Home Straight - Week 7

Dear EDUC4600 6600 Students,

 A real treat this week :- We are entering the home straight for this course and this week we have special treat for you – a guest lecturer who is an outstanding educator – Stephanie McCaw – from Ferny Grove Senior High School. Stephanie will be focussing on how teachers can work together to build a “community of learners” at school.

Stephanie works in the music program (HOD) at Ferny Grove so her examples come from this curriculum area. She will show video of everyday activities, performances, and interviews with students. She demonstrates how a community of learners can be created where “old-timers” from the community (graduates from the School) come back to assist “new-comers”. Her presentation is rich with images and ideas that you will be able to transfer to your own curriculum areas.

 The idea of a “community of learners “ emerged in recent years as we began to focus on the social context of teaching and learning. There are three main ideas at the heart of the notion of “a community of learners”:

 (i) Expertise is distributed in a group – we each bring insights and knowledge to the classroom and if the expertise of classroom members can be shared more effectively then the learning of everyone is enriched;

(ii) Knowledge is created in a distributed social network – Rodin’s famous sculpture of the thinker in isolated contemplation isn’t helpful in actually describing how knowledge is created and shared. Knowledge creation is an active social process of communicating and debating and dialoguing with others. In the disciplines, scholars need to publish their ideas and open them to confirmation and clarification. In the classroom we need to find ways of engaging students in similar processes of communicating ideas and seeking to analyse and clarify ideas together.

(iii) Culture of inclusion - Each student has to experience acceptance within the group and feel willing and confident to add ideas and suggestions. Participation and engagement in classroom activities is the best predictor of learning and achieving equitable levels of engagement is partly an outcome of ensuring everyone feels they are accepted and have something worthwhile to offer. The culture of the classroom needs to be considered explicitly at times to determine how it is operating and in whose interests.

---------------------- 31/03/2010

What is a Strategy? How does it differ from a Tactic/Skill? How do these relate to a Teaching Philosophy

A question was asked in one of the tutorials after last week (Week 5) regarding the distinction between strategies and skills/tactics.

Let me clarify how we use this distinction.

When we use the term Strategies in this course we are referring to teaching strategies at a general level – for example cooperative learning is a strategy. The chapter headings used in the textbook (Killen) are what we would call strategies.

Cooperative learning as a strategy is most likely used in association with a constructivist philosophy and to implement it effectively a teacher would need to develop skills in managing groups, establishing the conditions for effective learning within groups. Liz Fynes-Clinton on Friday referred to the tactic of using a Y-Chart to help implement effective cooperation between students, that is :– What does cooperation sound like? What does cooperation look like? What does cooperation feel like? Doing a Y chart is a tactic that a teacher might use to help students begin to act more cooperatively.

However, cooperative learning as a strategy is not always linked to a constructivist philosophy. For example, some educators use cooperative learning to extrinsically motivate students to study within groups. They establish a “game-like” competition between students in different groups in order to engage them in learning facts and other aspects of a subject – for example, vocabulary; times tables or common algorithms; names of the elements in the periodic table; a chronology of historical events; the features of different language genres etc. The teacher assesses the teams’ performance on a test and then awards a prize to the winning team. Team members are motivated to help each other learn because the team performance depends on everyone doing well. It can be implemented by a teacher lightly and in a fun competitive way and might be useful in some classes depending on the students’ level of engagement with a subject. However, I’d suggest that this strategy is based on an assumption that students learn from external rewards and that the teacher needs to find ways to immediately and tangibly reward their learning behaviour – not a constructivist philosophy.

Ok, so my point here is that a particular strategy can be deployed in the service of different philosophies.

A constructivist teacher might use direct teaching as a strategy quite often in order to ensure students have a common core of knowledge to begin exploring and discussing a topic. But a constructivist teacher using direct teaching would probably use different tactics than a transmission sage-on-the-stage teacher. The constructivist teacher would be very aware of trying to build on students’ background knowledge by using vivid examples, analogies, and multi-modal representations of ideas, and would make the relevance of the ideas and concepts as clear as possible for the students. So their teaching tactics would be designed in ways consistent with a constructivist philosophy.

