Technology

1. How does this topic fit into what I have learned already in this course?

We learn about the importance of transferring and applying what we learn to different settings, and technology is a way for students to do just that. Technology is a link for communication, and it allows both students and teachers to communicate and give feedback with each other and other professionals. It also helps move students to become better writers. Technology also is a big motivation factor for students to teach themselves new things. They are interested in learning for meaning.  An advantage of using technology when teaching is that is helps make thinking visible. We have learned about using our visuospatial sketchpad and making connections with images, and technology helps us to do just that. Last week we focused on different learning environments, and technology is a great way to connect classrooms to the community. I have a classroom web-page which allows family and friends to stay updated on what we are doing each week in class and how they can help at home. This is a great way to encourage parent involvement with their child. 

2. What am I still not clear on in this week's reading(s)?

The readings provided us with many different examples of how to integrate technology into our classrooms, and I took away many great ideas that I can't wait to try in my room. I am clear on the importance of our students in todays age using technology and I will continue to see opportunities to learn more myself. 

3. Under what conditions would I apply this material to my own teaching/work? 

Technology is a tool that not only enhances students learning, but teachers as well. We learn through technology by "doing." It is a great tool for both teachers and students to receive feedback along with building new knowledge. When teachers learn to use new technology we model the learning process for students to see. I use technology within my classroom often, but I would always like to use more if given the resources. We do a big unit on weather in third grade and we spend three weeks using tech. to track and record the weather. This is a great opportunity for students to collect and analyze real data, instead of looking out the window and saying, "Oh ya...it's cold today." It is VERY important for us as teachers today to stay up to date with technology. Kids are knowing more and more and if we can't keep up how are we teaching them new things. 

Chapter 6 & 7 - How People Learn

1. How does this fit into what I have learned already in this class? I really enjoyed reading these two chapters. It was nice to take a closer look into different learning environments and rethink the goals that I have as a teacher for what I want to see happening in my room. A learner centered environment helps students make connections between previous knowledge and new content being taught. A teacher in this environment takes a closer look at how preconceptions affect new learning. Sometimes this prior knowledge can interfere as students need to relearn new ideas. A knowledge centered environment lets students make decisions and problem solve based on the knowledge they have stored in their memory. This environment helps students learn for understanding. Assessment based environments must base grading on learning goals within the classroom. This reminded me a lot of the chapter in Cognition that referred to types of questions asked, such as nested questions. 

2. What am I still not clear on?  I think that I am clear on the four learning environments, I just still find it very difficult to align all four with the way schools are ran today. Each environment has great qualities, and seem to overlap in some ways, but it is hard to manage all these things at one time. 

3. I took away a lot of great ideas from chapter 7. I enjoyed reading about things the elementary teacher did in her classroom. I have learned to put more depth to each and every lesson. I never realized the smallest task such as taking attendance can have mathematical meaning behind it for my kids each morning. I realize the importance of having a classroom community act as a family. The impact of this connection leads to students focusing on and connecting with the material being learned. I want my students to be able to take what they have learned in class and apply it to their everyday lives, and I think these learning environments are meant to do just that. 

Language Production

1. Chapter 9 focused on language comprehension, reading & listening, and these two chapters focus more on language production. The ability of language as a whole is a complex and amazing process. Our working memory places such a large part in both language production and comprehension. In chapter 4 we learned about Baddeley's model of working memory. The writing process uses many of these same components. As we brainstorm and think to our self what we want to write, this is a procedure of the phonological loop. I make many models to hang in my classroom to help my third graders visualize what their writings will look like. They may not be able to use their visuospatial sketchpad to see the correct layout of a specific type of writing, so these posters help them with this. We have discussed how important the central executive is in so many chapters. Once again in writing the central executive coordinates the planning phase, it helps generate sentences, edits, and revises. What a complex process. 

2. I am pretty clear on the information given in these two chapters. Our workshop presentation was on language development, so we had a chance to take the research even further. Writing was interesting to read about. It is amazing to me how many cognitive processes writing consists of. 

