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Cluster Three: Module Seven - Brofenbrenner

Hotspots:

Bioecological model
-Biological self
-ecological self

Mesosystem, microsystem, exosystem, macrosystem
-Influences on all social systems are reciprocal
-Many dynamic forces that interac to create context or individual development (pg 91)

Family Assumptions -
-No familial expectations of students
-blended families (pg 91)

Divorce (pg 92)

People without friends more likely to dropout as an adolescent
-Awareness of students' roles in social groups (pg 95)

TV Increasing childhood aggression (pg 97)

Relational/Social aggression (pg 98)
-Victims

Academic and Personal caring (pge 102)


Questions:
Does the biological self dictate our behavior before we have even begun to realize ourselves? does biology really matter if we are in the right environment?

How is it that if Bioecological systems are reciprocal that a Mesosystem can effect a Macrosystem?
I see how it can but what effect will it have on truly changing the bigger one? What does Brofenbrenner mean by "reciprocal" anyway??

Opinions:

The concept of Biological self is interesting to me because it makes me wonder about the genetic influences upon our decisions. We have talked a lot about the factors of environment but does biology really matter if we are in the right environment? It makes me think about inherited diseases vs. acquired disorders. Is alcoholism passed down from the parent via biology or via the environment they raise their child in? Some would argue it is hereditary but I personally believe if the person who is an unhealthy consumer of alcohol talks about their past it was probably in their home when they were growing up and they had direct interaction with parents/adults while they were drinking themselves.

I like the ideas of the systems that Brofenbrenner put up. They seem to separate social circles in terms of grandeur - and this is important to consider when you are involved in different kinds of communities.

The influences that come into each of these are interesting but this idea of reciprocation in my opinion only works from top to bottom...... The world influences the group which influences a family which influences an individual.... only when there are specific lessons to be learned/observed can we understand the upward reciprocation.

Family was very interesting to me when I was in school as a kid and I have always been courteous to the respect and unknowingness of what goes on in people's homes.... I am glad that this was part of the book because it can mean a world of difference to people, especially young kids, when others are sensitive to these things. I understand that there are people who are already going through so much in their lives even though they haven't even crested age 15 yet.

Students without friends hits home for me because I was once a depressed, friendless middleschooler who had to eat lunch with his Social Studies teacher everyday.... I found solace in his direction and though I never felt like I was going to drop out it meant a lot to me that there was someone who understood and wanted to listen to my thoughts and ideas.... I think that when I become a teacher I will be very tactful to these ends and hopefully a motivational powerhouse in many different ways, including self image and perception of individual abilities. In terms of social groups in schools I think that this textbook stressing knowledge of "Who's who" in peer groups at school can help you to understand where kids are coming from and who could afford a little more understanding in their lives.

Aggression is not increased by cartoons and television... the world is a scary place people.... if kids were to learn how to actually fight from cartoons there would have to be a lot more dynamite in the world.

Relational/Social aggression is interesting because it is even more debilitating than phsycial aggression, i would imagine... The pen is mightier than the sword, so to speak....

I care because you do! That's a brilliant way to see how students think about their teachers.... It reminds me of "In order for others to love you you must first love yourself."

Module 6: Erikson and Self-Esteem

Hotspots:

Erikson's Emergence of the Self
Erikson's Psychosocial Development - All stages are interdependant
Developmental Crisis
(Page 75)

Trust vs. Mistrust
Autonomy vs. Doubt (ZPM?)
Erikson believes that these stages can effect a person throughout their entire life

Initiative vs. Guilt
*Guidelines* on page 77: Encouraging Initiative in Preschool Children

Industry vs. Inferiority (Page 77)
-Predictions for academic years ahead
-Students who suffer cultural and economic shock (page 78)

Identity vs. Role Confusion
-Identity statueses
-Moratorium

Intimacy vs. Isolation
Generativity
Intergrity vs. Despair

The Structure of Self Concepts
-Big Fish Little Pond


Declines in self concepts in Gifted/Talented classes (page 78)

Point/Counterpoint page 83

School life and self-esteem
-Low/High ability classes

Diversity and Identity
-Underestimation of competence


Questions:

Did Erikson base his ideas off of Piaget and Vygotsky? It seems especially reminiscent of Vygotsky's ZPM to neither over-indulge or under-care for each one of these stages. It also reminds me of "Equilibration" by Piaget...

Why do Piaget and Vygotsky stop so short in terms of life span? I like how Erikson mapped out the entire lifetime past what most people would consider "school aged". Isn't there a popular idea of "I never stop learning" out there in the world? It must be true.