It’s not uncomplicated but I hope it’s clear.

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Sent:               Monday, 29 March 2010 6:28 PM

Dear Students in EDUC4600 and 6600.

The presentations from Peter R , Julie Bower and Liz Fynes-Clinton are on Blackboard under Learning Materials.

Regarding your accessing of teaching resources and material on Blackboard - I checked statistics over the weekend (yes, I know, but I actually do have a life!) - 223 students have accessed the Learning Materials - that's wonderful - but that means about 80 students haven't. I hope you all know how to access Blackboard - see http://blackboard.elearning.uq.edu.au; you just need to navigate (click) your way to the site for this course EDUC4600/6600.

Below I outline some other material and background on the different philosophies and approaches to Behaviour Management that we covered on Friday.

The Behaviourist approach and techniques are closely associated with the research and writing of Lee and Marlene Canter (1990 and 1992 - they publish much of their own work so it is best to Google (Scholar Google) them to locate relevant articles.

The social constructivist approach to issues of behaviour management has developed in part from the Just Schools movement based on the original research and theorising of Lawrence Kohlberg. A recent article on this approach is in the Journal of Moral Education, v37 n3 p395-415 Sep 2008. The article begins with a brief history of the Just Community approach, a description of the original developmental model created by Lawrence Kohlberg and collaborators and some variation in more recent European Just Community programs.

The Community Participant approach to Behaviour Management issues is built on research and writing by Nell Noddings who developed a theory of moral and ethical decision making based on the core notion of care within personal and professional relationships. Basic background information on Nell Noddings can be found on Wikipedia - search by her name. An insight about her educational approach can be gleaned from the following summary -"We should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement, and we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others. Some educators today - and I include myself among them - would like to see a complete reorganization of the school curriculum. We would like to give a central place to the questions and issues that lie at the core of human existence. One possibility would be to organize the curriculum around themes of care - caring for self, for intimate others, for strangers and global others, for the natural world and its nonhuman creatures, for the human-made world, and for ideas." For more details see Nell Noddings books if you are interested to follow up - eg The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education. Advances in Contemporary Educational Thought, Volume 8 published by Teachers College Press.

For those who weren't at the lecture you should look at the Villa Nova College Webpage to get a sense of a behaviour management policy and procedures that matches closely what Nell Noddings had in mind - it involves a policy based on care and restorative practices to deal with breakdowns and conflicts between people.

Reflection 1.

Geoff Hilton provided an eloquent exposition of his teaching philosophy. This is what I understood him to say. Teaching is an intellectual and practical activity that is one part of a larger civic project centred on representative democracy. Teachers are crucial to representative democracy because they are the “midwives” of a critical and engaged citizenry. The other elements of representative democracy are (i) an accountable government and robust opposition; (ii) an independent judiciary; (iii) a sceptical and inquiring media. (Where is the economy in this frame? Economic activity seems absent and is a huge and arguably the major influence on government, the media and schooling – anyway ... that is another discussion I think). Back to Geoff’s view:- An active and critical citizenry has the capacity to understand complex arguments, weigh evidence, interrogate policy, and lobby for change. Geoff’s philosophy included assumptions similar to those made by Chris Poulsen regarding learners as basically “good” and trustworthy within a well designed learning environment. He used teaching strategies typical of contructivists – inquiry methods; collaborative activities and cooperative learning. He used practical devices (teaching skills) such as concept maps (remember his reference to “inspirations” – the software package that enables even young students to construct concept maps) and discussion techniques such as analysing texts to determine what is included and what is omitted.

Reflection 2.

