Glenda E.
Fahey
Wonderments
Prepare and post about 15 wonderments for Positive Discipline (Wolfgang, chapter 4)
Responses:
Lesson 4 - Jones' Approach - Wonderments
1. I wonder why, with all of our capacity for higher intelligence, "under stress, our brain downshifts to lower primal brain centers for purposes of survival." (Wolfgang, pg. 54) Wouldn't you think that our advanced capacity to think would have the ability to save us?
2. I wonder how you would be able to predict whether a student would go into fight or flight mode upon being challenged in proximity by a teacher. I don't think I would want to get too close to a student who might select "fight," especially at the adolescent or teen years. Are there overt signals, or does the teacher just have to get to know the student? I wonder if we would select our method of challenge based upon the knowledge that a particular student could explode forcefully.
3. I wonder about Jones' cardinal rule of, "Discipline comes before instruction," (Wolfgang, pg. 58) I have mixed feelings about this. I would agree that serious problems need to be addressed immediately, but I still believe that for the most part, instruction should be more important than most anything else in the classroom. I'll need to continue to ponder this.
4. I wonder if Ms. Dumas went through the limit-setting procedure before she relied on the medium backup response of sending Nancy out of the room on pg. 68. Or, was that behavior such that it warranted immediate action in removal of Nancy?
5. I wonder why Jones "questions the real value of after-school detention." (Wolfgang, pg. 70) It has appeared to be relatively successful in deterring negative behaviors in the schools I have worked in. I guess I don't see the hard connection between staying after school, and deciding all school attendance is punishment.
6. I wonder why Jones feels that parent conferences "rarely produce meaningful results." (Wolfgang, pg. 70) I agree that some parents are of little or no help, but I believe that there are many who will work with a teacher to bring about a change in their child's behaviors.
7. I wonder if the PAT might be considered a form of token economy.
8. I wonder if the omission training would focus too much attention on the difficult student's behavior by publicly drawing attention to the lack of it.
9. I wonder what Mr. Fox was thinking in withholding class rules and consequences from his students. I wonder if it makes him feel powerful to be able to surprise students with his explosions.
10. I wonder how long it would take for a teacher to internalize the specific movements, motions, looks, etc. that are required to be utilized in a particular sequence in Jones' model. It sounds as if everything has to be just so in order for it to work - much like assertive discipline - very scripted and deliberate. Maybe it doesn't take as long as it seems for it to become programmed and automatic. It feels like it would feel and look somewhat "clumsy" at first?
11. I wonder, since limit setting can be an "intrusive procedure," (Anderson, commentary) what the level of acceptance by teachers might be. I'm thinking that many would not be comfortable following this procedure?
12. I wonder how often it would be necessary to come up with new incentives.
13. I wonder how you can really keep parents out of the process of dealing with their child. I would think many would be affronted by the exclusion.
14. I wonder about the focus of Jones' approach being so firmly entrenched in the negative - stop the bad behavior, rather than in the positive - as Alfie Kohn states, "help children to become good people." (Wolfgang, pg. 82)
15. I wonder about the statement, "Most schools do very little planning on how out-of-classroom management will be done." (Wolfgang, pg. 80) Is he implying that the Positive Discipline Model is only in effect within the physical walls of a teacher's classroom?
References:
Anderson, Tom. Commentary on Lesson 4: Fredric Jones's Model - Teacher as Micro Manager
Wolfgang, Charles H. Solving Discipline and Classroom Management Problems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2001.
Lesson 5: Wondering About Chapter 1 in Mayer
Read the first chapter in the Mayer text and start the process of wondering. Simply start a new thread and contribute about 15 wonderments.
Responses:
Lesson 5 - Wondering About Ch. 1 in Mayer - Wonderments
1. I wonder how old the Wild Boy was (was it age 12, as Figure 1-1 implies?), how long he had been living in the forest, and from what age was he in the forest.
2. I wonder why, in Figure 1-1, a child living in the wild wouldn't be attentive to stimuli. I would think that survival would depend on constant attention to the environment around him.
3. I wonder why, if Dr. Itard believed in a learner-centered approach and attention to the needs and characteristics of the student, he would insist "that Victor use spoken rather than sign language." (Mayer, pg. 3) This seems contradictory.
