Learning Theories Week 3 T2P

T2P (2) from in last class last week

If a teacher is continually reflecting on their beliefs and is creating lessons and activities that are solidly based in those beliefs then the students will benefit the most from what the teacher has to offer as a person and as an expert in their field becaue the teacher will be engaging students in the most passionate way that they know, and will be trying to teach the students lessons that they hold most dear to their heart. (afterthought ...especially lessons about respect and acceptance)

If a teacher can model their behavior in the classroom to reinforce their beliefs then students will benefit because they can see a walking talking example of those beliefs.

Week 3 T2P Class Reflection

Today was a busy day. GNA took a poll at the beginning of class and there was a consensus that everyone was really tired. GNA's response was to hold an "extra long" morning chit chat in order to get everyone relax and laughing and hopefully get the blood flowing. It worked, I managed to make it to lunch and then the activity we took part in after lunch was kinda fun so by the end of the day i was in good spirits. But enough about summary I must get into what I learned today and how it will affect me as a teacher. i want to start with my Theory from last week, which was...

If teachers want their students to be actively engaged in the classroom and motivated in their own education then the teacher should start every class with an open conversation that allows the teacher to express any personal points that he or she thinks the class might enjoy hearing and also allows the students to share their stories, questions, comments and concerns with everyone else in the room because this activity will foster a friendly and healthy social environment that will promote cooperation among students, and will make the teacher appear more accessible to the students as a source of helpful information and also as a role model that they can look to for advice.

what i want to do is incorporate some of the new ideas about motivation. Something I learned from the chapter 9 reading was that two of the most important factors in student motivation are the ability of the teacher to express their concern for students well being, and their ability to create a emotionally secure environment. I think that my above theory ties into both of these idea about motivation and I think its cool that I found literature that supports my theory. I also wanted to incorporate Vygotsky's theory of socially motivated learning in to my Theory because i think it is also a big part of what i am trying to say and I feel it will make my thoughts more clear. Sadly I feel constrained by time so i wont be modifying my Theory tonight, btu I will attempt to get back to it this weekend.

The second thing I want to talk about is this "new" idea of autonomy and how it can provide motivation. In class a lot of my teachers have been speaking about constructivist learning, and they would explain to me that the idea of it was student-centered curriculum that built off of what they students already knew and what they were currently interested in. The idea makes sense to me but I struggled see how i could put it to practice. As we talked about autonomy in class today I was given a new perspective on constructivism and I feel can now implement it better in my classroom. What Im learning is that we need to observe our study and study the choices they make when they are provided autonomy. Only by becoming "students of our students" (Ayers) can we truly know our students and know what they are interested and know how to scaffold our curriculum to support them so that the function in the "zone of proximal learning" (Vygotsky). Knowing are students is important and Vicki Davis goes as far to say that we should love them. In a post she made on my blog she says that through caring and empathy we can bring the "human aspect" into teaching, and through this we can become great educators. (Davis)