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Anthony Armstrong

Self-efficacy defined - 0 views

www.des.emory.edu/eff.html

fso-ede

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Thus, individuals are viewed both as products and as producers of their own environments and of their social systems.
  • Hence, social cognitive theory posits that factors such as economic conditions, socioeconomic status, and educational and familial structures do not affect human behavior directly. Instead, they affect it to the degree that they influence people's aspirations, self-efficacy beliefs, personal standards, emotional states, and other self-regulatory influences.
  • This is because unless people believe that their actions can produce the outcomes they desire, they have little incentive to act or to persevere in the face of difficulties.
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  • self-efficacy beliefs touch virtually every aspect of people's lives�whether they think productively, self-debilitatingly, pessimistically or optimistically; how well they motivate themselves and persevere in the face of adversities; their vulnerability to stress and depression, and the life choices they make. Self-efficacy is also a critical determinant of self-regulation.
  • As a consequence, people's accomplishments are generally better predicted by their self-efficacy beliefs than by their previous attainments, knowledge, or skills. Of course, no amount of confidence or self-appreciation can produce success when requisite skills and knowledge are absent.
Anthony Armstrong

SEDL Letter Volume IX, Number 3: Constructivism - The Practice Implications of Construc... - 0 views

www.sedl.org/...practice.html

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Constructivism's central idea is that human learning is constructed, that learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning.
  • learners come to learning situations with knowledge gained from previous experience, and that prior knowledge influences what new or modified knowledge they will construct from new learning experiences.
  • The second notion is that learning is active rather than passive
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  • Learners remain active throughout this process: they apply current understandings, note relevant elements in new learning experiences, judge the consistency of prior and emerging knowledge, and based on that judgment, they can modify knowledge.
  • First, teaching cannot be viewed as the transmission of knowledge from enlightened to unenlightened; constructivist teachers do not take the role of the "sage on the stage." Rather, teachers act as "guides on the side" who provide students with opportunities to test the adequacy of their current understandings.
  • teachers must note that knowledge and provide learning environments that exploit inconsistencies between learners' current understandings and the new experiences before them. This challenges teachers, for they cannot assume that all children understand something in the same way. Further, children may need different experiences to advance to different levels of understanding.
  • teachers must engage students in learning, bringing students' current understandings to the forefront.
  • learning experiences incorporate problems that are important to students, not those that are primarily important to teachers and the educational system.
  • Teachers can also encourage group interaction, where the interplay among participants helps individual students become explicit about their own understanding by comparing it to that of their peers.
  • Ample time facilitates student reflection about new experiences, how those experiences line up against current understandings, and how a different understanding might provide students with an improved (not "correct") view of the world.
  • Constructivist professional development give teachers time to make explicit their understandings of learning (e.g., is it a constructive process?), of teaching (e.g., is a teacher an orator or a facilitator, and what is the teacher's understanding of content?), and of professional development (e.g., is a teacher's own learning best approached through a constructivist orientation?). Furthermore, such professional development provides opportunities for teachers to test their understandings and build new ones. Training that affects student-centered teaching cannot come in one-day workshops. Systematic, long-term development that allows practice - and reflection on that practice - is required.
  • Teachers teach as they are taught, not as they are told to teach. Thus, trainers in constructivist professional development sessions model learning activities that teachers can apply in their own classrooms. It is not enough for trainers to describe new ways of teaching and expect teachers to translate from talk to action; it is more effective to engage teachers in activities that will lead to new actions in classrooms
Anthony Armstrong

BBC - History - British History in depth: Was the American Revolution Inevitable? - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...american_revolution_01.shtml

americanrevolution salutary neglect

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 05 Sep 11 - Cached
  • In consequence a strong tradition of self-government developed in the colonies and colonists jealously guarded their political rights which they saw as theirs because they were British.
  • Paradoxically, it was Parliament, supposedly the guardian of British liberty, which seemed to endanger the liberties of Britons in America in 1765. In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, British political leaders and imperial administrators sought to assert greater control over the far-flung parts of the empire and in so doing they came into conflict with the political traditions and assumptions of the colonists who resisted what they saw as unconstitutional parliamentary innovation
Anthony Armstrong

SEDL Letter Volume IX, Number 3: Constructivism - Is It Constructivism? - 0 views

