Brandon Wells

Educational Psychology
Learning Log- Fall 2021
Learning Log #2-NCLB & ESSA

NCLB ESSA
-States responsible for holding students -States responsible for holding students
accountable with less flexible framework. accountable with more flexible framework.

-Only used state test scores when evaluating -States consider more than just test scores
schools when evaluating schools

-Federal government provided a specific set -States and schools districts must have
of actions to struggling schools to help them. plans for helping struggling schools. Must
Limited local decision making use evidence-based methods
Learning Log #3 & 4 Learning Processes
& Student Development

Chapter 3: The three topics:

- Teacher Perspectives on Learning

- Behaviorism
- Constructivism
Teacher Perspectives on Learning

Viewing learning as dependent on curriculum

- Teachers equate learning with major forms of academic achievement

- A side effect is that classroom social interactions and behaviors become issues for
teachers
- Can tempt teachers into thinking that what is taught is equivalent to what is learned,
which most teachers know is not the case

Viewing learning as dependent on sequencing and readiness

- Readiness
- Traditionally refers to students’ preparedness to cope with or profit from the activities and
expectations of school
- Focuses attention on students’ adjustments to school, and away from the possibility
that schools need to adjust to students
Teacher Perspectives on Learning cont.

Viewing transfer as a crucial outcome of learning

- Transfer
- The ability to use knowledge or skill in situations beyond what the ones in which they have
been acquired
- Combining enjoyment and usefulness is a gold standard of teaching
- Making learning fun is good, but making learning fun as well as useful is even better
Behaviorism

- Perspective of learning that focuses on changes in individuals’ observable behavior

- Respondent conditioning (classical conditioning)
- Begins with involuntary responses to certain stimuli
- Unconditioned stimuli, unconditioned response/conditioned stimuli, conditioned response
- Respondent conditioning and students
- Teachers seek positive changes in students’ behavior
- Students can be conditioned to enjoy a classroom through positive interaction, and can be
conditioned to fear a classroom through negative interaction
- Three key ideas
- Extinction
- Disappearance of a link between a conditioned stimulus and conditioned response
- Generalization
- The tendency for similar stimuli to elicit a conditioned response
- Discrimination
- Individuals learn to distinguish between or respond differently to one stimulus over
another
Behaviorism cont.

- Operant conditioning
- Focuses on the effects of consequences on behaviors
- Reinforcement
- Encourages or discourages certain behavior
- Intrinsic motivation
- Reinforcement for an activity can be the activity itself
- Extrinsic motivation
- Another part of the reinforcement came from the consequences or experiences not
inherently part of the activity or the behavior itself
Constructivism
- Perspective of learning that focuses on how students construct knowledge based on
prior experiences
- Psychological Constructivism
- People learn by organizing and reorganizing new information or experiences
- Assimilation
- Perception of new knowledge based on prior knowledge or experiences
- Social Constructivism
- Teachers’ responsibility to create learning experiences
- Scaffolding
- Zone of Proximal Development
- Metacognition
- Thinking about thinking
Constructivism cont.
- Bloom’s Taxonomy
- Knowledge
- Remembering information
- Comprehension
- Learning information
- Application
- Using information in new settings
- Analysis
- Critically think about and examine concepts
- Synthesis
- Combining pre-existing knowledge of concepts into new ideas
- Evaluation
- Assessing concepts and ideas
Learning Log #3 & 4 Learning Processes
& Student Development cont.

