The History of Pedagogical Theory
defining_theory.docx | |
File Size: | 45 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Coming to an Understanding of the History of Teaching English Language Arts
(excerpts from defining_theory.dcox)
(excerpts from defining_theory.dcox)
Rosenblatt explains that she found herself as a “voice warning against all such extremist pendulum swings.” She spent years attacking New Critics, only to realize a need to seek a redress of balance: “I say a lot about the impact of the reader’s personality and experience on what is made out of text. But I do not reject responsibility to the text” (1976). She continues by allowing New Critics to take ownership of their contribution in rescuing literature from becoming a solely historical or biographical experience. However she rejects their view that a text (a poem) is a closed system apart from the author and the reader. Here is where Rosenblatt explains the Literacy Experience as being paramount to the teaching of literature. In her Coda: A Performing Art she writes, “Here, then, is another important implication of the emphasis on the essentially personal character of literary experience: It forces us to recognize that in the classroom, if we are to keep literature alive, we cannot completely separate the technical, the esthetic, from the human meaning of the work.” Wilhelm does a fine job refining Rosenblatt’s point of the aesthetic:
As part of her argument she [Rosenblatt] makes an interesting move away from the view that “reading is reading” by drawing a distinction between “efferent” and “aesthetic” reading. Efferent reading is pursued when readers adopt a stance in which they are concerned with what information they can “take away” from the reading. The text is treated as consisting of information. The aesthetic stance, however, is maintained for the purpose of “living through” an experience that is enjoyed while reading. Texts themselves are not intrinsically literary or nonliterary; the stand taken toward a text is what makes the reading aesthetic or efferent (1997).
Essentially, Rosenblatt’s Literary Experience is a response to the pit falls of New Criticism. Rosenblatt explains, “No one else can read a literary work for us. The benefits of literature can emerge only from the creative activity on the part of the reader himself…The verbal symbols enable him to draw on his past experiences with what the words point to in life and literature” (1976).
In other words because readers have diverse preoccupations and diverse interest, what they make of a work will vary within different situations and vary within different parts of a reader’s life. In the end, “the experience of literature, far from being for the reader a passive process of absorption, is a form of intense personal activity” (Rosenblatt, 1976). Britton essentially agrees with Rosenblatt in Talking to Learn, (1986) by stating, “Learners must bring with them whatever they already know and believe and attempt to re-invent that in the light of the evidence offered. Interpreting the new and reinterpreting the familiar are the two faces of one coin.” Britton fine tunes the underlying notion Rosenblatt creates within her definition of Literary Experience, by implying that a large amount of “the experience” relies heavily on the readers background, knowledge, and personal experience. Squire furthers Britton’s point in his Ten Great Ideas in the Teaching of English During the Past Half Century (1985) when he confirms that Rosenblatt’s Literary Experience does imply that what the reader brings into the text will largely determine their take away. Squire continues by pointing out how Rosenblatt’s definition of Literary Experience became the ground work for the understanding that prior experience is important for cognitive development of the reader.
A continued discussion on the Literary Experience would lead me to Applebee and the notion of scaffold instruction, Atwell’s insistence on student choice as the vehicle into the “Reading Zone”, to Fischer’s point that our experience with literature can be skewed by social and personal experiences, and finally to Cormack’s point that the Literacy Experience is shaped by how one is taught and how one learns. From the discussion of Rosenblatt groundbreaking Literary Experience I would ascertain the need to explore the same scholars and their ideas of what the teaching of reading looks like and how students actually complete the action of “learn.” I must also take time to acknowledge that my focus thus far has primarily been on reading instruction. My focus on the instruction of reading is in no way indicative of my attitude towards writing or language instruction. I simply decided to focus on reading instruction for the purposes I have been summoned to fulfill within my school.
And finally, Britton (1986) concludes that if I was to remain narrow in my professional understanding and view of instruction and the history of my profession, that I would become a detriment to my own profession. In the end, as Langer and Applebee (1986) explain, I approach what I teach and how I teach based on the varying experiences I have as an instructor. Some experience may be more significant, reflecting, or perhaps even foster different modes of thinking and reasoning. If I am to continue to foster a reform that is not an imposition of, as Rosenblatt (1976) states, “fiat” or a reform that does not lead to my “doom,” then I must do so with an active understanding of the teaching profession.