3. We produce language in so many ways, conversations, writing, speaking, e-mail...... As the text states language is probably the most social of all of our cognitive processes which is why it is so important to our everyday life. Speaking is a difficult skill for young children. They may know what they really want to say, but getting it out is the struggle. They have to overcome limits from memory and attention in order to deliver what they want to say. I see this in the classroom daily as students retell what they have read or learned. To help with this, I will listen to what the student is trying to say and then have them repeat after me. Writing is not just important to students in school, but just as important to us in our profession of teaching. Writing and speaking share many cognitive components which is why when I teach writing we spend an equal amount of time sharing what we write each day. The writing process is difficult at the third grade level. I use many different ways of brainstorming and organizing thoughts before putting it on paper. Expectations seem to be getting higher and higher for young children and writing requirements. Free writing time is being taken from them and the fun of writing is hard to find when we worry about so many components at such a young age.  

Language

1. Demonstration 9.1 shows many connections between language and previous material that we have covered. Understanding language is dependent upon visual and auditory recognition. The template matching theory, feature analysis theory, and recognition by components are three theories that have been studied as to how we recognize things within our language. Both working and long term memory play a large part in comprehending language. Working memory helps us to take in information long enough to process and interpret it. Making inferences is especially likely when people have large-working memory capacity. Long term memory makes it possible to remember language that has been previously stored. When we are comprehending new language we rely greatly on previous knowledge stored in our long term memory. 

2. I understand that ambiguous sentences can have identical surface structures, but very different deep structures, but I agree strongly with the text when it says that we respond more quickly and accurately when language is more straightforward. I think I am just having trouble understanding some of the examples of ambiguous statements. 

3. In third grade students are working on reading fluently and adding to their vocabulary. When reading about the background of the structure of language I notices a lot of things that I already do with my students. We break apart sentences all the time looking closely at subjects and predicates. My students use the entire constituent to find clues about the meaning of the words within. We are continuously searching for context clues as we reading third grade. (You can perceive familiar words more accurately when they are embedded within the meaningful context of a sentence. Kintsch, 1998) Although in third grade we are mainly focusing on adding a rich vocabulary and reading fluently, some students still struggle with vowels and blends. I would say that I favor the indirect access hypothesis and support the phonics approach. I still help my kids sound out words when they get stuck by breaking words apart. When assessing students in class I rarely ever use negative words or an implied negative. Although these questions may require more thinking, and processing time, these were the trick questions that always got me when I was in school. I could go on and on as to how language plays a part in our classroom, without it we would be lost......

 

1. When learning about the Availability Heuristic I was thinking back to previous chapters on memory. Research found that when people were encouraged to recall pleasant events from their memory, pleasant events seemed more likely in their future, effecting the way they make decisions. In contrast if people were encouraged to recall unpleasant events they saw unpleasant things happening in their future. The belief bias, the confirmation bias, and the illusory correlation all emphasize top-down processing. When decision making we must take advantage of our memory, concepts, and previous knowledge. Although deductive reasoning uses established rules to draw conclusions, and decision making is much more difficult to distinguish if our conclusions are correct, both require thinking. Thinking requires us to go beyond information that we are given. Deductive Reasoning, Decision Making, and Problem Solving all take heuristics to help lead us to appropriate situations. 

2. I am still somewhat unclear on the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. It becomes more clear to me when I see the similarities to the availability heuristic. The highly available information is acting as the anchor. It makes sense to me that the anchor restricts the search for more relevant information in memory, so would an initial anchor be an example of when you form a stereotype when first meeting someone without knowing anything about them? 

3. Students are faced with decision making in all areas of their school work and in the real world. We do a lot of conditional reasoning tasks in class, but it is our job as teachers to make sure students are taught heuristics, or strategies to help them make decisions as they are faced with them in life. We need to make sure they know the misconceptions such as sample size, base rates, recency, and familiarity before making the decisions that they do. It is our job to show them the research to prove each heuristic,  just as the text is teaching us through demonstrations. 