Chapter 4: The four topics:

- Student Development
- Cognitive Development
- Social Development
- Moral Development
Student Development
- Long-term personal changes in students and how teachers teach different grade
levels
- People develop differently based on their home lives and in reaction to different life
events
- Teachers need to be aware of different educational and life perspectives in order to
create a more inclusive and positive classroom environment
- Physical development stages
- Puberty affects students physically and how they present themselves at school
- Teachers should know when their students should develop certain motor skills like holding a
pencil and being able to sit for long periods of time
- Younger students get sick more often than older students since they have less developed
immune systems
Cognitive Development- Jean Piaget
- Long-term changes in thinking and memory
- Cognition
- Thinking and memory processes
- Sensorimotor intelligence
- Object permanence
- Pre-operational thinking
- Dramatic play
- Metacognition
- Concrete operational thinking
- Reversibility
- Decenter
- Formal operational thinking
- Hypothetical reasoning
Social Development- Erik Erikson
- Long-term changes in relationships with self, peers, teachers and parents
- Self-concept, basic needs, personal motives, and changing responsibilities
- 8 Stages of Life
- Trust and mistrust- Birth to one year- Development of trust between caregiver and child
- Autonomy and shame- Age 1-3- Development of control over bodily functions and activities
- Initiative and guilt- Age 3-6- Testing limits of self-assertion and purposefulness
- Industry and inferiority- Age 6-12- Development of sense of mastery and competence
- Identity and role confusion- Age 12-19- Development of identity and acknowledge of identity
by others
- Intimacy and isolation- Age 19-25+- Formation of intimate relationships and commitments
- Generativity and stagnation- Age 25-50+- Development of creative or productive
activities that contribute to future generations
- Integrity and despair- Age 50+- Acceptance of personal life history and forgiveness of self and
others
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Deficit needs and needs of being
- Deficit needs: Psychological, Safety and Security, and Love and Belonging
- Needs of being: Cognitive, Aesthetic, and Self-Actualization
Moral Development
- Understanding the difference between right and wrong, and what is good and bad
- Kohlberg’s Morality of Justice
- Preconventional level
- Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment
- Action that is rewarded and not punished
- Stage 2: Market Exchange
- Action that works for the child and their peer
- Conventional level
- Stage 3: Peer Opinion
- Action that friends and peers approve
- Stage 4: Law and Order
- Action that conforms to community law
- Post-Conventional level
- Stage 5: Social Construct
- Action that follows socially constructed decisions
- Stage 5: Universal Principles
- Action that is part of your personal principles
Moral Development cont.
- Gilligan’s Morality of Care
- Based on human care and responsibilities to themselves and others
- Position 1: Survival Orientation
- Action that only considers the individual’s needs
- Position 2: Conventional Care
- Considers others needs without considering their own
- Position 3: Integrated Care
- Action that tries to consider both individual’s needs and others needs
Learning Log #5- Student Diversity
Chapter 5: The three topics:

