Wk 3 addition

I forgot to add in an example for my week 3 blog post. Using mnemonic devices to help learn. In math there is the ever famous Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally for Order of Operations (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction). My students have PEMDAS down, but I have found over the years that many students were having problems remembering how to find the domain of a function. Now me not being the creative type, but knowing I have many creative students I assigned an extra credit projects to my students. I had the class take the restriction for domain and put them to a song. The best one that came from the students was changing the words to Mary Had a Little Lamb. I am going to use it next year teaching.

Wk 3 - - CIP

• What is learning?
  

  Students have preconception and misconceptions about how things work because we inherently want to make sense of the world around us. Learning takes place when preconceptions are changed. This change can take place in many different places and can be caused by many different reasons.
  

  Learning also takes place when something new is introduced and you are able encode it properly to store it in long-term memory. Then be able to retrieve it when proper cues are presented.
  

  
   

• How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?
  

  There are many ways learning can be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer:
  

  1) Linking new knowledge/information to previous knowledge.
  

  2) Motivating students by showing them the usefulness of what they are learning.
  

  3) Using positive reinforcement to motivate students.
  

  4) Using mnemonic devices for learning.
  

  5) Breaking material into "chunks" to aid in processing new information.
  

  
   

  Using a combination of strategies will be most effective.

Wk 2 -- Behaviorism

My idea on learning hasn't changed much over the past week, but my ideas on how learning can be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer needs additional added to it. I feel it is important for a teacher to provide a lot of positive reinforcement. I sometimes get caught up in the notion that if they do well on an assignment, then that is enough positive reinforcement for them. However, some students need a little extra and grades aren't as important to some as others. So to keep motivation high, I need to provide ample positive reinforcement for all students. For example, in my Algebra 1 class, I have students that have failed math for at least 3 years and have given up. They don't care about their grades, but when we play a game and I bring candy into the mix, the atmosphere of the entire class changes and I see much more participation. The key is finding reinforcement that works for each individual class.

Learning

• What is learning?
  

People are not blank slates. People have preconceptions (usually misconceptions) about how things work because we inherently want to make sense of the world around us. Learning takes place when the preconceptions are changed. The change can take place in many different places and can be caused by many different reasons. The classroom is one of the most formal settings in which we can change preconceptions.

• How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?
  

I believe that learning can be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer in two ways: 1) Linking new knowledge/information to previous knowledge and 2) to motivate them by showing them the usefulness of what they are learning. For example, in my pre-calculus class I build upon their previous knowledge of adding fractions when we are simplifying rational trig equations. (I will try to demonstrate with an example, but its hard to without the use of the equation editor.) They are given something like 1/1 – cos x + 1/ 1 – cos x to simplify. They tend to freak out seeing this the following conversation usually takes place:

Me (teacher): "How would you simplify 1/3 + 1/4?"

Students: "Oh that's simple, get a common denominator."

Me: "How do you get the common denominator?"

Students: "Multiply the denominators together."

Me: "Okay, so let's do the same with the trig equation."

From there most students pick it up.

The second way to effectively bring about learning is showing them the usefulness of the material. When I teach a unit on probability, I talk about gambling. Now of course I steer the conversation toward the house always winning, but students find that information useful.

Test blog

Testing Testing 1. 2. 3. . .