www.sedl.org/...construct.html

constructivism

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Start with what students know and help them build increasingly sophisticated understandings by making the material and subject matter relevant to them; this is a cornerstone of constructivist education.
  • Constructivist teachers see the viewpoints of their students as "windows into their reasoning." But to see through those windows, teachers must talk with and listen to their students - and allow students to come up with their own answers. Erroneous answers can reveal student viewpoints; in fact, they can give constructivist teachers a way to reach students and encourage the growth of new skills and more accurate understandings.
  • To better engage their students, constructivist teachers often present curriculum holistically, organizing materials in conceptual clusters or, as some constructivists put it, "big ideas." According to Brooks and Brooks, this instructional approach entices students to build meaningful knowledge "by breaking up the wholes into parts that they can understand" and work with. The emphasis on primary ideas instead of sets of discrete facts also naturally leads to cross-curricular teaching and learning.
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  • Thus, teachers should first determine the degree of their pupils' prior knowledge of a subject. This can help teachers alter the curriculum so study units can open with students' expressing their current assumptions; teachers design subsequent lessons to help students form a more accurate understanding of the subject matter by working with primary materials and raw data. Some constructivist teachers also modify a curriculum to cater to students' distinctive learning styles.
  • In contrast, constructivist teachers assess student learning while they teach to gain insight into students' understanding as well as the level of their cognitive development. Right and wrong answers are important to constructivist teachers - but so are opportunities to gain insight into their students' current understanding and the chance to enhance that understanding.
Anthony Armstrong

NCSS Position Statement on Media Literacy | National Council for the Social Studies - 0 views

www.socialstudies.org/...medialiteracy

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 06 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The multimedia age requires new skills for accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages within a digital, global, and democratic society. The acquisition and application of critical analysis and media production skills are part of what constitutes media literacy.
  • Outside of the classroom young people regularly engage with music and videos via MP3 players, constantly text their friends with their cell phones, check the latest videos on YouTube, and even upload ones themselves. But, upon entering the classroom they are expected to disengage from this interpersonal, producer-oriented, digital world. If we hope to make learning relevant and meaningful for students in the 21st century, social studies classrooms need to reflect this digital world so as to better enable young people to interact with ideas, information, and other people for academic and civic purposes.
  • Likewise, social studies educators should provide young people with the awareness and abilities to critically question and create new media and technology, and the digital, democratic experiences, necessary to become active participants in the shaping of democracy.
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  • These changes in society and the experiences the students bring into the classroom challenge social studies teachers to change both how and what we teach. One reaction is to fear these changes and try to protect our students from things we don’t understand or appreciate. Such an approach is neither helpful nor pedagogically sound.
  • Whether we like it or not, this media culture is our students’ culture. Our job is to prepare them to be able to critically participate as active citizens with the abilities to intelligently and compassionately shape democracy in this new millennium.
  • the 21st century social studies teacher should guide students to explore different sources of information such as independent blogs, open source sites, wikis, podcasts, and numerous new resources that offer alternatives to corporate media. Teaching students to think critically about the content and the form of mediated messages is an essential requirement for social studies education in this millennium.
  • Changes in technology, media, and society require the development of new pedagogy to empower students to adequately read media messages and produce media themselves in order to be active participants in the contemporary democratic society
  • What do young people need to learn to best enable them to participate in this democratic culture, while navigating their way through the emerging media environment?
  • Media literacy is a pedagogical approach promoting the use of diverse types of media and information communication technology (from crayons to webcams) to question the roles of media and society and the multiple meanings of all types of messages. Analysis of media content is combined with inquiry into the medium. This approach is analytical and skill-based. Thus media literacy integrates the process of critical inquiry with the creation of media as students examine, create, and disseminate their own alternative images, sounds, and thoughts.
  • Media literacy includes the skills of accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages as well as the cultural competencies and social skills associated with a growing participatory culture. This participatory culture is characterized not simply by “individual expression” but also by “community involvement,” requiring “social skills developed through collaboration and networking.” (Jenkins et al, 2007, p. 4). Media literacy also includes analysis of ideology and power as students learn how media are used to position audiences and frame public opinion.
  • The horizontal motion entails broadening the definition of what is considered acceptable text to include multiple ways people read, write, view, and create information and messages.
  • Along with analysis, media literacy involves production as students learn to create messages with different media and technology. Students should be presenting their research and learning through interactive multimedia presentations, as Internet blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.
  • Teaching media literacy also requires a vertical movement to help students deepen their questioning of the relationships between information, knowledge, and power
  • The ability to differentiate between primary and secondary sources or distinguish fact from fiction is now intimately connected to the ability to analyze and create media.
  • What social, cultural, historical, and political contexts are shaping the message and the meaning I am making of it? How and why was the message constructed?. How could different people understand this information differently? Whose perspective, values and ideology are represented and whose are missing? Who or what group benefits and/or is hurt by this message?
  • In the 21st century, media literacy is an imperative for participatory democracy because new information/communication technologies and a market-based media culture have significantly reshaped the world. The better we can prepare our students to critically question the information and media they are seeing, hearing, and using, the more likely they are to make informed decisions and to participate as citizens who can shape democracy for the public good.
Anthony Armstrong