As part of her argument she [Rosenblatt] makes an interesting move away from the view that “reading is reading” by drawing a distinction between “efferent” and “aesthetic” reading. Efferent reading is pursued when readers adopt a stance in which they are concerned with what information they can “take away” from the reading. The text is treated as consisting of information. The aesthetic stance, however, is maintained for the purpose of “living through” an experience that is enjoyed while reading. Texts themselves are not intrinsically literary or nonliterary; the stand taken toward a text is what makes the reading aesthetic or efferent (1997).
Essentially, Rosenblatt’s Literary Experience is a response to the pit falls of New Criticism. Rosenblatt explains, “No one else can read a literary work for us. The benefits of literature can emerge only from the creative activity on the part of the reader himself…The verbal symbols enable him to draw on his past experiences with what the words point to in life and literature” (1976).
In other words because readers have diverse preoccupations and diverse interest, what they make of a work will vary within different situations and vary within different parts of a reader’s life. In the end, “the experience of literature, far from being for the reader a passive process of absorption, is a form of intense personal activity” (Rosenblatt, 1976). Britton essentially agrees with Rosenblatt in Talking to Learn, (1986) by stating, “Learners must bring with them whatever they already know and believe and attempt to re-invent that in the light of the evidence offered. Interpreting the new and reinterpreting the familiar are the two faces of one coin.” Britton fine tunes the underlying notion Rosenblatt creates within her definition of Literary Experience, by implying that a large amount of “the experience” relies heavily on the readers background, knowledge, and personal experience. Squire furthers Britton’s point in his Ten Great Ideas in the Teaching of English During the Past Half Century (1985) when he confirms that Rosenblatt’s Literary Experience does imply that what the reader brings into the text will largely determine their take away. Squire continues by pointing out how Rosenblatt’s definition of Literary Experience became the ground work for the understanding that prior experience is important for cognitive development of the reader.
A continued discussion on the Literary Experience would lead me to Applebee and the notion of scaffold instruction, Atwell’s insistence on student choice as the vehicle into the “Reading Zone”, to Fischer’s point that our experience with literature can be skewed by social and personal experiences, and finally to Cormack’s point that the Literacy Experience is shaped by how one is taught and how one learns. From the discussion of Rosenblatt groundbreaking Literary Experience I would ascertain the need to explore the same scholars and their ideas of what the teaching of reading looks like and how students actually complete the action of “learn.” I must also take time to acknowledge that my focus thus far has primarily been on reading instruction. My focus on the instruction of reading is in no way indicative of my attitude towards writing or language instruction. I simply decided to focus on reading instruction for the purposes I have been summoned to fulfill within my school.
And finally, Britton (1986) concludes that if I was to remain narrow in my professional understanding and view of instruction and the history of my profession, that I would become a detriment to my own profession. In the end, as Langer and Applebee (1986) explain, I approach what I teach and how I teach based on the varying experiences I have as an instructor. Some experience may be more significant, reflecting, or perhaps even foster different modes of thinking and reasoning. If I am to continue to foster a reform that is not an imposition of, as Rosenblatt (1976) states, “fiat” or a reform that does not lead to my “doom,” then I must do so with an active understanding of the teaching profession.
Metacognition
final_lit_review.docx | |
File Size: | 36 kb |
File Type: | docx |
artifact_recip_tell-tale_heart.docx | |
File Size: | 22 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Coming to an Understanding of Metacognition and Reciprocal Teaching
(excerpts from final_lit_review.docx)
(excerpts from final_lit_review.docx)
The term [metacognition] was first introduced by John Flavell in the early 1970s. By 1976, Flavell continues to explore metacognition by strategically separating learning (thinking) strategies into cognitive and metacognitive types. According to Flavell, “Cognitive strategies ‘facilitate’ learning and task completion, whereas metacognitive strategies ‘monitor’ the process [of learning and thinking]” (PP 6). Over the next decade, the theories and understandings of metacognitive strategies continue to evolve into strategies that force the reader/learner/thinker to become aware of their own thinking as they read, write, and solve problems. Metacognitive strategies also force teachers to reconstruct their classroom environments to accommodate “flexible and creative strategic learning” (PP 2).
