Customized Learning Theory - Annotated Bibliography Example

Customized Learning Theory Customized Learning Theory Affiliation Customized Learning Theory There are a large number of saying regarding learning theory. A common saying is that a horse can be led to the source of water but he has to drink the water himself. This can be said to be the crux of the Piaget’s theory of constructivism. A teacher can simply guide the students but he cannot make them learn. This has to be done by the learners themselves. Constructivism theory of knowledge argues that humans generate knowledge through an interaction between their past experiences and their ideas about a particular topic. (George W. Gagnon, 2006) In this paper we will try to develop a learning theory based on Piaget’s constructivism that can be applied to middle school mathematics students. The Theory In this section we will describe the customized learning theory that can be applied to middle school mathematic students. Hart, L. B. (1996). Faultless facilitation: instructors manual for facilitation training. USA: HRD Press The Responsibility of Learning Hart describes this as the first step in the education theory. The teacher needs to shift the responsibility of learning on to the students. In order to do this she should not follow the method of giving out instructions. The entire batch of students can be divided into a number of groups. Each group is free to select a topic from the various topics that needs to be covered on their own. The teacher will only facilitate the process of topic selection in such a way that all the topics for the class are divided among the groups. National School Boards Association. (1902). The Harkness Discussion Methods in Classroom. The American School Boards Journal Volumes 24-25 , National School Boards Association. Encouraging the Discussion Method National School Boards Association conducted a research on the discussion method in classroom. Once the groups have been formed; the teacher needs to complete move away and let the students discuss the topic amongst them. The teacher’s only job during these discussions will be to observe and give a direction to the discussions among the various groups. The instructor can apply the harkness discussion method in which the whole group contributes in order to reach their goal which in this case is the particular topic selected by them. Collaboration among the groups Eric M. Anderman, L. H. (2009). Classroom Motivation. USA: Pearson College Div. Eric Anderman discusses the collaboration among groups and its effects. Once the different groups have prepared the topics they have chosen; it will be their responsibility now to make the whole class understand these topics. As the group owns the entire learning process; they will be motivated enough to pass this knowledge to others. Motivation is strongly dependent on the confidence of the individual and this confidence increases through practice and ownership of the process. Guided reciprocal peer questioning during these sessions can be an effective way of developing high level thinking among the students. Role of Instructor Hart, L. B. (1996). Faultless facilitation: instructors manual for facilitation training. USA: HRD Press The role of instructor in the entire setting should be only of a facilitator. He should not be seen as giving experiments but helping the students to reach the goal which they themselves have selected. The role of instructor is immense in developing the activity and also monitoring the groups to ensure that learning outcomes are met. The teacher also needs to correct the group and guide it back if the group deviates from the set goal. Direct instructions cannot be completely removed from a mathematics classroom. The teacher needs to give instructions based on how the group has presented. It needs to guide how the group approached the problem and what are the various other methods of approaching the problem. Maintaining Motivation Levels Instructor also needs to ensure throughout the activity that motivation levels do not dip. It has been observed that the fear of assessment and not assessment in itself reduces the motivation level of the participants. This needs to be reduced by using the method of peer evaluation and discussion. The instructor should also remove the penalties for wrong understanding. Wrong understanding by peers should be addressed by the group which owns the process and not by the instructor. This increases the motivation level of the students who are explaining the process and also the laggards who failed to understand in the first instance are motivated to learn as they are not admonished. Healthy competitive peer pressure will also motivate them to learn the concepts. Use of Technology to remove distractions Technology should be used by the instructor in a math classroom for two simple reasons: computation and representation. Math problem themselves are considered to be difficult by many people and in addition to that the student also deals with cognitive load which refers to thinking difficulties .Technology can help the teachers to reduce this load and direct the students concentration and help them to focus on the learning concerned. Technology helps the ideas to become more tangible and thus easily understandable for the learner thus helping him to get a grasp over the fundamentals easily and quickly. (Heid, 1988) Addressing Multimodalities and ability groupings