A Three Person Problem

Early in the Gong book the author establishes learning as a three-person problem. After reading this introduction I began to look for instances of it in my own learning process. The ever-illusive third person truly is key to the learning curve. I, for one, cannot store information in my mind for a long-term basis without first teaching it to someone else.

Often the person I teach is a classmate or even my husband. I've always done this. Once I finish homework in class I generally look about to find someone I can help. I don't think this is simply out of the charity of my heart. I actually think it's because subconsciously it made me more confident in my own answers if I was able to explain them to another.

I think a great contributor to the fact that information is better retained if it is taught is simply the fact that teaching promotes a personal ownership of the information. Everyone knows you can't give away something that wasn't yours in the first place. If a student is 1)understanding the information and 2)excited about the information enough to teach it you can be assured that it will be retained.

As a teacher, of course it is important to inform the students about the three person problem, but I think it is more important to structure the classroom in such a way that doing so does not seem immoral. Group work, seating arrangements and other factors can all work together to help a student feel as though instructing a classmate is not cheating. Organizing activities so that teaching becomes a built-in part of your curriculum will better help students take advantage of all aspects of the three person problem.

Building Bridges Across Learning Styles

Last week I learned something very interesting about my learning style. As Geoff taught about the various philosophers he organized them on the board under their respective fields: constructivism, behaviorism or cognitivism. The following week, he did the same thing, but he inadvertently switched their locations on the board. My visual/spatial awareness was thrown out of whack and for a brief moment I was panicked as to how to effectively take notes.

The thing that really surprised me was that I actually thought to myself, "Don't panic, just take a new set of notes and make a mental note that these two things switched." I had to remind myself that I was a responsible adult and that I could find a way to avert disaster.

It's important that teachers use a variety of teaching techniques in order to reach a greater number of students. I think that it is equally important to also instruct students on how to adapt an teaching style to their own needs. Helping students to build bridges from one learning style to another will help them know how to cope with situations in which their particular learning style is not being utilized. Because I had had ample opportunity to build those bridges, I as able to overcome the visual hardship and continue learning virtually uninterrupted.

Respecting Cognitivism in Constructivism

After Geoff's lecture on the various theories of teaching I came to a realization about how I came to learn of the world in general.

As a young child, I was under the impression that there was nothing outside my hometown. My family didn't travel much and the only television shows we watched were Star Trek, and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Star Trek was obviously fictitious, even to my young mind, and Dr. Quinn took place in my hometown of Colorado Springs. As a result my belief that Colorado Springs was the entire world was augmented.

Although this concept is obviously false to an outside observer, it was a strict reality to me. When I learned that Joseph Smith went to a grove of trees in New York to pray I immediately assumed it was the grove of trees near my house and that the hill on which that grove stood was called "New York".

When I learned about the Eiffel Tower I refused to believe it existed because I had not seen such a structure in my world of Colorado Springs. To me, Paris had to be fictitious because it did not fit into the parameters of my definition of the world.

As I got older I began to realize that the world was much bigger than I had initially imagined. It soon grew to be the state of Colorado, then to become the Mountain West, the United States and finally the World in general. The World in its entirety existed all along, but in my own mind the world did not exist. One cannot teach or learn about something that does not exist.

My reality of the world was strictly cognitive. There was much wrong with my cognitive, but there was also much right. My view of the world was skewed, but it was accurate to me. If we leave cognitivism alone, it can mislead us. But if we respect the fact that the world is what it is to us at the moment then we can learn and progress and adapt our cognitive process. Since then I have been to the Eiffel Tower, but it had become a reality to me much earlier than I actually experienced it. I had simply learned to see the world on a larger set of terms.

As a teacher, I think it is important to give cognitivism credit where it is due. Whether the student's personal reality matches truth or not, it is still real to them. My job as a teacher is to take advantage of what cognitivism did right for the student and then find ways to build upon it. There is no need to shatter the figurative world they live in, only to give it a different vision to be thought upon. That is when the Eiffel Tower will become real to them, and they will have increased understanding.

Expectations

One of the principles taught in the Wong textbook is the idea that an effective teacher communicates positive expectations. Reflecting upon my years of experience in school I see much evidence to support this idea. Every subject in which I felt successful was supported by a teacher who vocally supported the students and showed confidence in their abilities.

As a student, one of my favorite "first-day" activities (whether it be first day of school or first day of a unit) was for the teacher to show successful displays of students in former years. Seeing that other students just like me had created such effective work gave me confidence in my own work.

I recently saw this in action in TEE 125 when Geoff assigned us to make a communication collage. He showed an example of a student who went above and beyond the year before and made a soccer ball which had images of various types of communication. Before he showed that example my ideas for the project were small. I was thinking a poster-board with magazine clips cut out. Once I saw the example he gave, I suddenly thought much bigger. It enabled me to think outside the box, simply seeing that a student at my level had accomplished so much. It literally added a whole new dimension to my project, bringing it from a flat collage into an three-dimensional object.

I feel that if I strive to show my students successful examples of great work they will feel more capable of success and therefore put forth better effort, which in turn increases learning.