Geoff, more than the other teachers we have heard this semester (in my view), linked his teaching to decision making and action – teaching (for Geoff) is not primarily about conveying the key concepts and practices of this or that discipline, but about helping learners make consequential decisions in their lives. Geoff seemed to suggest that he reached this insight after many years of teaching and seeing his students later in life as members of society. Research suggests that anyone who is a beginning teacher is likely to be more centred on “what they have to do” and “what they are trying to convey (content)”. So I am wondering how you reacted to this – do you think Geoff underplayed the importance of disciplinary knowledge? Do you agree with his focus on decision making and active citizenship by students? Are you comfortable in knowing how to manage this kind of classroom? What teaching skills do you envisage yourself developing if you were to follow Geoff’s philosophy and approach?

Reflection 3.

Being balanced – the short section of video-tape from an “Inconvenient Truth” raised debate in the lecture about balance and giving space to opposing views when teaching important topics like climate change and sustainability. Re balance as a default option for teaching important topics - I worry that presenting every topic in a “balanced way” to students will teach them a passive and detached relativism. If we suggest that every topic has a range of different positions don’t we convey the conclusion that a reasonable consensus based on a critical approach to the topic and weighing of evidence can never be reached. I think the “Media” needs to present a range of views – provide space to many different voices, even extreme voices at times - free speech is crucial. As teachers we also need to be open to different views and encourage a range of views to be expressed so new learning can occur (I agree with Chris Poulsen’s approach here in the way she encouraged students to express themselves) but in the end we search for best evidence conclusions and decisions – or acknowledge that at this time we don’t know enough – it’s still open to further evidence and debate.
In matters of taste, aspects of lifestyle, fashion, aesthetics, likes and dislikes etc differences in position are taken-for-granted. There’s no point in debating and weighing evidence to reach consensus in matters of taste – we converse about such matters to appreciate different tastes and sensibilities but we never expect to agree ( a la the ABC movie show with Margaret & David). But there are many issues that are not a matter of taste and for these I don’t think the default stance by teachers can be a neutral “oh well there are many different views”. I think a better conclusion is something like – this is what we currently know; here are some unanswered questions; here are some things we could do research on and find out more information about.
As I said in the lecture, I bracket out issues of personal religious belief and faith where I think we adopt a respectful attitude – exploratory discourse and inquiry typical of the disciplines can’t address issues of religious belief and faith, in my view.

Reflection 4

The lecture was about cross-curricular themes, multi-literacies and numeracy. We drew upon the national curriculum documents (ACARA) and QCAT assessment tasks to illustrate some current developments and then Geoff further illustrated these developments by analysing different texts related to bio-fuels. We purposely designed it around the common theme of sustainability so the different parts of the lecture would hang together, but it probably was seen as more relevant to Science and SOSE students than others.
At the end of the lecture a music student asked me about Inconvenient Truth and balanced perspectives (reflection 3) and said something like – “well I teach music anyway so it’s not crucial to me”. That got me thinking about how different students in the group “hear” what is said in lectures and to what extent it is perceived as relevant.
I may be stating the obvious (so apologies if this is too obvious) but music is a multi-literate and numerate area of the curriculum – it involves reading and interpreting symbols and notation; watching and performing multi-media “texts”; one can integrate historical perspectives into musical traditions; one can examine ATSI musical and dance traditions and the connection between custodianship of country and music and dance; one can examine patterns and notation systems for the underlying mathematics; one can research the science of waves and the properties of different amplifying materials etc etc. Music and English clearly overlap in so many ways around different kinds of songs and traditions of poetry et etc.