Metacognition is important because it helps readers monitor and control their learning. By requiring them to monitor their learning, they are in essence monitoring their comprehension. When and if the reader finds that they do not comprehend the text, then metacognition strategies require them to think critical and creatively about why they do not comprehend the text (Serran 15-16). In conclusion, two different studies that I read – Houtveen’s and van de Grift’s study, and Eliers’s and Pinkley’s study – concluded with the same results: improvement in metacognitive skills leads to better results in comprehension and when metacognitive strategies for comprehending are explicitly taught, comprehension improves.
There is an acknowledgement of fault in Flavell’s original theory of metacognition in that it ignores the importance and need for student motivation. Therefore, newer models of metacognitive strategies include both the thinking processes of Flavell’s definition and new motivational processes: “The traditional cognitive-metacognitive approach has been integrated with the motivational-metacognitive approach to explain the development and success of learning in schoolchildren” (PP 9).
Motivation is important because adolescent readers (especially middle school students) are “readers in transition” – a phrase coined by Broaddus and Ivey in 2000. In other words, they are still developing reading skills as well as structural analysis skills (Serran 2). Because adolescent readers are in this period of transition they are less motivated intrinsically and need extrinsic motivation in order to be successful readers.
For example, in Kyle’s presentation of the Schema Theory he explains that everything we learn is connected and interrelated to what we already know or understand about the world. He explains that in literature characters, plots, and settings are connected to our prior knowledge. We enter a text thinking of people that may remind us of the characters; we enter a text thinking what experiences we may have had that are similar to the plot; and we enter a text reflecting on our own experiences with a similar setting. Because of our prior knowledge we approach literature with expectations. In essence, the Schema Theory is one in which the reader must enter a text with an awareness of their prior knowledge and then explore the text for a culmination and synthesis of their new knowledge with their old. In other words, the Schema Theory has a metacognitive backbone.
Through my review, I learned that I can easily incorporate metacognitive thinking into my teaching by simply activating prior knowledge and by requiring my students to use text layout to make predictions, what Guerlene Serran refers to as teaching effective study skills by teaching students how text are organized. Metacognitive thinking can also be practiced by requiring my students to stop during reading and make frequent predictions and by teaching my students how to read “selectively” by showing them what to read carefully, what to read quickly, what not to read, what to re-read, and so-on. Additional examples of metacognitive teaching are seen in the strategies that draw from, compare, and integrate students’ prior knowledge with material in the text and through the teacher’s periodic monitoring of student understanding of the text.
Metacognition is important because it helps readers monitor and control their learning. By requiring them to monitor their learning, they are in essence monitoring their comprehension. When and if the reader finds that they do not comprehend the text, then metacognition strategies require them to think critical and creatively about why they do not comprehend the text (Serran 15-16). In conclusion, two different studies that I read – Houtveen’s and van de Grift’s study, and Eliers’s and Pinkley’s study – concluded with the same results: improvement in metacognitive skills leads to better results in comprehension and when metacognitive strategies for comprehending are explicitly taught, comprehension improves.
There is an acknowledgement of fault in Flavell’s original theory of metacognition in that it ignores the importance and need for student motivation. Therefore, newer models of metacognitive strategies include both the thinking processes of Flavell’s definition and new motivational processes: “The traditional cognitive-metacognitive approach has been integrated with the motivational-metacognitive approach to explain the development and success of learning in schoolchildren” (PP 9).
Motivation is important because adolescent readers (especially middle school students) are “readers in transition” – a phrase coined by Broaddus and Ivey in 2000. In other words, they are still developing reading skills as well as structural analysis skills (Serran 2). Because adolescent readers are in this period of transition they are less motivated intrinsically and need extrinsic motivation in order to be successful readers.