Withers, R. J. (2000). Guided Reciprocal Peer-questioning in the classroom. USa: North Central College The challenges of teaching in classrooms belong to a very diverse set. They range from children who are blessed with a sharp mind to children who are not able to grasp anything. There are also some children who are not able to follow anything when the traditional methods of teaching are used for them. For such students, different strategies of teaching need to be adopted in order to maximize their learning. Some children need only a bit of handholding for understanding the concepts, while others need spoon feeding or thorough instructions from the teacher. For instance, while explaining how to solve algebra problems, some students might understand the rules involved and may generalize it for solving similar problems as well. While other students might not be able to generalize the same rules for other sets of algebra problems. It has been seen that many teachers group the students based on their ability. The concept of ability does not make sense. It is important for the teachers to understand that the reason a child doesn’t perform might not be solely because he is slow. This could be because of the child’s lack in interest in that task. It is up to the teacher to adopt alternative methods of explaining the child such that his interest level in the task rises and he can perform Researchers have revealed the fact that grouping the students based on their ability does not maximize their learning. Such grouping might hamper a child’s development. Children from a weak financial background and those of children with color might lose their confidence since such children are mostly placed in the low ability groups (low math group). This also hampers building of strong bonds between the different groups. Teachers should create an environment in the classroom that is supportive of diversity. Grouping on the basis of perceived math skills should not be done, instead a model of cooperative learning should be followed. Students should be motivated to help each other in solving math problems. When students get a chance =to help each other in studying, the get more involved and this also leads to formation of strong bonds among the students. An important aspect to focus upon is to teach the students to be empathetic, caring towards the peers and encourage and help their peers in the learning process. A classroom should be such that it provides learning to all sets of children, regardless of however diverse they are. Another set of children are the ones who are called ‘gifted’. These are the children who are very high achievers. It has been a common perception that such children should be taught separately and not with the others who have lesser aptitude. There are disadvantages to this approach. Segregating such children from other students makes them less social. Such students do not know the importance of social bonds and have no strong relations with others. Aspects like empathy, caring and helping others are mostly unknown to them. These high achievers are type casted as nerds and eventually, such students segregate themselves from the society even when they grow up. Cooperative Learning The students in the math class must be divided into heterogynous teams. Each team should be allotted a chapter (or a part of the chapter). Every student in the team should be given the responsibility to teach the allotted topic to his or her team. In this way, all members of the team can help each other study. Another approach could be grouping the students heterogeneously in order to solve a complex math problem. At the end, each student would have the onus of explaining how the problem was solved and what the answer to the problem is. The arrangement of the classroom should be such that is supportive of its heterogeneous style of learning. Teachers should allot more responsibilities to the students other than completing their school work. They should be given the responsibility to take daily attendance, monitor the class weekly, share daily news with the class, decorate the class with banners and informative posters, etc. In this way, the typecasting of the students could be done away with. Students might not call a student ‘worst math student’ and would rather call him the one good at decorating class. Peer Tutoring In this approach, students are given a chance to tutor their peers. A student in a higher grade can be allotted as a ‘math mentor’ for a student in a lower grade. The mentor would have the responsibility of catching up with the mentee at least twice a week. Such an approach could benefit the mentee since he is getting one on one help to his problems. The mentor always finds a new enthusiasm in math as a subject and prepares in advance for every session with the mentee. Many teachers believe in not addressing the differences in the skills of its students. This is a wrong approach and may lead to a further increase in differences among the students. In the math class, the teacher can arrange sessions in which the class students can discuss and find out ways of improving the math skills of students who are not getting good marks. This is a positive way of addressing the differences and also solving them. Negative ways of differentiating between students, like, displaying on bulletin board the names of students best in moths, should be done away with, since this might de-motivate the other students. Classroom