Failure

So, I want to talk about something in this post that many of us teachers, at least me, does not want to think about.  My biggest fear when I go out and do field experiences is that I will fail the students, that I will destroy the students' lives somehow.  But I had a conversation with someone today who was worried that I might not able to keep up with students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at a camp that I would like a job at this summer.  After the conversation ended, I began to think about how if I fail at something like archery at the camp, that is going to encourage the campers to keep trying.

The thought behind it is possibly "oh, wow, he just failed miserably.  And he is an awesome guy who is really cool, so if he failed, then I guess I can try and fail too."  It gives students and campers courage to see their role models fail.

A few weeks ago, I went to a conference that was put on by ARC Midstate.  The second key-note speaker talked about how we need to tell the students right off the bat when we meet them that we will fail them.  It took me about a month-and-a-half to finally realize what he means.  He means this, by failing at something, we give students the courage to try and possibly fail.

Is it OK to bribe your kids?

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/momentsofmotherhood/is-it-ok-to-bribe-your-kids-2451592/


In my behavior theories and practices class, we are learning that what is reinforcing (the definition is something that results in an increase of the behavior) to one student is NOT reinforcing to another student.  You may find praise to be a reinforcer, you find that you do better work because someone praised you.  I, on the other, may find that praise is a punisher (the definition is something that results in a decrease in the behavior) so I do worse on my homework because praise is not reinforcing to me.

Just to give a possible real-life example to the idea stated above.  Bethany has a social phobia and tries her hardest to get away from any situation that causes attention to be drawn to her.  Therefore, if she does something that you find good, and you praise her, she is more likely to NEVER do that behavior again.  The reason for this is that she wants to escape attention.  The students that a lot of us, special education or general education, will encounter will be the opposite of this.  They want attention.

So I find that it is imperative at this present moment to say that every behavior (no matter how big or how small) has a function.  My definition of a function is any reason that a person engages in a behavior.  What is the function of the behavior of Bethany above?  The function of the behavior is to escape attention.  Owen, in your class, is making animal noises to get attention from the peers.  Nick, the kid you keep seeing bullying others in the hallway, is bullying because it gives him control of one situation.

The question is, why am I talking about functions of behavior and reinforcement differentiation?  I am talking about it because what one gal finds reinforcing in money, another may find money punishing, and another may not even look at money with any idea of reinforcement or punishment.

The idea of rewarding your kids with money is a tough decision.  I have heard time and time again that you can love the thing your doing, but as soon as you are paid, you lose that love.  This is not the case with everyone, I recognize that and acknowledge it, but many have lost their passion as a result of being paid.

There is also the issue of behavior continuity (I came up with that term) which means asking the question: Is the behavior going to continue after you remove the reinforcer...in the case, the money?  If you reward the person every behavior that they have (every A they get they get $10), then when they get an "A" and you don't give them $10, they won't work for an "A" the next time.  This is the toughest thing that I am facing with this class that I am taking, if you reinforce too much, satiation occurs (the reinforcer is no longer reinforcing), if you reinforce to little, the behavior does not change (because the student is not reinforced enough).  However, in the beginning of teaching a behavior, reinforcement for every time they do it is important in order to help them understand what is expected of them.  It is such a fine balance between too much and too little with the the appropriateness continually changing.  In all reality, reinforcement is like a moving target where if you are just a little bit off, you shoot your best friend in the butt.

Race to the Top

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html

I have heard about this idea of Race to the Top, I didn't know anything about it, but I had heard about it.  So today, I decided that I wanted to do a little research about it.  Since I had heard about this initiative, I have been wondering if it was going to replace the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).  Here, I want to do some pros and cons (just out of curiosity, do any of you know what pro and con stand for...I have been wondering about that lately.) of Race to the top and see how it compares to NCLB.  There probably are going to be some great parts of Race to the Top, but some flaws as well.  The main thing that I can see now as of writing this post (before I read anything) is the accountability of schools and teachers will be missing.

I will be talking about it in a few posts because I feel that I need to understand each part in detail.

Direct Instruction

Direct Instruction (Notice that it is capitalized, as compared to direct instruction which is another name for explicit instruction.) is a very good way of teaching students with disabilities as well as students who are at-risk.  An example of a student at-risk is a student who lives below the poverty line in the United States or has failed classes.

Direct Instruction teaches right on the outset that all students are teachable.  No matter how at-risk they are, they are teachable.  This idea is a great place to start with.  It is imperative for good teachers to recognize that no matter what, every student in their classroom is teachable.

The second part of Direct Instruction is that it is fast-paced.  I have some reservations about this part.  Students who have learn slowly I would think would struggle with this part.  I, as a student in elementary school, was a very slow learner.  If someone came in and tried to teach me how to add all the way through how to do algebra in one year, I don't know if I could have done it.  However, a benefit is that if it is fast-paced, then two things will happen, 1) students will learn things at a faster rate and 2) students will not get bored because their teacher talks about the same thing each class.

Finally, Direct Instruction teaches the basic skills.  If a student has trouble with adding, then Direct Instruction can help immensely.

'Homeless' doll costs $95 (hairstyling extra)

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/item_4Ic0hC7Lacpfo8HQbczsQM

I don't quite know how I feel about this.  There is a part of this story that is a cool idea and one part that is very flawed.  Like it said in the article, I think that a homeless American Girl Doll should have been used as a way to donate money to the homeless in America.

There are too many students in our country who are homeless for my taste.  There are huge effects on education for students who are homeless and I will talk about that in a later post that is dedicated solely to that.