4. I wonder how Thorndike came to believe that the problems of education would respond to "the exact methods of science." (Mayer, pg. 10) Education involves so many variables that influence one another, I don't think there is anything "exact" about it, really. (Apparently, William James agreed with me - "You make a great, a very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being a science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate classroom use." (Mayer, pg. 11)
5. I wonder if Trygg Engen's work on odor perception might alter the author's indication that sensory memory has brief duration. (Mayer, pg. 15) According to Engen, odors serve as quick and efficient "index keys" for our memory retrieval system. There are closer relationships between the individual detecting an odor, the circumstances or environment, and the reaction of pleasure or aversion than with the other senses. When future occasions present the same or similar odors, memory will bring back the early experience and directly affect the reaction to the new stimuli. (Engen 1991) I can recall memories connected to scents from my earliest childhood years.
6. I wonder what the average percentage would be of students who were classified as nonlearners, nonunderstanders, and understanders.
7. I wonder what circumstances cause students to be nonlearners or nonunderstanders. What happens to them, and when does this actually become evident? Is there a dysfunction in their cognitive processing?
8. I wonder how many of our students rely on memorization to learn.
9. I wonder if the way children really do learn has evolved to the same vast degree as the study of educational psychology itself. Do they learn in the same way today that they did in the past?
10. I wonder, as the experiences had by children today have changed significantly from the past, if they are having a different kind of affect on their learning.
11. I wonder if constructivism, which claims, "learning is not a process of transmission, but a process of construction," (Thornburg, 2000) is a result of the contextual approach to learning.
13. I wonder what further research on the contextual approach to instruction and learning will reveal - will it support the cognitive approach at all, or will it reveal something completely new?
14. I wonder how much our roles as teachers will change as students become more responsible for their education.
15. I wonder to what extent our seemingly well-established approaches to teaching might change as research is conducted and results published. Will this new information, either negating or affirming our current teaching practices, instill in us the need to affect real change in our methods of teaching?
References:
Engen, Trygg. (1991). Odor Sensation and Memory. Praeger Publishers, New York, NY.
Mayer, R. E., (2003). Learning and Instruction. Merrill Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J.
Thornburg, David. "Constructivism in Practice. PBS TeacherLine. March 2000
Lesson 10: Wondering About Problem-Solving
When you read chapter 12 in Mayer, record and post at least 15 wonderments.
Responses:
1. I wonder if our more focused efforts at involving children in preschool education programs is contributing to increased IQ scores. Our more educated society - more emphasis on education overall?
2. I wonder if there could possibly be one generalized plan for problem-solving. There are so many strategies and so many different types of problems that I wonder if it is practical to consider general problem-solving strategies can be taught effectively for a multitude of domains.
3. If Lochhead says "we should be teaching students how to think; instead we are primarily teaching them what to think," (Mayer, 408) I wonder how drastic will our teaching and assessment changes have to be to address this reflection.
4. I wonder how we can address the teaching of problem-solving strategies more effectively and still look at assessment in the same way.
5. I've never seen Feuerstein's Instructional Enrichment program before. If its evaluation showed increases in spatial and mathematical reasoning when the program was properly administered, why hasn't it become more widespread?
6. I wonder if the resulting improvements in intelligence resulting in Project Intelligence would continue beyond the first year of testing?
7. I wonder if research has been done on the teaching of problem-solving skills with very young children.
8. I wonder if Gardners Multiple Intelligence Theory would lend itself to problem-solving in the domains of his identified intelligences.
9. McAllister claims that "it is not logically possible to understand a problem before solving the problem. An understood problem is a solved problem. The plan for solving a problem cannot be made before solving the problem. the plan evolves as the problem is solved." (McAllister) I wonder if this is contradictory, somewhat to Polya's teaching of problem solving. (Mayer, 404)
10. I wonder if working with puzzles would impact student's abilities to problem solve.
11. I wonder if moving in the direction of problem-based learning would make a significant difference in students' abilities to problem solve. What would be the effect on standardized tests?
12. I wonder if the Big6 information literacy model is an effective information problem solving strategy. (Big6) Its application seems to be limited to approaching information-based questioning.
13. I wonder if it is at all possible to really understand how problem solving occurs in an individual. Is everyone so different that we can't form many generalized conclusions about it?
14. I wonder if our district's emphasis on manipulative use in Math will give students a better grasp of concrete concepts and help them to become better problem solvers.
15. The format of the Math portion of the ISAT has placed emphasis on written problem solutions in the past few years. I wonder if this practice of writing out the steps to solving a problem will make students better problem solvers.