Reflection 5

I asked you to examine Al Gore’s teaching tactics – his techniques for conveying concepts and information in a convincing manner. We identified some of these in the lecture and they are summarised in the presentation notes (see Learning Materials on BB). But at least one student was not happy or convinced - she asked me – isn’t this problematic because Gore was trying to convince us – it’s an example of persuasive discourse – and shouldn’t we avoid this kind of persuasive discourse in our teaching. To be authentic and acceptable within a democratic society, direct teaching has to include reasons, provide evidence and be accessible (understood) by students. They are making up their own minds as they actively listen, not accepting your view because of your authority or status (“trust me”). Direct teaching has to be accurate and present all relevant evidence and counter-examples and unknown or unresolved issues. I regard that section of the Gore documentary on levels of CO2 and temperatures across time as effective and acceptable direct teaching. The science he drew upon is not contested as far as I am aware – that is, CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that variations in CO2 across time are highly correlated with rises and falls in global temperatures. Rises and falls in global temperatures are associated with changes in sea-level due to the expansion and retreat of icecaps and glaciers. What do you think?
Best wishes and write back if you are moved to.

Metacognition

Dear Students,
The Powerpoints for metacognition have been made available in "Learning Materials" on Blackboard. Cheers  Peter.
Posted by: Peter Renshaw
Posted on : Fri, Mar 12, 2010

Reflection on Friday - Metacognition

Here are some of my reflections and suggestions following Friday’s presentations.

Reflection and Suggestions 1

Christa highlighted awareness and control as key aspects of meta-cognition. I also highlighted this. But I don’t think we can teach meta-cognitive skills in a few weeks or assume the “job is done” once and for all. Being meta-cognitive is a habit that takes time to develop and it is hard to get resistant learners and those who lack a sense of self-efficacy (sense of confidence and agency) to be meta-cognitive (mindful and strategic learners). A key experience for learners such as these is likely to be SUCCESS – achieving something that they value. When that occurs you can direct them to consider what enabled their success. Reflecting on moments of success can help them see how they might do that again.

Even in “direct instruction” type lessons, when you are explaining and modelling you can ask for ideas and suggestions on a topic. When students respond you can pause to highlight interesting and unusual suggestions and be generally encouraging rather than dismissive or rejecting. When students hear you respect ideas and probe to understand what is meant, they are more likely to volunteer and contribute in the future and in the process they will become more aware of their own thinking.  

Also you should familiarise yourself with teaching techniques such as De Bono’s thinking hats (Edward De Bono) where different thinking techniques/processes are represented by different coloured hats. It’s a little artificial but it works to reveal how we need to be able to think in different ways. So I regard De Bono as a meta-cognitive theorist because he is focussing explicitly on how to think and how to learn. In De Bono’s program, teachers help their students adopt a specific thinking process or technique by defining and illustrating each of the thinking hats and then adopting that style during a group discussion (Google De Bono’s thinking hats for the details or look it up in the library – a whole range of books mainly directed at primary but easy to apply to older students – I have participated in exercises as an adult using this hats technique and I have found it useful to generate ideas together). De Bono noticed early in his long career as a creative and lateral researcher, that most of us tend to routinely adopt a stance of accepting the status quo and evaluating new ideas in a “yes or no” mode – “I agree with that or I disagree”. “I like that or I dislike that”. “I am similar to him/her or I am different from them.” This binary thinking needs to be interrupted if we are to engage in inquiry. Inquiry can only occur when we are prepared to consider ideas and suggestions as interesting, different, possible, unusual, “way out there” and list them before evaluating and sorting them. Did you notice how Rosie did that today when listing the questions her students wanted to ask about the issue of change – she started with whatever the students offered and then moved to sort and categorise the questions into themes. This process reveals how to think and make better decisions – that is, don’t take up the first idea that comes to you, but consider alternatives and evaluate according to a set of criteria.

Inquiry conducted in school is really intriguing when the teacher doesn’t know the answer – real inquiry like this is very motivating and students enter as peers with the teacher in trying different solution strategies. Katie’s task of researching flight with the paper cylinders was a simple illustration of this. Rosie also noted a few times where even young children came up with ideas that were truly “mind-blowing” – I loved the insight of the child who said that even one active cancer cell was “a lot” so the notion of “a lot depends on what and where and the implications. It is a real insight into scale and relative measures. Not to be sneezed at.  

Reflection and Suggestions 2.

