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.
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