Opinions:

I found Erikson to be by far the most intriguing theoristy we've studied so far. The Emergence of the Self is an interesting idea when paired up against Erikson's stages. The providence or even overprovidence of nuturing or the lack there of can shape a young mind into what they are and who they will be. I say this as part of Erkson's theory because the stages are interdependant which totally makes sense to me. Everything that happens is effective on what is going to happen and everything that happens is retro-active on what has already happened.

Each stage seems disturbingly and honestly pivotal to me. I can remember when I was a kid and now I can really pinpoint some weird situations that could have been handled better by my parents and teachers. I guess there's a difference between learning something and learning something the hard way.

Trust vs. Mistrust is incredible because I feel like many people take this for granted. When I read about this stage, it reminded me of a sociology 101 professor I had at Essex County College who once told our class about the difference between her biological children and her adopted children. Apparently, the adopted son was very delinquint and has been in and out of trouble his whole life (I believe he was serving a jail sentence when she told us this story.) To explain this, she actually said that he was given up by his mother as a baby and was put into foster care. Well, fostercare orphans usually have laundry lists of problems and I wonder if perhaps Erikson's stages of psychosocial development have any impact on them.... I mean, this woman who raised her adopted son was clearly a philanthropic person so it is interesting to see what becomes a person's modality when their life is different from most other people. The fact that her adopted son had grown up also suggests to me that the concept of Erikson's stages being interdependant must be true.

Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt made me think largely of the ZPM as proposed by Vygotsky. In the cluster it describes that "parents must tread a fine line. They must be protective - but not overprotective." It is almost as though your own judgements are directly influenced by parental judgement... So knowing when to back off or let a child cry and cry and not let them have their way is important. It makes me think of "Enablers," or parents who just let their child have anything they want.

Initiative vs. Guilt is an interesting stage because in terms of Piaget, we're still in the preoperation stage. Children are now becoming freer to explore the world on their own terms and are at the moment still lacking good judgement in all instances. Hell, even adults lack good judgement in all instances. Erikson to me seems to be more concerned with Emotions than academic capabilities like Piaget and Vygotsky. How children learn logically is fascinating but the way children learn emotionally is in my opinion the springboard for their interpersonal and social relationships. With that will come the want/need/fascination with learning that we all hope our children would have as a student.

Industry vs. Inferiority is an especially intereting stage for me, because as I have admitted in past blogs I have always ALWAYS been a terrible math student. This shed some light on what I was going through at the time because it was very traumatic for me to be getting phonecalls left on my parent's answering machine from my 4th grade teacher that said I was "lacking ability." Yes, I heard the message and to this day it still haunts me. I cried a lot over that but what I really did was focus on the things I was good at. In terms of the literature we've read, I am fascinated to realize that these precious years have a huge impact on what a young mind will focus on into their lives... It also presents the ramifications of the actions up until now as a definitive marker in the way a child will turn out. Back to that disturbing phonecall from my 4th grade teacher, I incidentally was cursed in math for the rest of my life... I was in normal math class until 8th grade and I was put in "STARS" math class from the until my Sophomore year of HS. I took pre-algebra in 9th grade and limped through everything until my senior year when I opted to not take another math. It's amazing at how young I decided I couldn't deal with something and it had an effect on the rest of my life... at 9 years old I knew how I would be at 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17. It was definitely an emotional thing as well... It could have been handled a lot better (I disliked my 4th grade teacher for several reasons)

Vygotsky - Chapter IV

Hot Spots:

Socio-cultural theory - human influence on their own development (page 50)

Importance of social interactions stressed by both Vygotsku and Piaget. (page 51)

Cultural Tools and lanugage as the most important tool in that box (page 52)

Language and Cultural Diversity (page 53)

Private Speech, self-talk (page 54)

Zone of Proximal Development (page 55-56)

Limitations of Vygotsky's Theory (page 57)


Questions:

Does the fact that a child cant solve the problem of a lost toy lend itself to the tempering of object permanence?

How is it that we are comparing Vygotsky before Piaget? Wouldn't it make more sense to learn about who came first? I suppose these ideas are newer in light of the historical circumstance of Vygotsky's findings, however, Piaget came later in general. Also, I ask why we compare them when they are clearly different but both have things to offer.

What about the ZPG? It's an interesting idea but my question is how are we sensitive to the special needs of people who might not fit the bill of a group in this Zone.