In my brief introduction I listed different kinds of cognitive processes (thinking processes). After the lecture Rosie Scholl sent me the following link to a talk by Sir Ken Robinson on creativity. That link is: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html. It is an entertaining and provocative talk about the purposes of schooling and how teachers might respond to the challenges of preparing learners for the unknown future.

This reminded me of the distinction I should have made on Friday between convergent and divergent thinking. Convergent thinking (a convex lens centres light towards a point) is typical of many situations in schools where we are intent on teaching common knowledge and conventional ways of understanding and solving problems. Convergent thinking seeks to identify common and well known examples; it tends towards stereotypical concepts and ideas. Divergent thinking (a concave lens disperses light) is typical when we ask students for novel and unusual ideas and examples that nonetheless are still relevant. Divergent thinking is encouraged in brain-storming activities when ideas are generated without evaluating them too strictly. Divergent processes are more likely when we are playing, free associating and “mucking about”. So divergence can be “dangerous” if we are threatened by unconventional ideas. Divergent thinking is an aspect of creative thinking.

I wonder if you are comfortable with the idea of creativity in your discipline area? I imagine English teachers and drama and dance and art and perhaps music teachers are comfortable with creativity as a focus in their teaching. Are science maths and language teachers equally as comfortable with creativity?  

Reflection 3

Basil Bernstein (see http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/bernsteine.pdf for an overview of his work) was an influential educator and researcher who defined three messages systems of schooling : (i) curriculum; (ii) pedagogy; and (iii) assessment. Message systems convey crucial information to students and parents and the community about the real purposes of schooling. In this course (EDUC4600 and EDUC6600) we are focussing mainly on pedagogy (teaching and learning processes) but it isn’t possible to consider teaching processes separately from what the curriculum emphasises and what assessment processes are required. Teachers who adopt an inquiry approach to their pedagogy may feel under pressure because the curriculum emphasises procedural and conventional knowledge; or inquiry teachers may feel under pressure because assessment tasks emphasise only convergent thinking and common well known solution methods.

Inconsistency and conflict between message systems can lead teachers to stray from their intended teaching goals – in reality we have to act within constraints and manage our professional practices as teachers within tensions and inconsistencies. Hopefully this year of professional education will give you a sense of direction and a beginning set of skills and overall strategies. How you enact this will depend on the context of your teaching and the alignment between the message systems.    

Philosophy strategy and skill

I made the distinction between a (i) teaching philosophy, (ii) a teaching strategy, and (iii) teaching skills in one of my earlier announcements.  

You are asked in your Powerpoint Assignment to describe your teaching philosophy and associated strategies and to illustrate how you would actually implement this in a classroom (video is an option but not required to illustrate the kinds of skills you need).

To clarify further what I mean by these distinctions between philosophy, strategy and skill let me use Chris' lecture again. This is my interpretation not Chris'. She might disagree but this is how I saw it.

Her philosphy was student-centred and democratic - her goal was to give students a prominent voice in their own education and avoid as far as possible authoritarian forms of control. Her role as teacher was that of guide and scaffolder (explicit and demanding at times), and she believed in the goodness and capability of students, at the same time as demanding engagement and responsibility from them. Her epistemology (theory of knowledge) seemed to be that of a constructionist in that she relied on students to interrogate their own experiences and come up with ideas and debate them with each other in order to come to an understanding of the topic.

Strategies:- She used teaching strategies like offering students choice of reading material and providing a wide range of options including magazines she thought would appeal to the students in her class. With her religion and philosophy students she used discussion and open debating of ideas to decide on key elements of the common summary - she didn't just write it up from her own knowledge and the textbook - she arranged discussion for the students to construct the ideas themselves.

Skills :- She deployed skills like getting students to write down ideas and share with a friend before she asked for open dialogue and debate. She revoiced and elaborated students' suggestions at times to check if she understood and to make better sense of what they said before looking for another contribution. She used little devices like saying "30 seconds to go before I ask you to stop, 10 seconds, now everyone listening."