But this idea of having an American Girl Doll having a homeless story has some very beneficial education elements.  I believe that it is important to show our students different parts of our world that are screwed up or disordered.  It is okay if you disagree with this, but I don't think that showing students the flaws of this world will turn them into cynics.  I believe that a fresh pair of eyes can help our world the best.  Many students have a naivete (used in a positive sense) that we lose as we grow up.  This naivete can change the world for the best.

If you look at the issue in regards to Bloom's Taxonomy, learning about the injustice in our world will be the first three steps.  If we only go that far, then I completely agree with you that students may very well become cynics of the world we live in.  But if you move up to analysis, synthesis (Creation), and evaluation, then students are using higher level thinking skills.  And don't we want students to go high in their thinking?

I believe that teaching our students to see the world from the top three higher level thinking skills is so important.  It will change our world.

I want to point out one thing before I end this post.  I hear a lot these days from fellow college students who complain about their professors.  If this is you, and that is okay to dislike aspects of your professors or teachers, I encourage you to go to the higher levels of thinking.  I invite you to think about what YOU would do differently if it were your classroom.  Thinking like this will help students who are future teachers figure out what works for them, what they would do differently than the teachers that they have.

If you haven't noticed, I like Bloom's Taxonomy because I believe that students who move to the higher levels of thinking are the ones who can make this world the best we can make it.

Technology: SMART Table & iPad

I think that there is a huge educational potential for the use of the iPad and the SMART Table.

With students with disabilities, especially those whom I will be working with in the future, those with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD), the SMART Table can be an amazing tool.  From what I have learned about what I will be teaching students with EBD, I will be teaching social skills and a SMART Table is a wonderful tool for collaboration.  The biggest potential about it is that a majority of the students have to agree on an answer and then move their answer to the middle.  This works on collaboration skills as well as fine-motor skills because they have to hold their finger down and move it to the middle.  There is an application on the SMART Table where students create a movie.  This is a awesome tool for the "Synthesis" or "Creation" stage of Bloom's Taxonomy of Higher Level Thinking as well as develops creativity.

The iPad is also amazing tool that works on fine-motor skills.  Like the SMART Table, the iPad has an application on it where you can create a storybook, this is an actual storybook, as compared to a movie.  In this application, you can draw with your finger in 6-8 different line sizes with a lot of choices for the color.  You can draw anything you want on it, and there is another part in that application where you are able to create a read-version of the book.  This is not text-to-speech capabilities, but it is a very helpful tool because you can put the read version of that page on that page.  You can also upload the story that you create to the internet.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Universal design for learning (UDL) is based on originally an architectural idea/term.  With the passage of the Rehabilitation Act (Click here for the link to where I describe it in detail), buildings were required to be somewhat accessible for people with disabilities.  So, the idea of universal design (UD) was created for the field of architecture.  It basically said that rather than create objects and THEN go and work on modifications of those objects so that people with disabilities can use them, create them FIRST with the idea of being used by everyone.  In short, UD is characterized by thinking about an object or building and how you can design it so that everyone, both able bodied and those with disabilities, can use it.

The example that my professor used, and I really liked this, was in some YMCAs they are creating a no-drop pool.  A no-drop pool is a pool that is like a beach in that it gradually moves into the water, it is basically a ramp.  With this UD, every person, including those in wheelchairs can use the pool.  A non-example of UD is a regular pool that has one of those machines that lowers the person into the water.  This is not UD because able-bodied people can just jump in, therefore there is a stigma to using this device.

So I have been talking about UD, now what is UDL you ask?  That is an excellent question.  Think about the truest concept of UD that I just talked about.  Creating things with persons with disabilities in mind.  Now move that idea over to learning and creating curriculum's.  For instance, let's say that you want to have a group discussion time and that you want to have it on the rug.  You find out four months in advance that you have a student who is in a wheelchair.  If you had universally designed your curriculum, then this would not be an issue.  But now it is an issue, do you wish to have the student feel excluded because they are in a wheelchair and can't sit down on the rug like everyone else?

A wonderful question, and I hope that you are asking yourself this, is "What can I then do for the rug thing?  How can I include that student?"  To universally design your classroom, instead of having the students sit on the rug, have them sit in chairs in a circle and talk.  Then the student in the wheelchair can still participate and everyone is sitting up on chairs.

Neurology and Education- Mirror Neurons

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10468

So, I am just going to say this on the outset, I love neurology.  There is not one part of neurology that I don't love.  I find it to be one of the most fascinating things I research on my own time.  But after I watched the video above, I found myself wondering: How does this relate to education?  How can I shape my teaching philosophy or my teaching style because I know about neurology?

I found out that answer about halfway through the video above when V.S. Ramachandran begins to talk about mirror neurons.  Mirror neurons according to Ramachandran are neurons that fire exactly the same way that the neurons in another person.  When you smile, neurons in your brain are rapidly firing to move a message down to the muscles in your face to turn upward, and you smile.  Mirror neurons in me see that the neurons are firing to make you smile and my mirror neurons start firing exactly the same way.

A wonderful question, then, is what does this have to do with education?  Mirror neurons don't just fire when another person smiles, they fire when another person uses creativity, or shows respect to another person.  Students with emotional behavioral disorders have a hard time with expressing feelings in a positive way.  My neurons are firing at each other to express my feelings in a positive way through language or art, because MY neurons are firing, their mirror neurons fire exactly like mine.

Therefore, modeling can teach a student anything, it may take a long time for it to begin to show the fruit, but because of mirror neurons, they can learn anything.