Salutary neglect - eNotes.com Reference - 0 views

www.enotes.com/...Salutary_neglect

salutary neglect

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 05 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Salutary neglect was a large contributing factor that led to the American Revolutionary War. Since the imperial authority did not assert the power that it had, the colonists were left to govern themselves. These essentially sovereign colonies soon became accustomed to the idea of self-control. The effects of such prolonged isolation eventually resulted in the emergence of a collective identity that considered itself separate from Great Britain.
  • "That I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me." (Burke p. 186)
  • "A spirit of self-government had arisen in the colonies. Between the years 1721 to 1742, Britain's Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, had encouraged this with a policy called "salutary neglect." Wishing to concentrate on European matters, Walpole relaxed colonial regulations and allowed the colonists to govern themselves. Each colony had an assembly of representatives elected by respected men -- men who owned at least a little property. These assemblies enforced the colony's laws, collected taxes, budgeted expenditures and pursued a few small public works programs."
Anthony Armstrong

Contructivist Learning Theory - 0 views

www.stemnet.nf.ca/...cle2b.html

constructivism

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Behaviorial psychology is interested in the study of changes in manifest behavior as opposed to changes in mental states. Learning is conceived as a process of changing or conditioning observable behavior as result of selective reinforcement of an individual's response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment. The mind is seen as an empty vessel, a tabula rasa to be filled or as a mirror reflecting reality. Behaviorism centers on students' efforts to accumulate knowledge of the natural world and on teachers' efforts to transmit it. It therefore relies on a transmission, instructionist approach which is largely passive, teacher-directed and controlled. In some contexts, the term behaviorism is used synonymously with objectivism because of its reliance on an objectivist epistemology
  • Objectivists believe in the existence of reliable knowledge about the world. As learners, the goal is to gain this knowledge; as educators, to transmit it
  • The role of education is to help students learn about the real world. The goal of designers or teachers is to interpret events for them. Learners are told about the world and are expected to replicate its content and structure in their thinking. (p.28)
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  • Classes are usually driven by "teacher-talk" and depend heavily on textbooks for the structure of the course. There is the idea that there is a fixed world of knowledge that the student must come to know.
  • There is little room for student-initiated questions, independent thought or interaction between students. The goal of the learner is to regurgitate the accepted explanation or methodology expostulated by the teacher. (p.3)
  • Where behaviorism emphasizes observable, external behaviours and, as such, avoids reference to meaning, representation and thought, constructivism takes a more cognitive approach.
  • Their role is not to dispense knowledge but to provide students with opportunities and incentives to build it up (von Glasersfeld, 1996). Mayer (1996) describes teachers as "guides", and learners as "sense makers". In Gergen's (1995) view, teachers are coordinators, facilitators, resource advisors, tutors or coaches.
  • The first is to introduce new ideas or cultural tools where necessary and to provide the support and guidance for students to make sense of these for themselves. The other is to listen and diagnose the ways in which the instructional activities are being interpreted to inform further action.
  • The focus of concern with the teacher and in teacher education is not just with the teacher's knowledge of subject matter and diagnostic skills, but with the teacher's belief, conceptions, and personal theories about subject matter, teaching, and learning.
  • Although we can tentatively come to know the knowledge of others by interpreting their language and actions through our own conceptual constructs, the others have realities that are independent of ours. Indeed, it is the realities of others along with our own realities that we strive to understand, but we can never take any of these realities as fixed. An awareness of the social construction of knowledge suggests a pedagogical emphasis on discussion, collaboration, negotiation, and shared meanings
  • Von Glasersfeld (1995) argues that: "From the constructivist perspective, learning is not a stimulus-response phenomenon. It requires self-regulation and the building of conceptual structures through reflection and abstraction" (p.14).
  • "Rather than behaviours or skills as the goal of instruction, concept development and deep understanding are the foci (...) (p.10). For educators, the challenge is to be able to build a hypothetical model of the conceptual worlds of students since these worlds could be very different from what is intended by the educator (von Glasersfeld, 1996).
  • How one arrives at a particular answer, and not the retrieval of an 'objectively true solution', is what is important.
  • learning emphasizes the process and not the product.
  • In this process, students' errors are seen in a positive light and as a means of gaining insight into how they are organizing their experiential world. The notion of doing something 'right' or 'correctly' is to do something that fits with "an order one has established oneself" (von Glasersfeld, 1987, p. 15).
Anthony Armstrong

Copy / Paste by Peter Pappas: How to Teach Summarizing: A Critical Learning Skill for S... - 0 views

peterpappas.blogs.com/...l-learning-skill-students.html

summarization pappas

shared by Anthony Armstrong on 12 Nov 09 - Cached
  • While summarizing has been shown to be one of the most effective strategies for building content knowledge, that gain only applies when students are allowed to make their own judgements about what’s important and frame their summaries for an audience. When we ask them to "learn" the teacher's summary - they are reduced to memorizing "another fact."When we ask our students to create authentic summaries (with audience and purpose) we give students a chance to reflect on their learning. Instead of simply testing them for factual knowledge, students can be asked:  What did I think was important? How did I share that with my audience? 
 Did my summary match audience and purpose? Is my summary accurate?  Did I use my own words and style? What did I learn from the activity?
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