I hope this helps illustrate these distinctions

Reflection 1

Chris mentioned her support (in part) for the role of teachers in reproducing society but she also noted her own teaching philosophy was centred more on revolution and reform for individuals and society. Her focus on individuals was about their inner life – that is, giving her students insight into their own uniqueness and creativity and worth as human beings. Her focus on society was concerned with moving society towards “better” structures and processes – not accepting the status quo. Her own history encapsulates this tension between revolution and reproduction – she has been a teacher for 23 years within the public system but a teacher who has created her own classroom tradition of allowing more input from students, allowing expression of ideas and feelings within the classroom, and engaging with students with regard to serious questions about philosophy and belief.  You can learn a lot from Chris I think in the way she seems to be able to manage this tension between working within “the system” but also finding a personal voice as a teacher.

Reflection 2

She seems also (with the Year 9 students) to have a sense of the bigger picture and the journey that these students are on and what they might become – their future is being formed in the way Chris creates learning environments for them in the present moment - she is being more explicit in her instructions, more direct and actively monitoring their learning (providing scaffolding and regulating their behaviour) – but she anticipates them being more self-regulating, more self-responsible and being agents in their own learning. The tension is between student choice/agency and teacher imposition – Chris is being directive for a reason – not to dominate the students as such but to ensure they are gaining skills and knowledge for their future. I admired her firm but caring and calm manner.  

Reflection 3

Another reflection from me is on how to describe students. Chris described her Year 9 English class as “ less academically oriented” (something like that) and one response from a student in the lecture was to ask what does this really mean?  

I have thought a lot about this question and what issues it raises.  Here are my reflections and response: - The avoidance of negative categories for students by academics like me and teachers like Chris is not because we are politically correct do-gooders who refuse to face the harsh realities of life. We know from decades of research that the labelling of students is much more than simply describing a pre-existing condition – “calling a spade a spade” as my dad used to say about plain talking. Labelling students is not a passive thing – it creates expectations and informs decisions about the quality of teaching students actually experience. Being labelled stupid or low ability creates low expectations and leads to less demanding curriculum and restricted learning opportunities.  The research literature dealing with this topic is enormous – Thomas Good and Jere Brophy were prominent researchers of positive/negative teacher expectations in the 1970s- 1990s - this literature showed how ability labelling and early streaming of students became “self-fulfilling prophecies”. More recent work also shows that national systems of education that differentiate between students early in their schooling – that is, differentiate by streaming students into different classes by ability or directing students into different curriculum streams – have a large disparity (greater inequity) in learning outcomes.

On teacher expectations - Brophy & Good found that teachers could be described in one of three ways regarding expectations:

·        Group A- About one-third of teachers treated their students consistently in accord with the label supplied – so if a student or class was described as low achievers or no-hopers these teachers actively treated them that way by lowering expectations and reducing the quality and quantity of learning required.   

·        Group B - About one-third of teachers didn’t respond positively or negatively to the label/information supplied – they tended to keep teaching in the way they would normally, following their routines and habitual ways of teaching.  

·        Group C- About one-third of the teachers actively resisted the labelling and tried to compensate for the negative information by raising students’ expectations and challenging them to learn more and become more engaged.

My guess is that teachers in Group A probably had stronger beliefs in inherited ability of students and regarded schooling as more about identifying through tests and assessment task the high versus low ability students and treating them accordingly.

My guess also is that teachers in Group C probably had stronger beliefs in the social formation of ability – that is, that our abilities and personal strengths reflect our opportunities to learn across time and the social support we have received from parents, friends, teacher and mentors. We are the product of their expectations and their support and our own efforts and decisions and commitments as we appropriated their help.

Reflection 4.

The issue of indoctrination was also raised and debated briefly following Chris’ quote from Doris Lessing, the famous novelist. I contrast education with indoctrination in my own thinking.