References:
"Big6: An Informational Problem-Solving Process." What is the Big6?. Big6 Associates, LLC. 24 Apr 2004. <http://www.big6.com/showarticle.php?id=415>.
Mayer, R. E., (2003). Learning and Instruction. Merrill Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J.
McAllister, Howard. How to Solve Problems. 21st Century Problem Solving. 24 Apr 2004. <http://www.hawaii.edu/suremath/solveIt.html>.
Lesson 13 - Wondering About Glasser and Dreikurs
Glasser is a big proponent of the class meeting and was one of the first model builders to discuss its use in detail (Glasser, The Quality School, 1990)
Describe the class meeting. Do you, or someone youknow, use the class meeting as part of your classroom procedures, or your family procedures, perhaps? How does it work?
Do the asynchronous properties of networked computers offer students and teachers a way to use "cber" class meetings in some creative ways?
Responses:
Chapter 7 - The Social Discipline Model of Rudolf Dreikurs - Adlerian Theory
1. I wonder how I would react to the situation with Mr. Garcia and Ronald Foster's sexual harassment of the girl in front of him in class. Not so calmly as Mr. Garcia, I'm sure.
2. I wonder if Dreikurs approach would be effective when dealing with a misbehaving child with hyperactive disorder. Would their inner goals be somehow affected by this?
3. I'm having just a little trouble with dealing with Ronald's attention-getting behavior in such a mild way. I'm all for finding the root of his behavior, but he unhooked a girl's bra! That seems to qualify for a much more serious tactic than asking him if he wants attention and inviting him to a class meeting - maybe expulsion or at least suspension, but immediate removal from the classroom.
4. I wonder if the girl's family will press charges!
5. I wonder if removing all classroom rewards for the child who cannot conceivably "win" is appropriate when that reward system might work very well for many other students.
6. I wonder how it would be possible to find room in the hectic daily classroom schedule for daily class meetings. I don't doubt their value, but time is so limited. Could they be held less frequently - say once a week, and still be effective?
7. I wonder if a student would feel embarrassed or "on the spot" if his behavior was discussed in an open group meeting where everyone could comment.
8. I wonder if the phenomenon of "pack behavior" could be an accelerated or extreme version of the "outside aggressor" phenomenon.
9. I wonder if, when we empower one student through social engineering, we encourage the others to resent that student even more.
10. I wonder how easy it would be to make a student on the Most Wanted List believe that the adults involved in the campaign are not "phony," but sincere in their attempts to shower him with kindness that might be considered out of character to the student.
Chapter 8 - Glasser's Reality Therapy, Control Theory, and the Quality School
1. I wonder if students would eventually "learn" the appropriate, contrite responses to questions about their behaviors - in other words, say the "right" thing, whether or not they really intend to comply.
2. I wonder how other children would react to the misbehaving child receiving reward or privilege for appropriate behavior.
3. I wonder how you would confirm that your classroom is an "exciting place" and that the one student misbehaving must have some other issue beyond the classroom. Perhaps your other students are just more able to contain themselves through the boredom.
4. I wonder about Glasser's ideas that parents should be uninvolved with their child's behavior in school, and not be made aware of the problems. I think many parents would have difficulty in not knowing what was going on.
5. I wonder if more difficult students would get "caught" in the isolation with the teacher questioning cycle. Might they become increasingly noncompliant as they feel threatened or challenged?
6. I wonder if solutions generated by class meetings would take the place of established classroom rules and consequences - or, do these even exist?
7. I wonder if it makes sense to hold onto issues and not deal with them until the next regularly scheduled class meeting - or can a meeting be called in a kind of emergency or as-needed basis?
8, I wonder if the student whose behavior is being discussed openly by each of his classmates during class meeting feels as though he is being ganged up on. Wouldn't it actually serve to emphasize his difference or make him an outside aggressor?
9. I wonder if classroom discipline should be viewed as a democratic process, with students participating in the determination of how we should deal with a student.
10. I wonder how schools can promise that every lesson taught in every subject in every classroom would be guaranteed to be exciting to every student. Curriculum requirements dictate lesson content, and even the most exciting teacher can't ensure that no student will ever be uninterested in anything. And, what about students who don't care if they are removed - the ones who actually prefer to be removed?
References:
Mayer, R. E., (2003). Learning and Instruction. Merrill Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J.