watching this film is dialogue. Instead of us as "superior westerners" rushing in to "help" these inferior cultures" by "educating" them we should create a dialogue with them and together we can learn from each other. We teach them what works for us, and they teach us what works for them and together we appreciate and help each other. We celebrate our differences  and stop insisting on being the same.  

I really enjoyed the ideas this film introduced to me. I'm not sure what to think anymore about education. I love what education has done for me personally. I have benefited greatly from modern medicine and technology. I am grateful I can attend the university. I LOVE to read and  learn. However, I recognize it is a tragedy for languages, traditions, and cultures to be lost. I recognize there is more to life than participating in the global economy. I am aware the global economy has a lot of problems, but would I be better off, would I be happier, if I couldn't read and write  and travel and use technology? I'm not so certain. 

Review #2

What are you doing well? 

• I'm interested in the subject and the curriculum.
• I'm trying.
• I feel I have learned A LOT that will help me as a student, mother, and a teacher!

What are you not doing well? 

• I'm having a hard time keeping up!

Are you making sufficient progress on your goals?

• I'm running out of time and not feeling very confident about reaching my goals.
• I'm wondering why I'm struggling so much because usually I don't feel this stressed about school. I'm thinking it's the shortened learning time. I

List specific things you need to change in order to meet your goals.

• I guess I just need to keep plugging away at my assignments.
• I need to find/make more quiet uninterrupted study time.
• I need to stop avoiding the key assignments even though the thought of them totally overwhelm me!
• I need to not let perfectionism and fear of failure keep me from trying.

How is your motivation? Are you focusing on mastery or performance goals? Does anything need to change?

• My motivation is waning. I'm starting to fear failure.
• Somehow I need to let the performance goals go.
• I'm intimidated by the key assignments! I'm afraid of them! I feel like they are too hard! I've got to get over this fear!

How is your field experience going? Name at least one take-away from your field experience to this point.

• I've put in the time, taught my lesson, learned a lot by observing but haven't written too much about it yet! I've got to do it!
• A take-away from my field experience is that I truly do enjoy being in the classroom! I am looking forward to the day when I FINALLY am a teacher!

What can I (Dr. Cox) do to improve your learning in this course?

• Keep being patient like you have been.
• Keep modeling excellent teaching! I love learning from you!

Behaviorism

Explain how you might use shaping to help students learn a difficult concept or skill. Be specific - choose a specific concept or skill and narrate how you will shape it. Remember that shaping MUST include reinforcement for each successive attempt.

Learning to use the subjunctive mood in Spanish is a rather difficult concept, so I will use shaping--reinforcing each small step of progress toward a desired goal or behavior--to help my students master the subjunctive. First, I will teach the students the present subjunctive forms of the verbs and I will praise them as they attempt the new forms. Once they know the forms I will teach the students to use the subjunctive after verbs and/or expressions of will and influence when there are two different subjects: " Mi madre quiere que yo haga mi cama." I will let the students practice this concept a lot and give lots of praise and feedback. I will make sure they understand the concept before introducing the next use of the subjunctive: after verbs and/or expressions of emotion. We will then practice this concept a lot. Again I will give praise and feedback. I will continue this process--modeling, giving lots of practice followed by praise and feedback-- until the students have mastered the entire subjunctive mood.  

Identity Development

I just learned that according to Erik Erikson, a peer of Freud, my students will be right in the middle of the Identity versus Role Confusion Stage of their psychoscocial development. That means I can be influential in helping them develop their personal identity! What an exciting and daunting responsibility!

Our text Educational Psychology Active Learning Edition by Anita Woolfolk gives several great ideas that I can and will use in my classroom to help my students develop and decide who they want to be.

First, the book recommends that I  expose my students to lots of models from history and literature for adult roles and career choices. I REALLY like this idea! And I think I can make it fit very well with my Spanish curriculum! I can research and find out who some of the important and noteworthy people are from the many Spanish speaking countries and I can  briefly introduce these people and their accomplishments to my students. As the first unit of Spanish 1 is about making introductions, right from the start these cultural and role/identity mini-lessons can be largely in Spanish.

I can schedule these introductions of eminent people around a birthday or important historical dates calendar. Using a calendar in this way will give students the opportunity to practice on a regular basis the vocabulary involved with calendars.   

Woolfolk suggests I invite guest speakers into my classroom to describe how and why they chose their professions. I like this idea, too. I think I will vary it just a little by making video clips of different professionals speaking in simple Spanish about their professions. When we have our unit on school I can interview teachers and students. When we have a unit on food I can interview a chef. When we have a unit on the body I can interview a doctor.

Woolfolk also states I should be tolerant of teenage fads as long as they don't offend others and interfere with learning. When we have a unit on clothing we can discuss fads and I can teach my students the vocabulary to talk about their choice of clothes and accessories.

Something else that Woolfolk suggests that I think is very important is to give constructive feedback to my students about their work and lots of support for improvement. I will give them "second chances" being careful when necessary to criticize the behavior without criticizing the student.

When I see students struggling with their identities I can always lend an understanding and listening ear and I can help them find the resources they need to work out their personal problems.

I am really excited that I will have the privilege of being able to help my students not only learn Spanish but develop positive self identities, too! 

Differentiation

As a teacher I will always try to remember that my students have different levels of readiness and I will do my best to differentiate my lessons in order to help all of my students learn.

For example in my first unit of Spanish I the students learn to introduce and describe themselves and others. Some students may come to class the first day already knowing how to say a little about themselves and others will come not knowing a word of Spanish. It will be my job to help all of my students learn. I can differentiate in the content of what I teach. Those who already know a little Spanish can enhance their vocabulary so they can talk more in depth abut themselves, while those who know nothing at the beginning can learn the basic vocabulary so they can get by.

I can use grouping strategies to help my students. Sometimes I can pair students who struggle up with students who are more advanced and the more advanced students can help the struggling students. Other times I can group the more advanced students together and let them work on a more advanced project together while I give extra help to those who may be struggling.

I will make sure I make time before and after school to meet with students who need or want more practice with a concept or more practice  actually speaking.

I will use technology to give additional help to students who need it. At the end of the unit the students will need to be able to introduce their family. I will post online a video of myself introducing my family. In this way, those who need additional help out side of class can watch my video to see how I make the introductions. I will also make flashcards on quizlet to help my students study for tests and quizzes. The students can use this resource to really make sure they are prepared. Studying on quizlet is actually even fun!