Cognitive Psychology-Information Processing Case Study Analysis

Case 1: Mr. West

1. After participating in this activity, what do you think the students will remember?

They will remember their emotions during the process, the clothes, colors, flags, and other visual characteristics of the day. They will probably remember the weather, particularly if it was extremely hot or cold and the way their clothes reacted with that. They will remember the smells and the food cooked. They will remember the march and its set up on the field.

How might those memories differ from those students would have if they only read about the Civil War in their textbook?

The students who read about the Civil War in the text book may remember a picture or two from the page, but it will be 2 dimensional, dull, and it will fade with time. They may remember for a short while, the placement on the page of certain information they need to recall back for the test. They will remember the set up of the classroom-most likely like any other day. That may be all. If there was a gruesome fact or piece of information that stirred some emotion, they may remember it.

2. How does Mr. West’s use of a Civil War re-enactment engage students’ emotions?

This activity engaged all five of the students' senses, with smells, sounds, eye witness visuals, the taste of campfire cooking, and the feel of the weather, the clothes, the grass under their feet, etc. With all of these pieces of information traveling through so many different routes to the brain, their is bound to be emotion with so many new experiences occurring.

What is the relationship between emotions and learning?

The only way I can think to describe this relationship is through a few examples. One of the most vivid memories I have of learning something at school was in my 7th grade English class. On the first day of class, Mr. Lewnau, after the bell rang, got on top of the desks and started marching around the room, stepping on any route of 30 desks, all the way to his desk where he stood and started shouting weird words like, "around, about, across, beneath, over, on, through..." All my senses were alerted and I was anxious to see what he might do next and was hoping he wouldn't crash. He started stomping around on the desks again and this time, to my surprise, stopped to stand at my desk. He was really tall, and he reached down, put his hands around my head and said, "prepositions! These are all Prepositions!" He then asked a few students to describe his behavior, and everytime they said a preposition, he would ding a triangle instrument. Later, we memorized 36 prepositions, which wasn't all that hard because I had a place for all the information to go.

3. Based on the principles of dual-coding theory, what activities would be effective for Mr. West to use as a follow-up to the re-enactment?

Now that the students have this labeled folder in their brain decorated with rich visual and emotional imagery of the civil war, text book type information will have a place to go--it will fit into the memory of their personal experience that they gained in learning about the civil war. A good follow-up would be to use primary source journals and stories about individuals through children's literature and picture books. That way, their already visual image of their experience will add more life and characters to their knowledge of the civil war.

Case 2: Mr. Dunkin and Mr. Richards

4. Who do you think provides better instruction for his students?

Mr. Richards

Support your answer from an information processing perspective.

The spontaneity of the day's activity, including: drama, video visuals, social opportunities through the group, and even surprise quizzes can all gather the students' attention, which is the first step to getting the information into their memories. In order to keep the students from getting lost, the lesson's must be well organized with "a detailed outline of the class's activities" listed clearly on the board. This type of organization will allow their memories to take the next step to encoding the information and really understanding the material. Having so many different methods of teaching, Mr. Richards is able to create many pathways for the students to later retrieve the information. They can remember the video clip and lecture, or the role-play activity, or the group project so much better than the daily-routine sameness demonstrated in Mr. Dunkin's classroom.

5. How would you expect the students’ learning outcomes to differ depending on which teacher they had?

The students in Mr. Richards' class are more likely to have better attendance because they won't know what's coming. In art class, today, we talked about a synergetic classroom where the teacher used so much dance, drama, drawing, and art that her students were coming to school sick because they were so scared they would miss something fun. Her class had the spontaneity that Mr. Richards' class seems to have. Also, with hands-on, eyes-on, ears-on methods to incorporate lots of the physical senses, there is a much greater likelihood for the students to retain the information and therefore do better on the quizzes or other assessments.

Brain Awareness Proposal

Charis, Kim, Lance, and I are doing a Brain Awareness Project on vision, including mainly eye illusions and the way that sight registers to the brain certain images. Like the old woman or the young woman picture and other visual illusions.

Special Needs Case Study Analysis

Some symptoms of a learning disability that Nathan displays are the following: forgetfulness, like when he forgot to finish his tests and forgot to turn in his homework, and being distracted easily, like not finishing assignments or tests.

Some of the accommodations that Nathan has received in the past include: a diagnosis of a learning disability, 'special services' in his elementary schools through the resource rooms, and medicine to help him calm down.

Some strategies I might recommend would be for him to have a clean and organized work space, a consistent manner of turning in his homework every day, signing a planner-the teacher at school and the parents at home- to stay on the same page(literally-ha), a posted schedule of the daily classroom schedule, and maybe having most of his exams be given orally.

From this web site--http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/p51-adhd.html--I learned that ADD and ADHD are the most common behavioral disorders in American children. ADHD affects as many as 3 1/2 million American children, or as many as 5 % of Americans under the age of 18. That means that there could be as many as 5% of the kids in my class, that may have ADHD, and that statistic doesn't include the percentage of ADD children, which would increase the percentage of those two specific common behavioral issues in the classroom. There are other behavioral disorders that include symptoms of distraction and forgetfulness that could also play a part in the classroom. It is almost expected to have children in each classroom with behavioral disorders.