What does it say about a culture with many words with one meaning? I remember being fascinated by synonyms and homophones when I was in 3rd grade. Is it a waste of time and brain space to be able to rattle out several words for red at a moment's notice? (Crimson, scarlet, rouge, ruby) I am fascinated by this because we can assign specific meanings to main ideas... like the difference between saying the word "toilet paper" and "Bath tissue". Bath tissue clearly sugar coats an object that has a usually unpleasant task, but perhaps that is the socio-cultural advertising objective we are subjected to.

Opinions:

I find it interesting that in order to help a child solve their problems you will ask them a few mind refreshing questions. Most adults would tell you, "If I remember where I had it last, it wouldn't be lost!" but a childlike mind perhaps will have to take that into consideration before making their mind up that they truly don't know where it is. I wonder if this helps to establish object permanence.

Vygotsky and Piaget seem to have compelled a lot of interesting ideas for us teachers and will-be teachers. It's interesting to think that these ideas are all things we've undergone, almost seemlessly in our lives. Just to think that we're reading, writing and communicating as functional students who are established through our lifetime of education is pretty amazing. It makes me wonder how it happened at all in the first place. I think they were both onto something when they said that these ideals were innate in most children to learn and be taught by themselves, their peers and their teachers.

Language as the most important tool for learning is one of the most interesting things I have learned from Vygotsky's findings. It has to be true because without the words of symbols to interperate it would all mean nothing. I found it especially interesting the concept of poor Brazilian children who sell candy trading, selling, bartering, doing math and turning a profit on their own accord without any formal education to be quite an example of what it means to learn by the spoken word. Somehow it makes me think of poetry that is organized in a certain way. Normal words... but when specially presented their impact is that much greater.

Private speech and selftalk is interesting because as I have come to notice, some do it more than others. My father is nearing his 60th birthday and he still, to this day, talks to himself when making a cut during one of his numerous carpentry products. I myself have never used private speech that much but I have always counted (literally) on it during math, but lately, I truly depend on it for learning and remembering things and translations in my German class. Now I think the difficult things we compute in our brains probably require that amount of physical synaptic response to give rise to the solutions and right meanings. It's also weird when sometimes I create art and make a swooshing noise or perhaps a loud yell like a battle cry it gives me the comfort and determination I need to continually work on something difficult. (Yes, weird.)

The Zone of Proximal Development is interesting because it does seem to overlap Piaget a bit. And by that, it's like the stages of cognitive development but it is like a moving target. What works at 3rd grade won't work on 4th or 5th graders simply because it is old-hat to them. Yet, in spite of this, there are still things that they all need to learn collectively but it needs to be presented in age-appropriate ways. I am also concerned for the idea that this might not work for everyone, as I have realized that in general not everything in Educational Methods works like an interchangeable part for every person under the sun.

The Limitations of Vygotsky seem about as reasonable as the limitations of Piaget and as I said in the past paragraph, not every idea and method works for each person. Basically what I gather as a future teacher is to value the sensitivity to individual needs and be ready and willing to harness your hopefully acquired versatility to modify teaching implications and applications to make understanding and learning and possibility for even the most lost or confused child in your class.

Chapter 3: of Educational Psychology

Hot spots:

Piaget's basic tendencies of thinking - Adaptation, Assimilation, Accomodation and Equilibration.
Page 38

Preoperational Children - Acquiring reversible thought, Conservation, egocentric thought patterns
Page 40

Concrete Operational stage - compensation and classification
page 42

Formal Operation Stage
page 43

"Do we all reach the 4th stage?"
page 45

Limitations of Piaget's theory
page 47

Questions:

Do we all reach the 4th stage compells me. Do we all reach the 4th stage???

Do people who uphold the ideas of racism and bigotry keep their thoughts/opinions in the concrete stage? Does what gets sealed in concrete stay in concrete?

Can't children sometimes demonstrate consideration for others? In spite of being egocentered?

Are all matters of inspiration some kind of equilibration?

Opinions:

In terms of conrete thinking and maturing into the formal operative stage, I wonder if that only parts of our logic mature into these ideals. I personally find that I have problems wrapping my head around certain matters but in others I can be quick or punctual with a response. I have also observed this when trying to explain some of my ideas about poetry in songs to some people who "just don't understand" what I am trying to say. Not that I am an oracle for understanding song lyric symbolism but it's odd.

In terms of racism, I have expereinced bigotted sentiments from other white people who would just assume that I am sympathetic to their nonsense. When I try to explain to them that the reasons for upholding racism are mostly misconceptions and say things like "well, you haven't met all the black people in the world" they're usually too annoyed by the topic to even open their mind for one conversation. I guess my main question is that, "Does what gets sealed in concrete stay in concrete?"