1. We are surrounded with situations that involve problem solving. In previous chapters we have covered many topics that are part of the problem solving process. Solutions to problems are not always obvious due to obstacles that must be overcome. PI (proactive interference) could affect your ability to come upon a solution due to previously learned material getting in the way, as well as imagery interference as well. When people solve problems they seldom choose the trial and error approach, they take the time to plan their attack by breaking a problem into smaller parts and sometimes working backwards by looking at the big picture. Our central executive plays a large part in organizing what we need to do to find a solution. Our central executive helps in eliminating irrelevant info from the problem, and selecting strategies to use. Both bottom-up and top-down processing play a large part in problem solving as they prove to affect our ability to solve problems. 

2.  Slavery and Duffy's article was a tough read for me at first, but by rewording the principles into my own terms it helped me to better understand. I had to stop and really think about a lesson that included all of those components. I always strive to have those things in my lessons, but quickly realize how difficult it is when we are so test driven in today's education. 

3. It is important that we as teachers prepare our students for the real world that is full of problem solving. They need to know strategies to take with them when they leave the classroom and when to choose which strategy is best to use. I enjoyed reading the section on creativity because it is so important that we support and encourage our students to show originality. My goal as a teacher is to plan lessons that will enhance students intrinsic motivation. I see that the best learning takes place when curiosity strikes! 

1. I never really stopped to think about how much information we are taking in and how often we make inferences based on the information that is already known. This chapter shows just how impressive our cognitive abilities are. Four models are discussed in the area of semantic memory in this chapter. Each having similarities and differences from one another. The feature comparison model, Prototype approach, and Exemplar approach all explain how items belong is some sort of category and we classify new information by deciding where it fits best. The final approach are network models. This is approach is more complex and shows how connections are made through networks that link together in many ways. This chapter also describes how schemas and scripts influence our memory. Schemas greatly influence the inferences we make in memory. Our background knowledge or current schemas that we may already be custom to may mislead us when learning or hearing something new. I was amazed after reading this chapter of how much information we really can store and how we organize it all:)

5. (Sorry I am out of order!) The PDP approach was a lot of information to take in. The book states that it is still a fairly new approach and cannot yet evaluate whether it can accommodate actual data about a wide variety of cognitive processes. The PDP research has trouble explaining the forgetting of well learned information that occurs when we learn additional information. I would think more research needs to be done to determine the links between psyschology and neuroscience. I an unsure as to what would be a way to do this. 

2. As I was learning in this chapter how we make connections and store more and more information, I was thinking a lot about chapter 2. In chapter 2 we learned how we use our senses for recognition. We then learned how stimuli is interpreted from our previous knowledge. When we have certain schemas or scripts about information our perception plays a large part in forming new connections. Some of us may perceive something different than others. When reviewing visual perception chapter 2 refers to the PDP approach. When people see features in a word, these features activate letter units. These units then activate a word in our "mental dictionary" for that combination of letters. This examples shows how the network model links ideas together all of the time. 

3. The question this week about "How schemas influence our memory through each phase" was tough for me. I think I need more information about how each phase works. It was all kind of blending together to me and each phase wasn't as clear cut to me as maybe it should be. 

4. I use the networking model all the time in my classroom. As many people stated this week, I think that it is important for students to see the many connections that can be made throughout our memory process. When we brainstorm new ideas in class we usually make a web. We may start with only one specific idea, but we end up with related information that students might not have thought ever connected. I think having students work together to do this is helpful. Different students have information to pull from different backgrounds. One students ideas may trigger another students ideas. 

6. Learning about the structure of semantic memory is important because it helps us in organizing more and more information that we take in. Without this process we would not be able to make connections and we would be on overload. I think the four approaches in this chapter explain why we have not gone into overload and we can hold all the information that we do.

7. I use graphic organizers to represent network models with all kids. Low students probably benefit from them the most because it gives them a broader look at a topic being covered. Higher level students can make connections and show the link between topics without writing them down, but when they work together they might have a larger background knowledge to work from. 

8. I think that an easy way to learn about our semantic memory is to ask students what schemas they already have before a lesson to determine if prexisting knowledge is affecting their new learning. 

Mental Imagery & Cognitive Maps

1. This chapter described two different theories about imagery. Analog coding is a picture representation that closely resembles the physical object. Propositional coding is more abstract and words are used to describe the object. Both theories have valid points, and still continue today to be an on-going debate with imagery. Often interference occurs with through motor and visual imagery. Through imagery, we take in information and are able to create a model to represent our knowledge. These models are cognitive maps. Within these models we represent distance, shape, and position. Pretty impressive if you ask me! 