- Multiple Intelligences
- Opportunity Gap
- Take-a-ways from our guest speaker
Multiple Intelligences
- Intelligence
- Single broad ability that allows a person to solve or complete many sorts of tasks
- Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
- Eight forms of intelligences and everyone has a mixture of all of them
- Multiple intelligences according to Howard Gardner
- Linguistic
- Verbal skill
- Musical
- Ability to create and understand music
- Logical
- Mathematical skill
- Spatial
- Ability to imagine and manipulate the arrangement of objects in the area
- Bodily
- Kinesthetic, coordination in use of one’s own body
- Interpersonal
- Ability to discern others thoughts and feelings
- Intrapersonal
- Sensitivity to one’s own thoughts and feelings
- Naturalist
- Sensitivity to subtle differences and patterns found in the natural environment
Opportunity Gap
- Unequal or inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities
- Achievement gap
- Unequal or inequitable distribution of education resources and opportunities
- Examples
- Students from low-income houses
- Minority students
- Students raised by parents without a college degree
- Students raised in non-english speaking homes
- Economically disadvantaged schools and communities
- Small schools in geographically rural areas
- Lack of internet connectivity, computers, and new learning tehcnologies
Take-a-ways from Guest Speaker: Seth Dills
- Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among youth ages 10-19
- Rates for self-injury
- 4% of adults
- 15% of teens
- 17%-35% of college students
- LGBT youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual youth
- 40% of transgender adults have made a suicide attempt
- 90% of these adults report attempting suicide before the age of 25
- Respecting a person’s pronouns is suicide prevention
- The Gender Unicorn
- Gender identity
- Gender expression/presentation
- Sex assigned at birth
- Sexually attracted to
- Romantically/emotionally attracted to
Learning Log #6: Teaching Students with
Special Education Needs
- Takeaways from this Week's Guest Speaker:
- Tailor your teaching strategies to individual student needs
- Give students opportunities for independent learning and growth
- Therapy options for students
- Students with Special Needs Document:
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qp-aRgppPPJ6SShR7ECweG5tTWYYpyK4A4UYhbIBD
xk/edit?usp=sharing
- Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504
- Required individuals with disabilities to be accommodated in any program or activity that
receives federal funding
- Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)
- Prohibits discrimination based on disablity
- Extends to all employment, not just those that receive federal funding
- Requires accommodations to be made in public facilities
Learning Log #6: Teaching Students with
Special Education Needs cont.
- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
- Guarantees the following rights to anyone with a disability from birth to age 21:
- Free, appropriate education
- Due process
- Fair evaluation of performance in spite of disability
- Education in a least restrictive environment
- An individualized education program (IEP)
Learning Log #7: Student Motivation
- Locus of Causality
- Attribution of the causes of an event to sources internal or external to the self
- Attributions
- How individuals perceive the causes of everyday experience
- Self-Efficacy
- An individual’s belief in themself to perform necessary behaviors to produce specific
performance attainments
- Learned Helplessness
- A condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness after enduring repeated
failure or a traumatic event
- Self-determination Theory
- A theory concerned with the motivation behind choices people make without external
influence or interference
Learning Log #7: Student Motivation cont.
- Takeaways from guest speaker John Markham
- A lot of kids don’t have the ability to long-term plan
- Break up assignments in small chunks
- Little successes will help students
- Develop relationships with kids
- Some kids don’t have a support system
- Give them a support system
- Explain “why”
- Build relationships on a sense of trust and safety, not fear
- A positive influence can go a long way
- Your room will reflect your energy
- Teacher self-care is not often researched, but it is important to be aware of
- Admit when you are wrong and apology
- It’s ok to admit you don’t know something
- Tell students you are proud of them.
Learning Log #8: Classroom Management
- Classroom Management
- Orchestrating/Coordinating entire sets of learning sequences so everyone learns as easily and
productively as possible.
- Active Listening
- Attending carefully to what the student is saying and attempting to understand and emphasize
as much as possible.
- Withitness
- Attending to multiple events at once.
- Natural Consequences
- Consequences that occur without deliberate intention by anyone.
- Logical Consequences
- Consequences that occur because of the responses of or the decisions by others.
Learning Log #9: Communication and Fac.
Thinking

Link to Google Doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fnZZGZNiFjs1Vuy1Ys9c-sHjZx9QdQ_Z1plID0zZv0g/e
dit?usp=sharing
Learning Log #10&11: Planning Instruction
- Taxonomies of Learning
- Cognitive
- Focused on critical thinking skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creating
a knowledge base.
- Affective
- Focused on the attitudes, values, interests, and appreciation of learners.
- Psychomotor
- Focused on the ability of learners to physically accomplish tasks and perform
movement and skills.
Learning Log #12&13: Teacher Made,
Standardized, & Other Formal Assessments
- Formal Assessments:
- Data-driven method of evaluating students with well-defined grading parameters
- Informal Assessments:
- Spontaneous evaluation where instructors test students knowledge using no standard criteria
or rubric
- Formative Assessments:
- Assessments throughout the semester/year
- Summative Assessments:
- Assessment at the end of the semester/year
- Self-Assessment:
- Assessing oneself
- Peer Assessment:
- Assessing others
- Diagnostic Assessment:
- A tool for teachers to assess a student’s knowledge in a specific subject