Personal Learing Theory

Final Learning Log

What?

According to the quiz, I agree with Piaget's theory of teaching and learning as I scored a 42. The second theory I agree with is behaviorism, which I scored 39. The theory I least agreed with was social cognitivism, in which a scored 35. This quiz does seem mostly true; nonetheless, I would have expected my personality to like behaviorism theory over cognitive theory since I personally learn better through behaviorism.

* Piaget's Cognitive Development - I like his theory of taking prior knowledge, and then using assimilation or accommodation to help us form new mental schemas.
* Vygotsky's Cognitive Development - This is one of my favorite theories. I think we learn most effectively when we are function within our ZPD, and receiving help through higher level peers in scaffolding and guided participation.
* Erikson's Psychosocial Development - His theory of psychosocial development is very accurate and describes life's psychosocial stages very well. However, I do agree with the critics and I feel that he estimates role confusion to be too soon. I never though about my career or role at the ages of 13 through 16. Also, I feel that his estimate of the intimacy stage is too late. There are many young teens that only seek intimacy and don' think about much else.
* Kohlberg's Moral Development - This theory does have some logic to it, yet, I feel that the stages listed are not so accurate. One could feel strong about law and order and still never pass through the individualism stage. I do not like how he has organized pre-conventional, conventional, and post conventional.
* Goleman's Emotional Intelligence - We barely covered this theory. From the little we did cover, I have to say that I do find his first four stages to be out of order. I could recognize others emotions before being able to manage my own emotions.
* Information Processing - Great theory! This model that shows us how our minds work when we are learning. It is vital to get info past sensory memory and into working and long term memory.
* Knowledge Construction and Higher-order thinking - I like that this teaches that learning is an active process in which learners construct their own meaning based on prior knowledge and experience. I learn best when I compare things to past experiences. High level thinking is a good teaching model, yet, I do not agree that it is beneficial for all.
* Behaviorism - This theory is very intriguing and true. We are conditioned to learn many things. Thus, as a teacher we should take advantage of this and use reinforces to promote activity towards our desired outcomes.
* Social Cognitivism - I felt that this was an obvious theory. In my opinion almost everyone knows that two minds are better than one.
* Group and Individual Differences - We never covered this category.
* Motivation - Very true theory. Generally speaking students are very motivated by rewards or in order to avoid punishment.

So what?

People learn in many diverse ways. Some learn cognitively, others through the aid of other more able sibling, others through behaviorism and others by constructivism. Nevertheless, no matter how what one’s learning style might be, everyone learns through the information processing model. We all need to catch incoming stimuli in our sensory memory. From there we need to pay attention or the info is lost. Then we must apply the info in our working memory and prevent it from getting lost by storing it through means of repetition. Then info then goes to our long term memory in which we must occasionally recall upon so that it does not decay. In my opinion, people learn best through observation, visual aids, cognitive and constructive experience, and social constructivism. In order to process new info, I feel that these three tools are used to help one form new schemas and then practice and modify frequently and continuously.

Now what?

(1) As a teacher I need to understand that not everyone will learn such as I do. Thus, I must try to accommodate my teaching theories for diverse learners. I must try to make my instruction cover as many theories as possible. Nevertheless, due to the fact that I feel most people learn through observation, visual aids, cognitive and constructive experience, and social constructivism; my future teaching strategies will involve much retrieval of prior knowledge, and peer experience. I will have students work in groups in which the can recall prior knowledge together, and then work as peers to form personal schemas. Also, observation will be used a lot. The students will be able to do much observational learning from their peers, as they will see how I react to students abilities’ to form Spanish sentences and pronounce. The information processing model must be considered, thus, repetition will be a must. It will be my job to keep students attention so that they can get info though the full memory process. Hence, I will actively keep the class participating by randomly making students say aloud new vocabulary, and write on the bored new grammar principles.
(2) In order to become a better teacher, I need to learn better classroom management skills. During my teaching experiences that I have had, I have struggled to keep the whole class disciplined. It would be to my benefit to learn how to better use classical and operant conditioning with my students. This would allow me to reinforce the desired outcome I have for my students’ behavior. I need to better my positive and negative reinforcement strategies, and also better my punishment strategies.