I feel like some kids have apparent decentered ideas. Once children learn the value of sharing I think they can understand that they'll have their turn on the tireswing, in the conversation, in the reading out loud group, etc... This gets into the idea of the limitations of Piaget's theories. In fact, the issue is not "concrete" unto itself but I believe that Piaget's work provides an interesting guide to the way most people might develop and grow.

"How people Learn" Chpater 5

Hot SPOT(s):

In considering which findings from brain research are relevant to human learning or, by extension, to education, one must be careful to avoid adopting faddish concepts that have not been demonstrated to be of value in classroom practice. Among these is the concept that the left and right hemispheres of the brain should be taught separately to maximize the effectiveness of learning. Another is the notion that the brain grows in holistic "spurts," within or around which specific educational objectives should be arranged: as discussed in this chapter, there is significant evidence that brain regions develop asynchronously, although any specific educational implications of this remain to be determined. Another widely held misconception is that people use only 20 percent of their brains--with different percentage figures in different incarnations--and should be able to use more of it. This belief appears to have arisen from the early neuroscience finding that much of the cerebral cortex consists of "silent areas" that are not activated by sensory or motor activity. However, it is now known that these silent areas mediate higher cognitive functions that are not directly coupled to sensory or motor activity.


Some neuroscientists explain synapse formation by analogy to the art of sculpture. Classical artists working in marble created a sculpture by chiseling away unnecessary bits of stone until they achieved their final form. Animal studies suggest that the "pruning" that occurs during synapse overproduction and loss is similar to this act of carving a sculpture. The nervous system sets up a large number of connections; experience then plays on this network, selecting the appropriate connections and removing the inappropriate ones. What remains is a refined final form that constitutes the sensory and perhaps the cognitive bases for the later phases of development.

This phenomenon only occurs if an eye is prevented from experiencing normal vision very early in development. The period at which the eye is sensitive corresponds to the time of synapse overproduction and loss in the visual cortex. Out of the initial mix of overlapping inputs, the neural connections that belong to the eye that sees normally tend to survive, while the connections that belong to the abnormal eye wither away. When both eyes see normally, each eye loses some of the overlapping connections, but both keep a normal number.

In the case of deprivation from birth, one eye completely takes over. The later the deprivation occurs after birth, the less effect it has. By about 6 months of age, closing one eye for weeks on end will produce no effect whatsoever. The critical period has passed; the connections have already sorted themselves out, and the overlapping connections have been eliminated.

After the cycle of synapse overproduction and selection has run its course, additional changes occur in the brain. They appear to include both the modification of existing synapses and the addition of entirely new synapses to the brain. Research evidence (described in the next section) suggests that activity in the nervous system associated with learning experiences somehow causes nerve cells to create new synapses. Unlike the process of synapse overproduction and loss, synapse addition and modification are life-long processes, driven by experience. In essence, the quality of information to which one is exposed and the amount of information one acquires is reflected throughout one's life in the structure of the brain. This process is probably not the only way that information is stored in the brain, but it is a very important way that provides insight into how people learn.

Very young children discriminate many more phonemic boundaries than adults, but they lose their discriminatory powers when certain boundaries are not supported by experience with spoken language (Kuhl, 1993). Native Japanese speakers, for example, typically do not discriminate the "r" from the "l" sounds that are evident to English speakers, and this ability is lost in early childhood because it is not in the speech that they hear. It is not known whether synapse overproduction and elimination underlies this process, but it certainly seems plausible.

Experience in environment for brain development

Neuroscientists have investigated how the visual-spatial and language processing areas each come together in a different hemisphere of the brain, while developing certain new functions as a result of the visual language experiences. In the brains of all deaf people, some cortical areas that normally process auditory information become organized to process visual information. Yet there are also demonstrable differences among the brains of deaf people who use sign language and deaf people who do not use sign language, presumably because they have had different language experiences (Neville, 1984, 1995). Among other things, major differences exist in the electrical activities of the brains of deaf individuals who use sign language and those who do not know sign language (Friedman and Cocking, 1986; Neville, 1984). Also, there are similarities between sign language users with normal hearing and sign language users who are deaf that result from their common experiences of engaging in language activities. In other words, specific types of instruction can modify the brain, enabling it to use alternative sensory input to accomplish adaptive functions, in this case, communication.

