How do you see Vicki's pedagogy influencing her students' sense of relatedness and/or what Pink refers to as their "purpose" i.e. their Drive?
I think that Vicki's pedagogy fills her students with a strong sense of purpose and drive. She empowers them since she involves them in decisions in the classroom, allows them to learn things that she does not yet know and doesn't tell them all the answers. These things allow the students creativity and builds confidence in their abilities to solve problems.
There ware so many theories to consider from todays class. They all potentially help to understand a student's behavior and motivation or lack of motivation. The one that stands out separate from the others for me is Skinner's. All the others have some form of interest in knowing the student better. Skinner's didn't seem to care for the student as a person but only in how the student could be manipulated. This seemed "older" than the other theories. The Connectivism paper seemed more recent as it is so tied into the internet and technology and Duncan-Andrade felt very current too. I can appreciate Duncan-Andrade for caring about his students so much. He talks to his students to really see what they think not just try to get them to say what he wants. It appears that he tries to incorporate current culture into his teaching to relate to the students better.
Kohlberg's Moral Development, Gilligan's Development and Phinney's 3 stage model of ethnic development seem to me to be some of the more useful theories to keep in mind when teaching. Being able to relate to the students will be so important and these theories all have potential ideas to help understand students. Having the idea that students can be at different levels of moral development can help explain some of their reactions to classroom work, homework and in general being in school.
I appreciated that you explained the reason that we would not be using the other textbook in class. The ironic thing for me was that my first impression of the bit of the text that I have read, was that it reminded me of more of a 'behavior modification' view of class room control. It didn't seem to fit with the other texts that we are reading this summer that were more theoretical and student focused.
Laura,
ReplyDeleteYou've done a fine job summarizing much of the day and reflecting (I would argue, on the surface) about the topics/concepts that interested you. My question is "So what?" What do any of the theories we covered in week 4 have to do with your pedagogy/philosophy of education? Furthermore, how will you convert those abstract notions and understandings of yours as teacher into concrete practices that your students may come to know you and the content you will be working with them on? At this point in the course, you really need to do two things (1) demonstrate your knowledge of key concepts [I think you are pretty good there] and (2) demonstrate you ability to apply those concepts hypothetically via T2P statements and concretely by citing specific pedagogical practices you believe might help your students experience relevance in the curriculum, for example (from Jeff's work). Revisit this post and modify to meet the challenges I've laid out. Keep pressing.