2. Although for my post this week I related chapter 7 to multitasking, I also think that this chapter relates to chapter 4, working memory. Just like working memory, imagery is constantly being combined, and transformed. Components of Baddley's model of working memory are similar to theories on imagery. When using our visuospatial sketchpads we are either seeing an image through analog coding or propositional coding. The phonological loop would fit more under the theory of using language for representation. 

3. I found this chapter to be very interesting. I wouldn't say that I am unclear on a specific part of this chapter, I would just like to possibly see more research done on both the analog and propositional coding. I know the text says that imagery is a hard topic to study. 

4. In my third grade class, many of the lessons that I teach have a visual component to them. We do many things like drawing pictures in our mind of a story that we read, or in math we may use manipulatives in order to give us a visual of what we are learning. I would also say that we use language descriptors often to associate new things. I think that it is difficult to know if a student uses analog coding or propositional coding because I believe it varies in different situations. Students have trouble explaining what is going on in their heads! Explains why children don't understand metacognition. 

5. The research done by Kosslyn & Thompson, and Pylyshyn provided great perspectives for both theories on imagery. Kosslyn & Thompson would say that imagery resembles perception in many respects. Proof even states that perception and imagery activate similar structures within the cerebral cortex. Pylyshyn on the other hand would not say that people don't experience mental images at all, but rather that the images are epiphenomenal (images are tacked on later after the physical object has already been recovered from  propositional storage) 

6. Imagery is important because it helps us to manage our memory. I am sure everyone uses imagery of some sort each and every day as a way of remembering something. I often say that I am a visual person and I learn best by seeing, but I never really knew what was going on in my mind and why I would think that. Now I tend to know the theories behind how imagery works.

7. As teachers it is our job to find out how our students learn best. If it is through visuals we need to help students in understanding how these visuals will help with our memory process. I see this everyday in my classroom, I model how to create visuals in your head by explaining the pictures outloud to my students. 

8. As the text said, imagery has been a controversy for many years, and it is an important and long-lasting debate. I think it may be hard to find research because it is hard for people to explain how they came about an image. They may know they associate a physical object to an image, but how did that image come about. I would have trouble explaining this! 

WEEK 6 - Memory Strategies

1. In this weeks readings, I learned that memory strategies are designed to improve encoding and retrieval as part of the memory process. Several of the strategies that were described I often use in my classroom already. Many mnemonics can be used through imagery and organization to help memory. Many people may think that cognitive skills are fully developed by late childhood, but the lifespan approach shows that changes are taking place throughout our entire life. Infants and children are often underestimated at their memory capabilities. With proof through the reinforcement technique, an infant as young as 2 months old can demonstrate memory in many different ways. Although strategies can't be used spontaneously at a young age, children can still respond to someone teaching them or telling them why they should use memory strategies to help them remember things. 

2. Chapter 5 is revisited as levels of processing, the encoding process and overconfidence are all principles that if followed correctly should aid in the memory process. For example, we have read about deep processing, and concentration levels can play a part in the encoding process. Therefore rehearsal may not be the best strategy for certain situations. Another concept from chapter 5 was the encoding specificity principle. I tend to look at my assessments first before asking students to remember information that may not be needed. 

3. I did not realize that there were so many examples of mnemonics. Honestly I just thought mnemonics was shortening information into an easier way to remember, or the first letter technique (Rainbow - ROY G. BIV) I didn't know that mnemonics consisted of so many different methods... the keyword method, mehtod of loci, vivid interaction, chunking, hierarchy technique, and narrative. 

4. I think that it is important to teach students WHY they are using the memory strategies that they are.  I think that in order for them to see why they are important they need to be modeled often for the kids and they need to be given chances to use the strategies. If we want them to be able to transfer the strategies to other situations they need to do the purpose behind them. 

5. I thought that the study done by Moley and her colleagues was very interesting. As adults we use memory strategies all the time, probably not even knowing it. It is easy to assume that children can do the same. This study was great proof that these strategies do not just come to children as we may think. The study proved that children may have the ability to organize, but not for the purpose of memory. 