Indoctrination typically involves processes of limiting or actually preventing dissent, of determining and specifying values and beliefs for students, and designing learning experiences where ideas beliefs and values are transmitted to students in a top-down and authoritarian manner.  

Education shouldn’t be indoctrination. Education should be a process of learning to think in ways that are based on carefully assembled evidence and public forms of reasoning that are open to debate and feedback from others. The underlying ethic of an education is respect and care for individuals and a concern for the common good of everyone in society.

Schooling ( a modern and specific way of providing education) can appear to be a process of indoctrination at times when students are given little say in their own education and if teachers do not provide them with ways of influencing what happens at school and in the classroom. Chris modelled an educational ethic and approach in her lessons. She demonstrated respect for students’ ideas, she also gave them options and expected them to be responsible, and she explained why she was acting in particular ways. She established expectations for their behaviour and imposed sanctions - but this revealed how much she cared about their learning not that she wanted them to simply to agree with her. She gave them freedom to post-up certain ideas and values on the walls of her classroom and she opened up these postings for discussion and consideration by everyone in the class. In this way she was acting as an educator not as an indoctrinator. She invited students to think and consider and discuss.

Ok – I will post some references in Learning Materials on BB for my comments. You might want to use my reflections to guide some of your own journal entries. Also please to respond to me or your tutor if you are moved to.

Learning Processes - key ideas

Learning is an intensely and widely researched process. We now know a great deal about how people (young ones, old ones) learn and how to optimise learning processes. Let me list 6 of the key basic learning processes. We learn from:

 

1. Contingencies – when things happen together or almost simultaneously we learn to associate these experiences. Over time consistent contingencies build up networks of associations that become ways of predicting experiences. Google “Pavlov’s dogs” if you want to see where this idea came from.

 

2. Feedback – we learn from feedback following our actions. We act … then something positive or negative or neutral happens. Feedback on our actions is a powerful learning process – if positive feedback follows our actions then we are likely to repeat that action in the future and in other contexts. If negative /painful/embarrassing feedback follows our actions then we are more likely to avoid that action.

 

3. Observation – we learn by observing others. Observational learning is constant and can occur without us being aware – we learn what is expected and routine from observing others. Media / TV etc are technologies that increase the range diversity and power of observational learning. Observational learning provides a set of possible ways of acting/thinking. It doesn’t determine our actions. We might observe something and decide to avoid that.  

 

4. Reward/Punishment – we learn by being rewarded or punished for our actions. Positive responses to a student, and meaningful rewards, (positive reinforcement) are powerful ways to change behaviour and build good relationships with students.

 

5. Modelling/Imitation – when we plan to deliberately influence learning we can consciously model how to act or how to perform a task, or even how to think by “talking aloud” about what we are thinking as we do a task. By modelling and asking students to imitate you can influence their learning. Modelling is akin to observational learning – children adolescents adults are drawn to observe and model their own behaviour on certain models and not others. Models who appear similar to oneself, attractive, happy, high-status, and who get rewards are more salient models – they are likely to influence ones’ behaviour more.  Think about this in relation to peer groups, ethnicity, gender etc.

 

6. Scaffolding – we learn from being assisted by others when we engage in a task. Scaffolding is a particular way of doing something together – sharing a task with a more capable partner who provides timely guidance and advice and may at times actually perform part of the task for you. Much of early childhood learning is scaffolded. Children learn everyday routines and how to perform specific tasks by scaffolding. Learning to read by sitting with a parent/carer is a typical scaffolded learning task. My grandson Archie is 14 months and he now has a morning routine where he grabs a book (da da da da) brings it to his dad or mum and sits ready to listen and turn the pages – what he understands is hard to guess but he enjoys the routine and wants to repeat it again and again. He is learning basic literacy skills – how to engage with a book – turn pages, point at pictures, hear the names of animals objects etc.  

 

Ok – there is a lot more about learning processes that could be summarised and elaborated but these six(6) processes give you a few key ideas to work with and reflect on.