For example, in Kyle’s presentation of the Schema Theory he explains that everything we learn is connected and interrelated to what we already know or understand about the world. He explains that in literature characters, plots, and settings are connected to our prior knowledge. We enter a text thinking of people that may remind us of the characters; we enter a text thinking what experiences we may have had that are similar to the plot; and we enter a text reflecting on our own experiences with a similar setting. Because of our prior knowledge we approach literature with expectations. In essence, the Schema Theory is one in which the reader must enter a text with an awareness of their prior knowledge and then explore the text for a culmination and synthesis of their new knowledge with their old. In other words, the Schema Theory has a metacognitive backbone.
Through my review, I learned that I can easily incorporate metacognitive thinking into my teaching by simply activating prior knowledge and by requiring my students to use text layout to make predictions, what Guerlene Serran refers to as teaching effective study skills by teaching students how text are organized. Metacognitive thinking can also be practiced by requiring my students to stop during reading and make frequent predictions and by teaching my students how to read “selectively” by showing them what to read carefully, what to read quickly, what not to read, what to re-read, and so-on. Additional examples of metacognitive teaching are seen in the strategies that draw from, compare, and integrate students’ prior knowledge with material in the text and through the teacher’s periodic monitoring of student understanding of the text.
How the Use of Reciprocal Teaching Method Improved Student Learning
TPAC and 21st Century Skills
eci_546.docx | |
File Size: | 28 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Coming to an Understanding of Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK)
(excerpts from eci_546.docx)
(excerpts from eci_546.docx)
Punya Mishra and Matt Koehler (2008) said it best in their SITE Keynote on-line presentation, “teaching is messy.” As an 8th grade teacher I’m asked to design, instruct, and assess a curriculum comprised of six competency goals broken down into sixteen objectives, while creating a learning environment that is inclusive, safe, and nurturing, while incorporating and building upon student’s global citizenship skills, while promoting creativity, teaching of new Literacies, and reinforcing 21st century technology skills, while managing the day to day operations of teaching – parent communication, extra duty responsibilities, leadership responsibilities, maintenance of a classroom with 25 laptops, and let’s not forget grading student work and providing adequate, timely, and meaningful feedback. Shewey! Teaching is messy.
Mishra and Koehler (2008) remind me to assess each technological tool I plan on using to determine its freshness, its ability to be unique, valuable, important, logical, and easily integrated in the content so that a learning experience that is both well crafted and whole can be created. I try to evaluate every new tool or technology I use with TPCK’s guidelines in mind. Nevertheless, sometimes, inevitably, I try a new tool with my students only to find out that I do have to take more time to fine tune, what Mishra and Koehler deem as the knob effect, in order to create a stronger TPCK balance.
I have three professional goals. First, reflect on traditional delivery and assessment methods and determine how to update these methods for a 1:1 setting. Second, understand, determine, and define the literacy skills students will need in order to learn within the modern 21st century methods of pedagogy I plan on using within the 1:1 setting. And finally my third goal is to create a learning environment that allows the digital native to explore, develop, and practice rudimentary literacies within new literacies.
I have found my experience within the New Literacies in Global Learning at NCSU to be very valuable in my understanding of the need for new literacies in the classroom and in helping me to define and develop these new literacies. For example, in this class I greatly appreciated the exposure to Julie Coiro and Donald J. Leu, et al. I do believe that I need to move my Language Arts instruction in the direction of incorporating the National Institute of Literacy’s five facets or skills to literacy with the new literacy skills needed for reading non-linear text. Non-linear texts (websites) require a new set of facets or skills to literacy.
I can determine that there are new literacies I must focus on within teaching. For example, students need to know how to self assess when reading because students need to know when a hyperlink is worth the click that will move them away from the original reading. Furthermore, students need to know how to evaluate reliability, accountability, and relativity when researching on-line. As Coiro (2003) points out, today’s student-researcher has to move beyond the basic skills of research and evaluate within a glance the validity of online information, evaluate within a glance commercial propaganda and bias, fact versus opinion, and truth from fiction (Process section, para 1). For the non digital native, prior to on-line text and research, these literacy steps were nonexistent because such evaluation was completed by publishing houses and school media specialist. When I was in 8th grade my research sources were predetermined for me. The skills taught to me were card cataloging, indexing, skimming, and paraphrasing. With my students today I’m teaching on-line search engines, on-line directories, on-line evaluation and reliability before I can even touch on the basic literacy skills used in rudimentary research.