6. I think that the most important thing that I got from this weeks readings is knowing that these strategies don't come as easily to children as I may have thought. I think that this week was very important for me because I learned how important it is to model and explain to my students why we use the strategies we do and when to apply them. 

7. I think that I have been using these strategies within my lessons already, but I have not been pointing them out directly. I want to make sure that students do not come across the problem of utilization deficiency and use the strategies for the wrong purposes. I would not choose to use some of the given memory strategies with any specific group of children. I think all children would benefit from being introduced to many types of strategies. As they get older they can then decide which works best for them. 

8. In a fairy tale land students would come to teachers with a list of strategies already planned out that work best for that specific child. As teachers we know that each student learns in different ways depending on the material. It is our job to find the best memory strategies and teach the children the process of using them. I think that by giving the students options and asking them which strategy works best we find out the most information in a fast and easy way. 

Learning and Transfer

1. This article defined transfer as "the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to a new context." Although some characteristics of learning and transfer may seem obvious, this article explained in much detail why there are key components to education. The first being the importance of initial learning. Many conditions may effect this beginning stage and interfere with later transfer. Another important factor is the difference between truly understanding and memorizing information. The ability to remember facts for a test is not the same as understanding them. Making sure students have the time to learn is another important component. It is often that students are rushed through things and not given time to take it all in and make connections. It is often overlooked that when students are first learning something they are using transfer. They bring in previous knowledge to the subject to help in the learning process. This article provided many components that must be met in order for students to successfully transfer information from one setting to another. 

2. Our working and long term memory plays a large part in the transferring process. This article talks about how students often refer to their previous knowledge when introduced to new material. Without this material being stored in our long term memory students would have not anything to bring to initial learning stages. 

3. I had to read the part on active verses passive approaches a second time, but I think I understand it a little better. I use prompting a lot in my classroom and I am going to try to be more aware so that I am use "graduated prompting."

4. As a teacher my goal is to provide my students with the skills necessary to succeed not only in school but outside the school setting as well. My hopes are that no matter what subject it may be students can take away skills from a lesson and apply it to their everyday lives. I have always had this goal, but this article provided me with many components that are important in order for me to succeed in doing this. 

5. This article has many studies that were done. Box 3.1 was even more proof that "chunking" information into meaningful groups helps in comprehending. Box 3.3 was a study done to prove how important understanding something is rather than just memorizing. I have heard both the darts and biology study before in other EPFR classes. 

6. Learning and transfer is extremely important in education. If we cannot help students in transferring what they learned in school to society, they will be lost. What is the point of just memorizing something for a test and then forgetting it. If we as teachers focus on the key components from this article we should be preparing our students for how to succeed outside of the school setting. 

7. I was the type of student that would say "ok if I can just memorize this for tomorrow's test, it doesn't matter if I forget it the next day. As long as I get that "A"   I think that we as teachers need to show students situations in which the material we teach them at school will be used elsewhere. If they have a true purpose for understanding it rather than memorizing it they will be more focused and motivated as the article says. 

8. I think that by providing students with as much exposure to real world situations it helps them in transferring information learned in class to other situations. I would think this would be the best way in explaining to them how important transfer is. 

Chapter 4 Working Memory

1. This chapter went into depth on a working memory approach proposed by Alan Baddely. It consists of the following components, phonological look, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, and a central executive. I found myself thinking of many examples in my everyday life that fit into each one of these categories. This chapter also described many factors that influence the capacity of our working memory. The chunking strategy, that I use in my classroom often, pronunciation time, and the semantic similarity of items. 

2. When reading about (PI) I thought of previous research that was done with a cross-model task in chapter 3. I think that PI is the reason that participants had trouble with the task of using two different perceptual systems at the same time. They were having trouble learning or recalling new material because old material was getting in the way.

3. I know that this was brought up through discussion, but I am still unsure of the time span that short term or working memory refers to. I think in my head I am thinking it is a longer time period than what it really is. 

4.  When reading about the components to the Working Memory Model I found many parts that can relate to everyday events in the classroom or at home.  We give our students much information each and every day and obviously assess them on it in some way. It is important to know the capacity of working memory as teachers so that we are making sure students are truly benefiting from the content they are taking in and not just loosing it a second later. 

