Transcript Unit 3 Part 1

EDT 608
Unit 3
Educational Theorists
Copyright: Dr. Katie Klinger, 1999
All rights reserved.
• We will pretend in this lecture that we have a digital
aquarium on our computer in our classroom. The children
are encouraged to choose the fish they want in their own
aquariums. A review of such a software program is at this
web site: http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue43/chum.html
• Scroll down to the last article at this web site to read about
Something Fishy: Aquazone, available for under thirty
dollars.
• As I explain Skinner, Kohler, Gagne, Miller, Piaget, Vygotsky,
Bandura, and Gardner, I will be giving examples of how each
theory would apply to my digital aquarium. As a point of
reference, I will begin with Papert first as the foundation for
the other theorists.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Seymour Papert
• I have always been intrigued with Papert and his
theory of Constructivism.
• Reality, to Papert, is based solely on each
student’s individual experience with the digital
aquarium.
• Emphasis is on the fact that there is no right or
wrong way for a fish to look, for students to
interact with the aquarium, or for preset answers.
• The students will adjust their mental models to
include new experiences with their fish: learning
occurs through building and exploring the digital
aquarium alone and with peers.
EDT 608
B.F. Skinner
Unit 3
• Skinner felt that in operant conditioning, learning is based
on a stimulus response condition.
• Give a stimulus like an electrical shock, and the subject
receiving the shock will modify their behavior in order not
to receive that particular stimulus again.
• Therefore, the environment of stimuli directly influences
the response and its frequency or tendency to change.
• In a classroom situation, it is obvious that a teacher will
not use a Skinner box or a maze to lead the children in
learning. However, reinforcing stimulus such as bribery or
gold stars for exceptional performance is behavior
shaping activities directly controlled by the teacher.
EDT 608
Unit 3
B.F. Skinner
• The embarrassment of not having a gold star
can serve that same purpose as an electrical
shock, causing discomfort and a desire to avoid
this particular type of pain.
• For Skinner, reinforcement came in two flavors:
positive or negative.
• Positive reinforcement can be the self-fulfilling
prophecy with the teacher giving one student
more attention than the others can.
• Negative reinforcement can be the withdrawing
of attention or help by the teacher or peers.
EDT 608
Unit 3
B.F. Skinner
• Emphasis should be on positive reinforcement
from the teacher.
• I will create a positive climate with social
reinforces in my classroom as the students
interact with each other in the digital aquarium.
• Each student then becomes either a positive or
a negative social reinforcer to their peers as
their fish swim, live, and die in this artificial
environment.
• Behavior modification occurs as peer pressure
makes them redesign their fish to survive.
EDT 608
Kohler
Unit 3
• Kohler added to the base of Gestalt Psychology
by contributing the theory of Insight.
• This differed drastically from the Skinner
approach because insight did not depend directly
on conditioning or a stimulus-response situation.
• Instead, insight came into being when problem
solving, almost as an "ah-ha" exclamation inside
the brain.
• Learning certain behaviors was not dependent on
control by the environment or an external person.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Kohler
• Solutions to problems were the result of a
different pattern of organizational skills
and processes.
• The example given in the text is of the
apes learning to use tools to use food,
even to the point of assembling sticks to
reach a longer distance to the food.
• Insight stands alone as a mind process
that does not rely on any other variable.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Kohler
• Prior experience may facilitate the
insightful process, but it will not define it.
• Insight is the elusive butterfly of
psychology, and may be referenced as
divine inspiration in
• animals higher than the apes.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Kohler
• In applying Kohler to my classroom, I will give
the students clues in a puzzle format about all of
the fish in their digital aquarium.
• From the clues, the students will develop the
"ah-ha" of connecting the facts together to reach
new dimensions of thought.
• An assignment in the food chain of big versus
little fish, and what kinds of food they all eat, will
be the first setting for their "ah-ha" insight in
problem solving.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Gagne- Conditions of Learning
• One of the main points of these five conditions of
learning is that they exist to actually support
learning rather than analyze or redefine it.
• Gagne described them as "capabilities" because
educators love to be able to predict the outcome
of how much the learner has absorbed.
• However, one of the questions then becomes:
can the learner use the new knowledge in more
than just the one mode?
EDT 608
Unit 3
Gagne
• Cognitive structures of preexisting
knowledge, strategies for encoding
information for other uses, and general
strategies for problem solving are covered
in Gagne’s work.
• Each of the conditions of learning listed
below require different teaching methods
since each of the skills are also different in
origin, use, analysis and synthesis.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Gagne
• Gagne’s studies must have heavily
influenced Gardner’s multiple
intelligences, or at least supported the
results of his studies.
• I believe this to be true since each
student has their own strength in
learning, and this strength must have its
own unique source (multiple intelligence
theory, Gardner, 1992).
EDT 608
Unit 3
Gagne
• The digital aquarium in the classroom will apply to all five
varieties of learning: Verbal information: students
describe their fish using cues from teacher Intellectual
skills: students understand how colors are used as
camouflage on fish.
• Cognitive strategies: students develop x, y coordinates
as a design chart for a fish.
• Motor skills: students manually trace the fish onto graph
paper for design
• Attitudes: students are motivated to watch a film on fish
for new ideas
EDT 608
Unit 3
Miller- Information Processing
Theory
• Chunking theory is integral in teaching computer
concepts.
• Miller felt that we easily remember symbols,
number, letters in groups of 7, plus or minus two.
Our entire social system is now based on this
theory: our zip codes were 5 (7 -2) and are now
9 (7+2).
• Our social security numbers are within the range
of 7 +2, being 3+2+4, which adds up to 9.
• Our telephone systems are still locally within the
parameters of this theory with the numbers being
3 + 4 (7).
EDT 608
Unit 3
Miller
• Of course, our expansion into a national
and then further into a global society is
messing up the number system of 5, 7, 9,
but the original premise we use every day
is still valid.
• Chunking is an excellent way to learn
chess, checkers, road maps, recipes,
computer programming, and songs.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Miller
• The difficulty is that this chunking starts in
short term memory, and unless additional
and immediate reinforcement takes place,
it is volatile.
• That is where the rest of the information
processing theory come into play: getting
the chunks into long term memory through
encoding strategies of maintenance (drill
and practice) or elaborate (developing
links to prior information) rehearsal.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Applications
• The digital aquarium and its components will provide
opportunities for all students to excel in their own style of
learning in my classroom.
• The students who are linguistic will provide excellent
verbal descriptions of the fish.
• The logical-mathematical ones will enjoy the x,y
graphing exercise.
• The spatial students will shine when the fish are all put
up on the wall: they can now see the whole picture
before them, and they will use their imaginations for fish
interaction.
• The bodily kinesthetic will do well at the tracing and
hands on placement of fish onto the paper; they can also
move around, pretending that they are fish swimming
and fleeing from other fish.
EDT 608
Unit 3
Applications
• The musical learner can create songs that fish might
sing to each other, just like we sing to each other.
• The interpersonal students can organize the entire class
project, interviewing students as fish for a "fish"
newspaper.
• This would encourage the linguistic students to work with
the interpersonal students on the fish newspaper; it
would also provide an opportunity for the intrapersonal
learner, who prefers to work alone, to provide original
articles for the newspaper.
• The integration of all the multiple intelligences into a fish
program will provide success for all students at their own
levels
EDT 608
Unit 3
• Copyright © Dr. Katie Klinger, 1999
• All rights reserved.
• Email [email protected] for permission to
reproduce this presentation.