TBQ

1
TBQ

• Why do teachers in 21st century have to have
  knowledge of brain function and learning theory
  in order to competently offer instruction?

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Learning Theory Answers Questions source Zintz
Maggart, The Reading Process The Teacher and
the Learner

• CAPACITY
• What are the limits and ranges of learning and
  how to we measure them?
• PRACTICE
• How do we match opportunities to practice to
  suitable conditions for learning for individuals?
• MOTIVATION
• How important are drives and incentives, both
  intrinsic and extrinsic?

• UNDERSTANDING
• How does insight relate to generalizing?
• TRANSFER
• Does learning one thing connect to learning
  another? How?
• FORGETTING
• What happens when we remember? What is the
  impact of forgetting?

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What do we know about the brain?

• Research continues to investigate if neurons may
  be able to regenerate
• IQ is not set at birth
• There are periodic windows of time for
  effective learning of some skills
• The brain changes with experience

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What do we know about the brain?

• Brain development is integrated not one system
  the another
• Brains evolve when they make meaning
  stimulation is vital
• Learning is strongly influenced by emotion
• Brain chemistry effects mood, personality and
  behavior

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All of these learning elements are centered in
the brain

• Working memory
• Long term memory
• Attention
• Concentration
• Organization
• Prior knowledge
• Cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains

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Neurological processes

• Neurons are the principal agents of cognition
• Message are conducted from one neuron to another
  through a chemical system of neurotransmitters
• Neurotransmitters can excite or inhibit processes
  in the brain they are modulators
• Unregulated, they can cause extremes in reactions
  and behaviors, including learning behavior
• Learning disorders are disruptions or
  irregularities in neurological processing
• Learning is strongly tied to emotion

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Executive Function is the gateway to learning and
control

• The frontal lobe houses the ability to
  demonstrate judgment, control impulses, use
  verbal skills, demonstrate spatial, musical, and
  artistic abilities and to organize ourselves.

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What does this mean about learning?

• The organization and development of language
  skills is essential to achieve a balance across
  all curricular areas.

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Language development

• Language skills start at birth children learn
  to speak from listening to oral communication
  around them.

• Children learn a logographic and orthographic
  system from observing shapes and text structures
  around them.

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Language Development

• Children who are exposed to language in oral and
  written forms bring that knowledge to the school
  setting.
• Phonemic awareness is an early learning skill.

• Upon entry into school, children expand their
  knowledge to include reading through phonics,
  whole word learning, structural analysis, context
  clues, and content instruction.

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Connections

• The prior knowledge base that children bring into
  the learning environment, at any level, connects
  to their cognitive capacity and endowment.
• Developmentally, teachers need to know how to set
  goals and boundaries that can be adapted for
  optimal performance outcomes from students.

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Cognitive development

• Theoretical bases
• PIAGET
• stages of development
• assumes that individuals strive to make sense of
  their environment
• language emerges from 2-7 (preoperational) and
  increases in utility with maturity and experience
• thinking becomes more abstract as children become
  adolescents

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Cognitive development

• Theoretical bases
• PIAGET
• sequential thinking emerges and solidifies in the
  intermediate to middle school years and, with
  practice, becomes a solid foundation for
  cognitive growth and linguistic reasoning
• more challenging, abstract, and long ranged
  activities requiring sustained thought should be
  part of learning for middle and high school
  students

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Cognitive development

• Theoretical bases
• VYGOTSKY
• proposed a dual system of cognitive emergence of
  the individual
• the first exposure to thought was made with
  others to guide the process
• the second level of exposure involves the
  individual internalizing and using experiences to
  collect and use thoughts

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Cognitive development

• Theoretical bases
• VYGOTSKY
• the importance of the tools for mediation are
  part of his theory
• cultural tools and systems allow the individual
  to expand thought into novel ideas
• cultural tools include books, computers, language
  and numeric systems, etc.

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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Theoretical bases
• VYGOTSKY
• thought undergoes many changes as it turns into
  speech. It does not merely find expression in
  speech it finds its reality and form.
• the speech structures mastered by the child
  become the basic structures of his thinking.
• the structure of the language one habitually uses
  influences the way he perceives his environment

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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Theoretical bases
• KRASHEN (second languages)
• Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in
  the target language - natural communication - in
  which speakers are concerned not with the form of
  their utterances but with the messages they are
  conveying and understanding.