Course Contract Review

1. What are you doing well? I am completing all my assignments on time. I have made great use of forming study groups, and my group studied over 6 hours for the test together. My brain hurts after every school day, in a growing good way. I think I'm getting smarter in the proximity of becoming a teacher, and I think I'm becoming the student that I talked about in my course contract - the student that uses class work and assignments to their advantage. I believe the information I'm learning can be useful in the future, and if I doubt the relevance of it, then I squeeze it into a method it could be useful in the future. I am getting 7 or 8 hours of sleep every night, which is great. All my class binders are very organized.
2. What are you not doing well? I am not doing the reading as well as I had originally planned to do. I didn't do as well on the exam as I would've liked to because I studied in a more rote memorization type of style rather than an applicable style. I wasn't familiar with the differences between similar concepts. I am struggling with my physical goals, and I am very tired because I'm not working out at all some weeks. I love to cook, but I haven't had time, so eating Wendy's too much is starting to take a heavy toll on my health.
3. Are you making sufficient progress on your goals? I believe my "perception of my role as a student" is definitely progressing towards a much more positive and intrinsic view. My goal to read the book is coming along, but it isn't in the time frame that would be ideal. I've never been much of a reader, so I've made grandiose improvements compared to before, but I still have need for growth in that goal. As for coming out with pieces of work that I am really proud of, I have some ideas for classroom lesson plans and activities that I'm excited about. I plan to start making a journal of all these ideas that are fleeting now, but if I had a place to keep them, I might put them to use. So many people in the cohort have great lesson and activity ideas, so I'm going to make use of these personal resources.
4. List specific things you need to change in order to meet your goals. I need to change my eating and exercising habits. I need to improve my motivation to read (my low test score may help encourage that). I need to be prompt to all my classes; I've been late a few times. I need to study for the tests in a more 'applicable' style.
5. How is your motivation? My motivation is increasing as my role as a student is becoming more clear. I can see my motivation for assignments becoming intrinsic as I begin to come up with ways to implement the lessons learned into my future as a teacher.
6. Are you focusing on mastery or performance goals? I am focusing on both mastery and performance goals. I feel balanced in the way I view my grades and my increasing knowledge towards becoming a better teacher. Does anything need to change? Yes. There is always room for change. As it gets harder and more tiring throughout the semester, it is also going to continually get harder to stay on top of things. I think that is when the performance goals will kick in to get me through, but hopefully my under-riding mastery goals will allow me to use the information throughout my future career.

Case Study-- Social and Moral Development

1. The second paragraph lists a number of strategies that Ms. Knowles and Ms. Brophy have tried to teach social skills. Which one do you think might be most effective and why?

These teachers taught children how to go about the process of joining into a social activity. I find this to be the most effective way to teach social skills because it is a direct approach. At first, I thought children's books might be the best way, but after reading a book about a big ugly fish that makes friends by saving the day, there may be a step missing for the children. How could they save their friends from a fisherman's net to make them like him/her? Certainly children's books can teach valuable lessons as the children evaluate what was really being said as the moral of the story, but at a younger age- maybe 3 or 4- I think it is most helpful to explain literal ways to do something. By explaining to shy children how to appropriately ask "Can I play?" or to assertive children, how to include the shyer children, both parties are benefited. The shy children will most likely get to join in the fun and the more confident children will feel like they helped someone out and they will simply have more friends to play with. Teaching children how to take initiative and do something about their desire to play or recognizing someone else's desire to play will positively influence each child's temperament. It also helps the children exercising the recommended skills to become more autonomous.

2. The teachers occasionally use storybooks to promote discussions about social skills and making friends. How might children's literature also help them resolve one of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development?

I think children's books are a fun way to show comparisons to social situations that children are trying to learn, and they can help with the Initiative versus Guilt stage of Erikson's psychosocial theory of personal development. This stage takes place between ages 3-6. By discussing the themes, meanings, and morals of children's books, the attention of the young audience is captured, and there is a flow that sometimes takes place that can be a great preface to a teacher-instructed social learning discussion. Children's books can help children relate to a character in the book and form a greater sense of self-purpose as they see the colorful character succeed in a social situation. This relation between a fictional character could reach the imagination of a child and help them take initiative in their own social interactions.

3. How might children's literature help them develop moral reasoning?

Children's literature can help students of all ages develop moral reasoning by the emotions that books can evoke and the discussions that they can create. Children's books allow students to feel the cause and effect of social circumstances on their own. They can make up their own mind of whether the outcome was something they desire or not and how to obtain it or veer away from it. If the book presents positive emotions, then it will benefit the student in deciding to exercise that positive social characteristic. These books can also promote trust in that they will invite a feeling that the world is reliable and safe.

4. The teachers read the children a letter they claim has been written by their friend Mr. Stone. What are potential cognitive, social, and moral advantages of this strategy? Incorporate ideas from Chapters 3 and 4 in your response.

The teachers could be creating a familiar pathway with having the focal point be a letter written by their friend. Children can relate to letters that come in the mail and a friend that would write a letter. This can set a good foundation that connects with prior knowledge and a small schema. This method also goes along with part of Vgotsky's main theory that thinking is a function of both social and cultural forces. Receiving a letter in the mail from a friend is both a social and cultural aid to helping the students relate to the information coming that may be new for some/most of the students. Some of the responses these teachers may have gotten after explaining that they had received this letter could have been shouted out responses like: "Oh! My mom got a letter from her friend, Susan, yesterday in the mail!", or "I chased the mailman on my bike yesterday! Maybe he had that letter in his car!", or "I wrote my Wish List to Santa and my mom wrote 'Christmas Letter' on the top. I know what a letter is." These are some examples of pathways that have already been formed to help reach a new schema that is being presented to them. Instead of just listing the information of the discussion plainly, this method can allow the students to assimilate and get a good start on the new information coming.