Interesting Articles in Edutopia Magazine

I just received my latest print copy of Edutopia, a magazine sponsored by the George Lucas Educational Foundation. I found a couple of interesting articles that you can access at the online magazine site:

How to Get Students to Use New-Found Skills

An Interview with George Lucas and Daniel Goleman about the ways that social and emotional learning enhance the education process. It also includes a small section on project-based learning as well.

A subscription to the magazine is free and the current issue is at November 2007 issue.

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Reflections on my Reading Journal

Lisa’s Reading Journal

My reading journal consisted of chapters and excerpts from several books (including the class textbook), some journal articles, and a book review on motivation. Most of the information is included in annotations and posts on this blog. The actual journal of what I read is attached as a PDF at the top of this post.

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“Environment and Context in Learning”

MacKeracher, D. (2004). Making sense of adult learning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

This chapter deals with recent concerns about learning that have begun to focus on the environments in which learning occurs. The environments may be visible or invisible. Anything that prevents us from learning is considered a visible part of the environment, while things that do not serve as barriers are invisible aspects of the learning situation.

The physical environment is anything that affect a learner’s or instructor’s comfort or well-being. Besides the furniture in the room, the author’s conception of the environment also consists of the sound quality, the light and visual quality, the air quality, and the technology used in teaching and learning. Often, learning preferences play a part in the suitability of the environment as they can be tied to students’ learning style.

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“Spirit and Soul in Learning”

MacKeracher, D. (2004). Making sense of adult learning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

According to the author, spirit and soul are related, with soul being an inward look that “allows the individual to find inner completeness, integrity, and serenity; . . . spirit is outward looking and allows the individual to connect to relations and realities beyond . . . body and mind” (MacKeracher, 2004, p. 172). She further says that “spirituality is the expression of an individual’s quest for meaning” (MacKeracher, 2004, p. 173).This is quite different from religion, which involves a group and the doctrine that they have in common.

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“Relationship in Learning”

MacKeracher, D. (2004). Making sense of adult learning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

In the seventh chapter of this book, MacKeracher refers to relationship as: the way new information relates to prior knowledge, the learner’s need to belong in the learning environment, and the relationship between the learner and the instructor in the classroom. Her discussion leads to more information about how humans develop as well as the self-system concepts of autonomy and independence. It was interesting to note that the self-systems are gender-related, but not gender specific.

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“Skilled Performance in Learning”

MacKeracher, D. (2004). Making sense of adult learning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

According to the author, “more and more adults are engaged in some form of learning that involves physical skills” (MacKeracher, 2004, p. 139). She (2004) quotes Marchese as saying that “evolutionary psychologists have identified an approach to learning that has proved successful over the ages, and that we seem to have forgotten. That approach is apprenticeship” (p. 140). Situated-learning is one idea that has come from the apprenticeship model.

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“Emotions and Motives in Learning” [and Life]

MacKeracher, D. (2004). Making sense of adult learning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

This sixth chapter of MacKeracher’s book dealt with “why we learn–what moves us to learn and what keeps us going when we falter” (MacKeracher, 2004, p. 123). She informs us that learning causes the human body to be aroused to awareness and energy to be deployed. Attentive awareness by the brain requires minimal arousal, while the conditions for directed learning require higher levels of arousal and energy. The parts of the body affected during the arousal process include adrenaline levels, heart and breathing rates, blood pressure, and blood flow to the brain, skeletal muscles, and digestive system. All of this gives us an increasing ability to focus and function in the classroom. As I read this chapter, it held much meaning for me as it accurately describes why I am now retired due to disability.

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Jensen on Learning and the Brain

Jensen, E. (2005). Teaching with the brain in mind. Alexandria VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

According to his book’s third chapter, “You have much, much more to do with how your students turn out than you may have thought” (Jensen, 2005, p. 33–italics in original text). While there are both external and internal factors that affect learning, some of the most important factors, according to Jensen, are more a function of the brain’s design than the learning environment.

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Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective

McDevitt, T.M., & Ormrod, J. E. (2004). Child development: Educating and working with children and adolescents. Columbus OH: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.

The premise of Vygotsky’s theory is that nurturing a child, especially in his social and cultural environments, promotes cognitive development. The central ideas and concepts of this theory include:

• Through both informal interactions and formal schooling, adults convey to children the ways in which their culture interprets and responds to the world.
  • Thought and language have become increasingly independent in the first years of life.
  • Complex mental processes begin as social activities; as children develop, they gradually internalize the processes they use in social contexts and begin to use them independently.
  • Children can perform more challenging tasks when assisted by more advanced and competent individuals.
  • Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth.

Many of these same social and cultural issues affect adult learners as well. Vygotsky’s ideas have been integrated into Western views of child development, learning and instructional practices. Imagine what Vygotsky could have added to our knowledge and understanding of cognitive development had he not died in 1934 at the age of 37 from tuberculosis.

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Book Review

Raffini, J. P. (1996). 150 ways to increase intrinsic motivation in the classroom. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

While this book is written for teachers at the elementary or secondary level, there are some important aspects of the book that make it fit into the adult learning environment as well. As Raffini says,

The desire to seek and to conquer challenges is at the core of intrinsic motivation in the classroom. It is fueled by students’ psychoacademic needs to control their own decisions (autonomy); to do things that help them feel successful (competence); to feel part of something larger than themselves (belonging and relatedness); to feel good about who they are (self-esteem); and to find pleasure in what they do (involvement and stimulation) (Raffini, 1996, p. 3).

These same needs are found in the adult classroom. The five remaining chapters in the book each cover one of the above described needs. Each chapter begins with recommendations for enhancing that need in the classroom and then describes 20 strategies that will incorporate the development of the need with variations given for many of them. Many of the strategies will say for “adapted to all grade levels and content areas,” which can definitely include the adult learning situation. From establishing goals in Autonomy to expanding a model in Involvement and Stimulation, this book has a strategy to make learning interactive and fun for students of all grade levels.

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