From these findings, it is clear that there are qualitative differences among kinds of learning opportunities. In addition, the brain "creates" informational experiences through mental activities such as inferencing, category formation, and so forth. These are types of learning opportunities that can be facilitated. By contrast, it is a bridge too far, to paraphrase John Bruer (1997), to suggest that specific activities lead to neural branching (Cardellichio and Field, 1997), as some interpreters of neuroscience have implied.

Questions:

Does the concept of synapse creation and destruction support the ideas of "people can't change" or "you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"

Have people with abnormnal psychological tendencies (depression, mania, pedophilia etc) perhaps "learned" the wrong way?

Say for instance a young child witnesses his mother die a long a painful death. When that child is so effected by this tragedy, he resolves to one day become a Doctor to help people who are undergoing the same anguish as to fight the injustice in his heart. Almost like Bruce Wayne I guess in Batman - witnesses his parents get killed during a mugging and one day assumes the role of an above-the-law vigilante. Does the effect of synapse and memory/cognition have an effect on people who have experienced some sort of trauma? What about people with other psychological complexes? (Oedipus, Medea, Peter Pan, Bruce Wayne, etc) I know this might not directly deal with the aspect of teaching but it makes me wonder about things like this in general about what we learn to be reality......

Opinions:

This chapter was pretty enlightening. The sculpture reference really makes it clear to me (and not just because i am an art major.) Seeing that analogy put together with the concept of language development in children vs. adults is pretty fascinating.

Adaptive functioning was also a cool idea. It made me think of Bats because of their use of sonar to gauge distances.

Blood vessel development in brains for active creatures was an interesting idea as well. I am to learn that considering that I have heard random school subjects get spurned as "useless". Even I am at a weakness in my conceptions of Mathematics, where as I am good with writing, reading and creating, I cannot by any means bear math. And at a young age when I decided I hated it and it was useless, I guess I let learning the abstract concepts of math go completely. I always wished I could but now that I am taking this course I wonder if, perhaps, I was not exposed to the right form of instruction? I wouldn't dare say I wasn't partly to blame, heh heh.

Synapse pruning and modification were really the biggest reveleations for me to have in this chapter, mainly because it supports ideas of the freshness of young minds and the ability to learn (or re-learn) based on your experiences.
Overall, I am interested to be learning about the way people learn.

On my last note, I have always believed and told myself that "change comes from within." Change doesn't always happen because you want it to either... I guess you have to wait to be inspired sometimes.

Friday January 25th, 2008

Hotspots: 1913 study of hungry cats, in order to escape the lockbox must pull a string. I found this interesting because the idea of being rewarded for their learning of how to handle the situation fueled their need to know it. The phrase "unobservable mental events" also appeals to me.


Questions: How do you objectively know when you are undergoing metacognition? Is it more natural for some than others? Do we understand parts of it better than other parts at first??



Opinions: I am interested in the way the online book sort of brings into a dynamic of different metaphorical (such as the artery/vein idea and the reference to children's literature) and practical viewpoints. I truly appreciate the fact that a book that is stressing a variety of venues in learning is sincerely illustrating clear, interesting examples of these ideas. It amuses me that here we are learning about learning and along the way we're being exposed to some of these new ideas. I am pretty shocked at how clever that is, ha ha ha.

Well....

I have not successfully obtained a textbook and I fear I will be unprepared tomorrow for the textbook reading... I am just gonna read the online book twice and hope for the best... Hopefully Donna won't frown upon it too harshly

-M

The first chapter of How People Learn (online book)

I have always felt a sort of unknowing connection to the facts we read in the first chapter of the online book. It's interesting to me how information is presented to a class and how each individual absorbs it in their own way.

It's also interesting to realize how different teaching and learning must be from when we were kids. To think what has unfolded to today's youth in terms of social and technological development it is quite a prospect when I think about becoming and teacher and what I hope to one day impart onto others. I am also respectful of the fact that there is an all-encompassing idea that reaches into the psychology of education which includes all kinds of behavioral and psychological aspects. It's sort of like the difference of an old way of thinking someone who is "Mad" or "Crazy" to when people began to become sensitive to the needs and causes of the insanity. To be "Mad" was simply to be written off as an insane person but now we realize that there are many multi-faceted levels of mental functioning (for better or for worse)

Personally I also found the reference to Leo Lioni interesting not only because he was one of my favorite authors as a kid but because when remembering such classics as Fish is Fish, it made me recall Swimmy the Fish which focused on the necessity of integration and different kinds.

Anyway, I feel as though I've blogged enough. Ta ta for now

-Mike