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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Theoretical bases
• KRASHEN (second languages)
• The best methods are therefore those that supply
  'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations,
  containing messages that students really want to
  hear. These methods do not force early production
  in the second language, but allow students to
  produce when they are 'ready', recognizing that
  improvement comes from supplying communicative
  and comprehensible input, and not from forcing
  and correcting production.

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Attention and learning

• An effective attention system
• QUICKLY IDENTIFIES AND FOCUSES ON IMPORTANT,
  COMPLEX ITEMS
• SUSTAINS ATTENTION WHILE MONITORING RELATED
  INFORMATION
• ACCESSES MEMORIES
• SHIFTS ATTENTION AS NEW INFORMATION IS INTRODUCED

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Emotion and learning

• Our emotional system is primal and vital in
  learning.
• Motivation is tied to this system and as chemical
  changes occur in the body, learning and
  motivation are influenced.

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Teachers must determine...

• Does the student drift and focus on nothing?
• Does the student focus on everything?
• Is the student motivated to learn?
• How much movement is designed into learning
  activities?
• How are learning activities monitored for
  overload?

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Teachers must determine...

• Who needs more visual stimulation?
• Who needs more auditory stimulation?
• Who needs more movement to learn?
• How much oral, written, and active response is
  appropriate?

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Challenges in the classroom

• The goal of teachers is to take students to
  higher and higher levels of thinking so that they
  can process information independently.

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Goals of teachers

• When students have learning disorders, that is a
  difficult climb.
• Teachers often equate higher levels of thinking
  with higher levels of difficulty.
• It is actually tied to higher levels of
  complexity.

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Vygotskys Theorysources Mind in Society and
Thought and Language

• A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a
  thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.
• Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into
  speech. It does not merely find expression in
  speech it finds its reality and form.
• The speech structures mastered by the child
  become the basic structures of his thinking.
• The structure of the language one habitually uses
  influences the way he perceives his environment.

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Origins of thought and language

• Thought and speech have different roots, and
  their development is not parallel they cross
  again and again.
• At around age two, these developmental lines meet
  as thought becomes verbal and speech becomes
  rational.
• A childs first use of language is for social
  interaction, then it becomes the structure for
  thinking.

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Concept acquisition
OBJECT
gross verbal approximation
attribute 1
OBJECT
attribute 2
finer verbal identification and distinction
attribute 3
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Word meaning concept formation

• Once a child realizes that everything has a name,
  each new object presents the child with a problem
  situation solved by naming the object.
• If the child lacks the word he demands it from
  adults.
• This forms initial concept formation.

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Social constructivism

• Cognitive skills and patterns of thinking are not
  innate, but rather are practiced in the social
  institutions of the individuals culture.
• Therefore, culture and personal history are
  crucial in determining advanced modes of thought.
• Much of culture is transmitted by words.

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Zone of proximal development

• ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT LEVEL
• All functions and activities that a child can
  perform on his own, independently
• PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT ZONE
• All functions and activities that a child can
  perform only with the assistance of someone else.

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Zone of proximal development

• Children learn best when they are interacting
  with people in an authentic environment.
• Teachers have an important role in the
  development of language and thought, but they are
  only part of the social interaction pattern of
  learners.

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Krashens Theory source Second Language
Acquisition and Second Language Learning

• Language acquisition requires meaningful
  interaction in the target language in which
  speakers are not concerned with form, but rather
  with messages.

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Acquisition and Learning hypotheses

• Language acquisition is subconscious, emerging
  naturally from communication in authentic
  environments. The individual learns the
  language.
• Language learning is conscious, offered in a
  formal setting. The individual learns about the
  language (ex., grammar rules).
• WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT?

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Monitor hypothesis

• The monitor function results from the learning
  hypothesis. Once rules and forms are learned,
  the language user acts as a monitor or editor of
  his own language.
• This function is closely aligned to executive
  function, located in the frontal lobe.

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Natural Order hypothesis

• There is a predictable, natural order of
  acquiring grammatical structures.
• It is independent from background, age, or
  conditions of exposure.

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Input hypothesis

• Language acquisition improves and progresses when
  input (modeling) of language is a step beyond
  the current linguistic stage, providing a
  stimulating natural communication example.

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Affective Filter hypothesis

• High motivation, good self-confidence and
  controlled levels of anxiety are affective
  variables that are part of efficient language
  acquisition.
• When these variables are not functioning at an
  optimal level, the learner raises a filter or
  mental block, which impedes language acquisition.