5.  I think the most convincing study from this chapter on memory was the study by Braddely and Hitch. I was surprised by the results that the participants could perform a spatial reasoning task while memorizing a strand of numbers at the same time. That was evidence to make me believe that working memory is not unitary.

6. Working memory is important because it helps us learn the things we need to know to be a well-educated person. The research done on short term memory is crucial for education because it helps teachers understand the best teaching practices to use with students. 

7. I think that students that struggle with attention often fall in the same category of needing help memorizing things. It seems that the two go hand in hand sometimes. When reading the text I am mostly always thinking of my resource kids and how this relates to them. Chunking works best with this group of students.

8. I think that the studies that are being done are a good way to learn more about the complex process of memory, but I think that each and every person will give different results each time.I think that there are differences in our memory processes from one person to the next.  

Week 3 - Attention and Consciousness

When reading chapter three about attention I found myself making many connections.  I think that majority of my time is spent giving divided attention to different tasks. That being said I don't think that this is the best process for me because I am the type of person that doesn't comprehend things the first time through. Currently I am using selective attention as I try to focus on my blog and my dog is barking in my ear at something outside. After reading chapter 3 I have also learned many things about consciousness. To put in my own words I think that consciousness is not an automatic process, but yet something that is controlled and filtered by our focused attention. 

I think that Gordan's weekly question to the reading tells how perception is relevant to consciousness. In order for us to be aware of something we must first perceive them based on previous theories of perception in chapter 2. 

I think that consciousness is definitely a challenging topic. I would love to continue reading up on the process of problem solving. I often solve problems, but then am unaware of how I actually reached the solution.

Although this is an early theory of attention that has been rejected,  I still feel at times that the bottleneck theory describes my information processing. After sitting through meetings at school I often feel that I cannot process anymore information at that given time. I am on overload, and I feel that this limits the amount of information that I can take in. Why is that?? Or is it just that I think that I am not taking in information and I really am. 

Treisman shows proof of the feature - integration theory through many demonstrations. It is nice when some of these demonstrations are shown in the book because when you experience something yourself it is very believable. (EX - the Blue X) 

The attention process is very important for education. It helps us understand the best ways that students learn and take in information. 

If you realize that a student is not comprehending something it may be due to their attention process. Our job as the teacher would be to create the best environment that suits each child. 

I think that the demonstrations and research done on attention and consciousness are the best ways to find the results we need in order to give our students the best education. 

Week 2 Reflection

 After reading Chapter 2 this week I have learned many different theories that explain visual and auditory recognition. It makes you think about how amazing our perceptual abilities really are. We use visual object recognition with everything we do, and reading about the template - matching theory, and the feature analysis theory gave me more of a background as to why we perceive things the way we do. 

When starting this class all I knew was that  the title of the text was Cognition. I was unsure of what the text would actually cover. When my students give me answers to questions I always reply to them with "why is that" I realize how hard of a question that can be sometimes. I feel like I am learning "the why" from the reading of this text. 

A part of chapter 2 that I feel I struggled with was part of the feature-analysis theory. When applying this to my classroom, I made a post about classifying solid figures by their faces, edges, corners. After reading others posts I am unsure if this is a good example since these are not two dimensional patterns. 

I thought of my students when reading the part on context and speech perception. Students often make mispronunciations while reading and continue on with the story even though it does not make sense. When listening to a student read and this happens, I simple raise my hand to let them know that they need to reread that sentence to check to make sure it makes sense. When slowing down and actually listening for comprehension they often realize "Ohhhh, that doesn't sound right. We then practice looking for other words in the text that can help us determine the meanings.

  There were many studies done to prove theories from all parts of chapter 2. One that stands out to me the most was Simons and Chabris's videotape of the gorilla that proves inattentional blindness. I most definitely believe it because I didn't see the gorilla myself.

Much of the cognitive research done from chapter 2 is very important. Especially for those people who lack the ability to perceive things the same as others. Research teaches us why that is. I would use many of these strategies for students that have trouble recognizing how we do certain tasks in class. I cannot think of any other way to accomplish these things in a better way.