Clarissa Martinez
ED 631
What kind of learning environment maximizes what we know about
how students learn?
As a first year teacher there are many things I have learned about my
students and myself. Through taking this course it helped me realize some of the
psychological factors that go along with behaviors and how to manage/work with
them. What I really wanted to get out of this course is how to motivate my students.
In a school where there are so many students with issues outside of the classroom, I
needed to figure out how to get to them. I learned ways to increase student
motivation by collaborating with other teachers and observing my students. In this
final paper I want to talk about a few of my students who have made great strides in
the course of this year, things I did in order to improve my classroom environment
and ways I have incorporated models and theories in my classroom.
My Students- Student Motivation
Every child is a unique individual whose learning style and attitudes may
reflect his or her own interests, strengths and challenges, background, beliefs,
experiences and personality. Getting to know your students I believe is #1 in having
a learning environment where students feel safe and valued. Through my
observations and reading through Chapter 6 of Seifert’s Educational Psychology I
was able to identify things I had already been doing and things I could try to
increase motivation and have an overall better learning environment. Helping
students to believe in themselves and in their potential that encourages compassion,
and understanding, that fosters self- respect and respect for others is important in
achieving student learning and motivation.
Through my observations in my classroom I have noticed my students are
more highly motivated during hands on, dirty, investigatory labs. This works for the
majority of my students. One time we did a lab, which was DNA extraction of a
strawberry. My 2nd period class loved it (they talked about it in their other classes),
even though the results we were looking for didn’t happen. The following week we
tried the experiment again with success! I wanted the kids to see that experiments
don’t always come out the way you expect that is why we re-test. We talked about
what went wrong the first time they did the lab and how to fix it. This was an
example of how a student can respond to failure, by being persistent, and how to
cope when things may not turn out the way you expect (Seifert, 2011).
In my 3rd period class I teach Living Environment to a class of students who
have taken the Regents 3 or more times. Most of them already feel defeated and lack
motivation. I’m not going to lie and say I have been able to motivate 100% of the
students in this class because it’s not true. I want to talk about one student in this
class who I will call David, who taught me the value in getting to know my students.
David has an IEP for an emotional disturbance; in December he came into class
really upset. Throughout the period he had said multiple times “I want to kill
myself” as a mandated reporter and as a concerned teacher I asked him to stay after
class. I held him after class and brought him down to the guidance office. He kept
telling me he was joking, but I took his threats seriously. When we got down to the
guidance office the guidance counselor asked him some questions. One question she
asked was how he imagined killing himself. As he was telling her the ways I was
holding back tears. Even though I did think he was joking, the situation became
more serious when he started talking about how he would do it. I spoke with him
after the guidance interview and asked him if he understood why I had to take him
to guidance. I told him that I cared about him and I didn’t want to hear him say those
things about himself because he is young, smart and has so much to live for. He
wasn’t mad at me, the situation actually made us closer. I saw his effort in my class
increase and his tardiness decreased. In the beginning of the year he would always
say that everything was so difficult or that the classwork was too much work
(learned helplessness). He had very low self-efficacy since he had already taken the
Regents 4 times. This past January he scored a 61, which with his IEP is passing. I
was so proud of him; because I know he is very capable of passing the test he just
doesn’t think he can. We spoke about his score and decided to give it another shot to
get a 65 in order to receive a Regents diploma rather than a State diploma. Now, he
comes into class and tries his best, I usually give the class 3 different levels of work
to choose from and he always chooses the most difficult task, and when he finishes
that he will move onto the medium if there is time. I always congratulate his efforts
and have him talk about his work to the class. Ways I encouraged self-efficacy for
David are pointed out on the chart below (Seifert, 2011).
Learning Models and Theories
My vision as an educator is, to exemplify behaviors that I expect my students
to acquire. I believe in the principles valued within the humanistic educational
approach, the student-centered approach, and the collaborative learning approach.
Advocates for the humanistic educational approach were philosopher,
Jean- Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and educator Erasmus (1466-1536). Rousseau
“emphasizes that people are naturally good, are interested in mastery, and tend to
develop in a healthy, mature, and moral fashion if not corrupted by society”
(Guisinger & Blatt, 1994). Erasmus stated “the tender mind of a child should be
instructed in piety; … that he love and learn the liberal arts;… that he be taught tact
in the conduct of social life…that from his earliest age he accustom himself to good
behavior, based on moral principles” (Johnson , Musial, Hall, Gollnick, 2011).