I strongly agree with Daniel Pink and Thomas Friedman that we are moving away from an age of analytical, linear thinking and into an age of conceptualism that requires creative, right brain thinkers. And as I’ve already mentioned, I also agree with Laurie A. Henry that there is a critical need to define and establish the new literacies needed for on-line searching. I also agree with Rindi and Mark Baildon that “criteria for selecting sources of information [in on-line research] seem to be in short supply” (p. 636). I validate Spires’s and Zhang’s (2008) research in that I feel the pressure to “align assessments and standards with 21st century skills and teaching and learning expectations” (p. 15) and strongly feel that if the American education system is to compete on a global playing field that this theme of alignment must be placed at the forefront.
Mishra and Koehler (2008) remind me to assess each technological tool I plan on using to determine its freshness, its ability to be unique, valuable, important, logical, and easily integrated in the content so that a learning experience that is both well crafted and whole can be created. I try to evaluate every new tool or technology I use with TPCK’s guidelines in mind. Nevertheless, sometimes, inevitably, I try a new tool with my students only to find out that I do have to take more time to fine tune, what Mishra and Koehler deem as the knob effect, in order to create a stronger TPCK balance.
I have three professional goals. First, reflect on traditional delivery and assessment methods and determine how to update these methods for a 1:1 setting. Second, understand, determine, and define the literacy skills students will need in order to learn within the modern 21st century methods of pedagogy I plan on using within the 1:1 setting. And finally my third goal is to create a learning environment that allows the digital native to explore, develop, and practice rudimentary literacies within new literacies.
I have found my experience within the New Literacies in Global Learning at NCSU to be very valuable in my understanding of the need for new literacies in the classroom and in helping me to define and develop these new literacies. For example, in this class I greatly appreciated the exposure to Julie Coiro and Donald J. Leu, et al. I do believe that I need to move my Language Arts instruction in the direction of incorporating the National Institute of Literacy’s five facets or skills to literacy with the new literacy skills needed for reading non-linear text. Non-linear texts (websites) require a new set of facets or skills to literacy.
I can determine that there are new literacies I must focus on within teaching. For example, students need to know how to self assess when reading because students need to know when a hyperlink is worth the click that will move them away from the original reading. Furthermore, students need to know how to evaluate reliability, accountability, and relativity when researching on-line. As Coiro (2003) points out, today’s student-researcher has to move beyond the basic skills of research and evaluate within a glance the validity of online information, evaluate within a glance commercial propaganda and bias, fact versus opinion, and truth from fiction (Process section, para 1). For the non digital native, prior to on-line text and research, these literacy steps were nonexistent because such evaluation was completed by publishing houses and school media specialist. When I was in 8th grade my research sources were predetermined for me. The skills taught to me were card cataloging, indexing, skimming, and paraphrasing. With my students today I’m teaching on-line search engines, on-line directories, on-line evaluation and reliability before I can even touch on the basic literacy skills used in rudimentary research.
I strongly agree with Daniel Pink and Thomas Friedman that we are moving away from an age of analytical, linear thinking and into an age of conceptualism that requires creative, right brain thinkers. And as I’ve already mentioned, I also agree with Laurie A. Henry that there is a critical need to define and establish the new literacies needed for on-line searching. I also agree with Rindi and Mark Baildon that “criteria for selecting sources of information [in on-line research] seem to be in short supply” (p. 636). I validate Spires’s and Zhang’s (2008) research in that I feel the pressure to “align assessments and standards with 21st century skills and teaching and learning expectations” (p. 15) and strongly feel that if the American education system is to compete on a global playing field that this theme of alignment must be placed at the forefront.
Digital Learning Models
Coming to an Understanding of Design in Digital Learning
http://thevietnamdilemma.weebly.com
http://learnpoetry.weebly.com
Coming to an Understanding of the Breadth of Creativity in Multi-Genre Writing and Technological Tools
http://enolagayb29.weebly.com
http://thevietnamdilemma.weebly.com
http://learnpoetry.weebly.com
Coming to an Understanding of the Breadth of Creativity in Multi-Genre Writing and Technological Tools
http://enolagayb29.weebly.com