Management The classroom management essentially consists of two components – managing the infrastructure of the classroom in order to encourage peer learning and group activity and secondly maintain order in the classroom. If the teacher is able to do the first one properly; there will be minimal need for the second activity. As the ownership of the task has been given to a group; group dynamics will ensure that everyone contributes at least something to the process or is seen to be contributing something to the process. This happens because of the need to gain approval of your peers and thus acts as a natural manager of the classroom activities and thus the teacher needn’t focus on maintaining order to the classroom as that will come almost naturally with the successful implementation of the learning theory. Personal Reflection I personally believe in self learning. My personal methodology of learning concentrates on the fact that practice makes you perfect. This personal style is reflected in the learning theory that I have presented above. As I believe that self learning is superior to instruction learning I have given the job of learning to the students with the instructor only facilitating them in their tasks and not instructing them to do a job a particular way. I strongly believe in taking ownership of the process. This is what I have done in my theory by giving ownership of the learning process to a particular group and also making them responsible for imparting their knowledge to other groups. I believe that the above mentioned theory will not only help the student take ownership and thus learn better but will also help the student/instructor relationship as the latter will now be seen as someone not to be feared but a helper in making the student understand concepts better. Annotated Bibliography Eric M. Anderman, L. H. (2009). Classroom Motivation. USA: Pearson College Div. The book discusses the gap between theory and practice with regards to classroom motivation. The book is divided in to three sections – part one discusses about the skills that teachers need to develop and implement in order to enhance the motivation of students in the classroom, part 2 focuses on the changes in the classroom infrastructure that needs to be done in order to motivate students and part 3 deals with the positive aspects of motivation. It discusses how motivation helps the students with increases self esteem and positive learning environment in the classrooms. George W. Gagnon, M. C. (2006). Constructivist learning design: key questions for teaching to standards. USA: Corwin Press. This book focuses on shifting the role of teachers from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side”.The books discusses six step framework for teachers to plan lessons and take assesements.These six steps are situation , grouping , bridge , task , exhibit and reflect.These six steps are designed in such a way that students take the ownership of the learning process and the teacher simply acts as a guide to them.The book allowsa teacher to align constructivist learning events with standard curriculum. Hart, L. B. (1996). Faultless facilitation: instructors manual for facilitation training. USA: HRD Press This is a manual for the instructor which provides a step by step guide to help in facilitation.It provides various templates which can be used in the classroom to motivate students and make them learn in a better way.The manual also provides techniques which can be used for grouping students to facilitate better learning among the groups . Heid, M. (1988). Resequencing skills and concepts in applied calculus using the computer as a tool. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education , 3 - 25. This journal article focuses on the use of technology in classroom to remove distractions and facilitate better learning. The article focuses particularly on teaching of calculus in the maths class. The article shows through research that students who had the aid of computer performed better in the assessment of the unit than those who studied without such aid. The research article tries to re-enforce the idea that technology can reduce student’s work load and make learning pleasurable to him. National School Boards Association. (1902). The Harkness Discussion Methods in Classroom. The American School Boards Journal Volumes 24-25 , National School Boards Association. The above cited journal article focuses on the harkness discussion method and its use in the classrooms. The article discusses how the harkness method can be used for conducting and evaluating group discussions. The teacher acts as little as possible and mostly as an observer. The article focuses on the non-competitive aspect of this discussion. Every student needs to contribute something or other to the discussion being held. Withers, R. J. (2000). Guided Reciprocal Peer-questioning in the classroom. USa: North Central College The above metnioned book focuses specifically on reciprocal peer questioning in the classroom.The book starts with discussing and guiding the instructor how such peer-questioning should take place in the classroom.It talks abou the role of instructor which is to ensure that focus of the discussion does not deviate from the topic at hand.It also tells about the benfits of peer-questioining and informs th reader about the increased motivation in students as a result of the use of this method of instruction. Read More