According to Ong (2003), “The term humanism has a number of more or less
distinct meanings, all referring to a world view in some way centered on man rather
than on the suprahuman or the abstract. In its strictest sense, the word refers to a
literary and intellectual movement, the "new learning,"… and the highest expression
of human values…humanistic education, which deals with basic human concerns,
with the issues throughout history and today that are of concern to human beings
trying to improve the quality of life in the pursuit of knowledge, to grow, to love, and
to find meaning for one’s existence, expanding the concept of what basic education
is and the necessary skills for surviving today’s world involve other skills such as
communication, problem-solving and decision making” (Ong, 2003). In following
with the approach of a humanist educational philosophy, I have created my lessons
by asking the question “how will this lesson help my students in life?” This is
important because if you can’t bring it back to reality the students are lost or bored.
I haven’t found a way to do this with every single lesson, but I am hoping next year I
will be able to collaborate more with science educators and how they do it for each
topic.
The next approach is the student-centered approach, in which
humanists’ ideas are rooted. Theorists such as John Dewey (1859-1952) and Jean
Piaget (1896-1980) studied children’s development. Dewey stated, “Education is life
itself”. I believe that by taking the time to talk to students, and listen to them, and to
observe them in the classroom are important tools for me in evaluating their
individual learning styles and attitudes. In turn, the knowledge I gain will help me
reach them on an individual level (like with David in my 3rd period class). What
does the humanist approach look like in my classroom? Students will solve
problems, formulate questions on their own, answer questions, discuss, debate and
brainstorm during the class. I see it happening now in most of my classes now. I
have started doing Cornell Notes activities in class with an interesting article that
captures their attention. The last thing we read was “When a Pregnant Woman
Drinks.” The kids had so many questions and discussed them amongst themselves
and I heard some kids being able to answer the questions or brainstorm answers to
the questions. These activities create a lot of communication enabling them to build
self-reliance and leads to creative thinking from the students’, while I instruct and
interject when needed as the facilitator of learning.
Another approach I believe to be effective in a healthy learning environment
is collaborative learning. Whether students’ work in pairs or in groups, they have
the opportunity to socialize, and are exposed to other students’ prior knowledge
and experiences. I believe learning is maximized because they are able to take
advantage of a cooperative learning experience where everyone within the group is
working together to achieve a specific goal. The student activity portion of my
lesson always includes collaboration with other students.
This social development theory originated by, Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
where social interactions play an important role in cognitive development
exemplifies my belief in the need for student collaboration in the classroom to learn.
The teacher is a facilitator for discussion around what students need to learn. This is
something I had enjoyed in Mr. Arditos’ class last semester, being able to collaborate
with classmates to come to conclusions about the topic he wanted us to learn. The
zone of proximal development has been defined by Vygotsky as: "the distance
between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving
and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under
adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978).
According to McLeod (2010), “Vygotsky views interaction with peers as an effective
way of developing skills and strategies. Vygotsky suggests that teachers use
cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help
from more skillful peers. He also believed that when a student is at the zone of
proximal development for a particular task, providing the appropriate assistance
(scaffolding). This will give the student enough of a "boost" to achieve the task. Once
the student, with the benefit of scaffolding, masters the task, the scaffolding can then
be removed and the student will then be able to complete the task again on his
own.” This theory of having social interactions holds true not only for adolescents
but for adult learners as well. Collaborative activities teach students life skills such
as teamwork, communication and individual accountability. Students’ will be
internally motivated and that will be their incentive as they learn through discovery.
Using the Learning Theories and Model I researched and the student
motivation tactics were helpful in me discovering what my classroom will look like
next year. I want to start out with a more structured lesson; at the beginning of this
year I didn’t have such a structured lesson. They became more structured in
December. Where I saw my students more on task since there was routine in the
lesson. I want to keep doing activities I see work for my kids based on observations
of, make sure I get to know my students and collaborate with other teachers to find
out what strategies they use for motivation. The most important out of all these
things, which I learned through my research and observations, is getting to know
my students. If the students do not trust you and as a teacher you do not make an
attempt to see beyond behavior, it will be difficult to create a learning environment
where the student can learn or be motivated to learn.
References
1. Guisinger, S. & Blatt, S. J.(1994). Individuality and relatedness: Evolution of a
fundamental dialectic. American Psychologist. Vol 49(2)., 104-111
2. Johnson, J.A., Musial, D., Hall, G.E., & Gollnick, D.M. (2011). Foundations of
American Education: Perspectives on Education in a Changing World., 34
3. McLeod, S. (2010). Psychology Academic Articles for Students. Zone of Proximal
Development. Retrieved from: http://www.simplepsychology.org/zoneofproximal
development.html
4. Ong, W.J. (2003). Humanism. New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. 2nd ed.,182-193.
5. Seifert, K. (2012). Educational Psychology. Retrieved May 4, 2017, from
http://cnx.org/content/col11302/1.2/