THE END OF THE ROAD

The end of the semester has finally come.  It has been an interesting class and I have learned so many important facts and theories that I will take with me into my future classroom.  When teaching students, you have learned how to differentiate your instructional lessons and adapt to different personalities and learning abilities.  This course has given be the background into a child’s mind and how psychology and education are intertwined.  Within a classroom diversity exists everywhere.  It is important that as a teacher you learn how to adjust and present topics in a way that each of your student’s can easily grasp the information.  At the start of this course I had a basic understanding of psychology but I truly had no idea about all of the theorists and what they had brought to education.  Reading each of my classmate’s projects on the various theorists really helped me delve into their minds.  For my project I was given Jerome Butler, who supported a constructivist approach.  His theory on learning placed the child into a classroom and gave him/her control of their learning.  They became the scientists and it opened their minds up to a world of discovery and learning.  Teaching a lesson through inquiry based learning allows the student to have a hands on experience and take away a great deal from what they are given.  You give the student the necessary materials and allow them to figure things out on their own.  I also saw how collaborative thinking can help a child struggling to easily process information.  Peer-to-peer work can foster thinking that a student who may not understand a topic can now excel in.  I truly enjoyed this class and I only wish that it lasted longer.  Five weeks is just not enough time to fully grasp all of the information put in front of you.  I gained an extensive background to useful information that I will be able to bring into my own classroom.  I will be able to look back on this information and share it effectively and efficiently with my own students.

Cluster test:

Legend key to topics:  Difficult /  Educationally Challenging  /  Enlightening    

Cluster	test score	reflection
1 - Learning, Teaching, and Educational Psychology	91.7%	This cluster allowed me to understand what is required to become someone that provides “good teaching” to my students.
2 - Cognitive Development	100%	I have a better understanding of how cognitive development happens using the views of Piaget and Vygotsky.
3 - The Self, Social, and Moral Development	100%	It is important to understand the physical development of children.  The theory Bronfenbrenner described using his theory using the biological model represents this well.
4 - Learner Differences and Learning Needs	93.75%	Understanding multiple intelligence covered by Gardner’s theory was key to grasping this concept.  It is essential to offer students lessons that incorporate their different intelligences.
5 - Language Development, Language Diversity, and Immigrant Education	85.7%	Learning about the importance of how language is acquired and developed to support children is key to teaching them.
6 - Culture and Diversity	90.9%	The classrooms of today incorporate many cultures and as educators we are responsible to include them in our lessons and classroom environments.
7 - Behavioral Views of Learning	92.9%	Key to understanding how Skinner's Operant Conditioning can be used in a classroom to manage behaviors.
8 - Cognitive Views of Learning	100%	Remembering how different areas of memory allow for learning to occur.  Develop students understanding of how their memory works so they can accomplish learning information.
9 - Complex Cognitive Process	100%	Grasp how different learning strategies are needed to reach all students.
10 - The Learning Sciences and Constructivism	100%	Learn how knowledge is constructed and how Vygotsky’s Social Constructivism is an important part of understanding knowledge.
11 - Social Cognitive Views of Learning and Motivation	100%	Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory illustrated how observational learning is essential for children.  The importance of self-efficacy and self-regulated learning.
12 - Motivation in Learning and Teaching	100%	Relating the needs of students to what motivates them.  Understanding the five approaches used to motivate others in education.
13 - Creating Learning Environments	100%	Including organization, creating and maintaining positive learning environments, dealing with discipline problems and the need for communication in the classroom.
14 - Teaching Every Student	100%	Ensure planning to offer differentiated instruction is done to reach every child’s needs.
15 - Classroom Assessment, Grading, and Standardized Testing	95.2%	Provide testing that is authentic and measurements are both reliable and valid.

This course really challenged me to think about many topics and areas.  I found some of the material easy to understand and some of more difficult. I really enjoyed learning why students learn the way that they do.  I liked how the theories related to why students make the decisions that they do.