Chapter 7 Questions to Consider

Describe a constructivist lesson you would teach.

 So if you think about some activities that would help students with what Ormrod identifies as constructivist: theory formation, concept generation, addressing misconceptions, etc.  And then she mentions a few strategies: authentic activities, problem/project-based learning, observation/experimentation, etc.  pp228-236.

 I think the Scaffolding theory would work very well for my elementary class. (232). It even talks about in the book how young kids are always asking the why and how questions. I know from personal experience that when I was young I didn't do well with math and I didn't understand why I had to do it. I think it is really important to instill the why into the children I am teaching because it might motivate them to work harder and want to do the tasks. I could implement this into a lesson in several ways. I think that specifically for a reading lesson I could pick a book that is about maybe cooking something. Then I could do a real world problem with the kids and show them how to make the certain dish that the book is talking about. For example a book about making cookies, I could bring in the ingredients and show the kids how to make the cookies.

Which of these learning activities/skills lend themselves to student’s individual or group construction?  How might you structure learning activities that lead students to discover these skills/these principles?

Still focusing on the scaffolding, I could put the kids into groups and then have them mix up the different ingredients for the cookies. For individual learning, I could give the kids another type of food and have them come back to school the next day with ingredients that go into that food. By doing these types of activities with the students, I think it will help the students discover the importance of these principles  If they are doing something that is fun yet they are learning, then they will be motivated to use them.

Chapter 6 Questions to Consider

What are the essential skills and/or learning outcomes you want your students to know and be able to do that relate to cognitive learning? 

I think that with elementary students and furthermore deaf students, their skills will not be quite as developed as those of say middle or high school. That being said though I do think there are certain essential skills that my kids should have. I think that learning things out in the real world and being able to relate them to the tasks in the classroom are important.(182) I think this especially of deaf students because they come from a different background sometimes. It does depend on the situation at home, but either way, whatever they bring from their background and environment can help with their learning. I also think that storage is very important for kids in my class, especially at the critical age they are.(183) When you are young you are learning so much and it is critical to learn at that age because you can retain so much. I think that if my kids can be storing the information in class, then when they go on  and get older they will be able to use it again, which brings me to another skill I think is essential. I think that retrieval of information already taught is very important.(184) If the student can learn something, retain it, and then refer back to it then I really think that captures the essence of them learning the material fully. They can also relate back to it later on in school which is great too.

How might your knowledge of the memory processes guide your instructional decisions?

I really think that now after reading and listening to the teacher project, that I will incorporate things into my classroom that kids are interested in. I think that is a great way to engage students and keep them interested. I hope that in my classroom that I can appeal to everyone's interests so that my children will all want to participate. Also another important thing about memory processing is that students store some information and use it later, retrieval  and I think that is something I need to incorporate in my class if I am working with students. They need to be taught material in a way that they will remember and be able to retrieve later so I hope that I can teach my students effectively. 

Chapter 15 Questions to Consider

Chapter 15
Turn to p. 559 in Ormrod’s text.  Now, imagine that you are meeting with Ingrid’s grandmother today to explain her scores on the recent standardized achievement test pictured at the bottom of p. 559.  What will you tell her about Ingrid’s performance? her strengths? her weaknesses?
If grandmother asks you what she could be doing at home to help strengthen Ingrid’s skills, what will you suggest?



I would personally probably start off by showing her the actual test and explaining what each thing meant. I would tell her that she scored well above average in Reading Comprehension and Science. She scored almost above average in Social Studies. I would tell her that she scored below average in spelling and math computation, and that she scored average in math concepts. Then we would obviously point out that her major strengths are reading comprehension and science, also she did really well in social studies. She definitely needs to work on her spelling and her math computations. I think that she could set aside time to help Ingrid with her spelling skills. Maybe once or twice a week they could sit down and just practice those spelling skills. You could even make it a fun activity by reading one of her favorite stories and picking out words in the story to spell. For her math computation skills I would suggest going back to the test and looking at the problems and then probably assigning her to a tutor if her grandmother isn't really skilled in the area of math. I had the privilege of having a dad that was a math major so when I was having a difficult time in that subject I had someone to help me. So back to Ingrid, I would probably get her a tutor for math. For spelling, I really think that the grandmother can help with that at home.

Ch 14 all over again :)

I'm going to go ahead and just do Chapter 14 all over.

Four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning.

Informal- As I said before I think that with deaf students, informal assessment is a very important part of tracking their education developments. I could just have a discussion time with the students about a novel we read and seeing what certain students would answer. Another way to informally evaluate the deaf students, is hypothetically speaking, say I have a kindergarten class and I have a deaf student that their parents wish for them to learn sign language. So in class when I am helping this child learn, I could informally check their progress by practicing some signing with them.

Formal- Before I mentioned having the students have a paper and pencil test for the 20 words that they have for that week and are tested on those for spelling. I could even change that and have them take a test on the meaning of those 20 words. There are many different combinations. Another formal test I could give would be maybe about a children's novel we read in class and have the students answer questions about the novel such as who is the main character, plot, etc. 

(14.2) Consider norm referenced assessment and criterion referenced assessment. Are there advantages to both? Are their disadvantages?

Norm-referenced assessments to me sometimes can be a good thing but can also be bad. I think it is good to get an idea of where everyone in the class stands but also think it can be embarrassing to put that on display in front of peers. If you go about assessing it in the right way where it won't show attention to the students then I think sometimes it can be good to get an idea of where everyone compares. Also I think that if we broaden it out and look at it from comparing not just peers but maybe that grade level across the nation, it can be good to compare. While it is comparing the peers or grade level across the nation it really isn't showing the scores of how the students actually learned in the subject areas so I think that is another con against norm-referenced assessments.

Criterion-referenced assessments I think are a better fit with elementary students. It is actually scoring what the students have accomplished or not accomplished up to the standards for that subject area. I think this assessment is better because once I know what the students are having trouble with or are good at, I can bring that out in class time and help the students grow, learn, and become better students.