This page shows my annotations of the readings for the course.
1. Woolfolk, A. (2007). Behavioral views of learning (Chapter 6). Educational Psychology (pp. 204-245). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Main arguments: Woolfolk presents the arguments of behaviorists, who argue that only overt, observable behavior should be used to form explanations of learning. The four learning processes are thus contiguity, or forming associations between things often presented together, classical conditioning, or previously neutral stimuli becoming connected to an involuntary response through contiguity with a second stimulus, operant conditioning, or increases or decreases in voluntary behavior as a result of its antecedents and consequences, and observational learning, or learning by watching others, retaining what they do, and reproducing it..
Later in the chapter, Woolfolk makes arguments about how applied behavior analysis can be used to increase positive behavior in the classroom, including use of frequent behavior to reinforce infrequent behavior (the Premack Principle) reinforcing successive approximations (shaping), and requiring students to practice the correct response after an incorrect one (positive practice). Examples are also given for how applied behavior analysis might be used in the classroom to decrease negative behavior. Generally, Woolfolk claims applied behavior analysis can be used through a general process of identifying a behavior of interest, implementing a plan that involves antecedents or consequences, and monitoring progress. (I will note that the line between argument and description is fuzzy here.)
Support for argument: The process of classical conditioning has been supported through the famous experiments of Pavlov and his dog: the dog learned to salivate in response to a bell alone, after the bell was repeatedly presented at the same time as meat powders. It is also common for people to have involuntary responses to seemingly neutral stimuli -- e.g., pace quickening at the sight of a doctor -- and this is cited as evidence for classical conditioning. Skinner's experiments with training mice and pigeons via the provision of reinforcement and punishment is cited as evidence for operant conditioning. Bandura's experiments, and the general observable consequences of social influence are cited as evidence for observational learning. For the most part, the specific ideas of how to implement applied behavior analysis are not supported with evidence, but there are exceptions, such as the studies cited related to severe behavior problems on pp. 227-228.
Response: Many of the examples given within the chapter relate to using behavior analysis for classroom management. The behaviors in question relate mostly to general ideas of being on-task or off-task. I didn't see many examples that related to specific subject areas (e.g., writing complete sentences, or accurately executing a multiplication algorithm). Even making errors in mathematics problems is described as carelessness (p. 215), which is a general behavior. Can behavior analysis be applied to these specific behaviors as well as more general ones? Do behaviorists see any correspondence between the behavior and the reward? That is, do they believe the same reinforcer could be used to increase the frequency of a multitude of different behaviors?
2. Skinner, B. F. (1978). Why I Am Not a Cognitive Psychologist. Reflections of Behaviorism and Society (Chapter 8). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Main Argument: Skinner's main claim is that there is no evidence for the existence of an internal mental life within humans, and even if there were, such a mental life would afford us little in explaining behavior or learning.
Support for the Argument: Some of the support Skinner provides is as follows:
Response: From reading this chapter as well a some other related work (including the textbook chapter from annotation 1 above), I concede that one might be able to come up with a behavioral explanation for most -- maybe even all -- behavior. I am less convinced, however, that the cognitive models do not possess any utility for researchers (and humans, in general), if only for the purpose of making sense of things in day-to-day life.
3. Woolfolk, A. (2007). Cognitive views of learning (Chapter 7). Educational Psychology (pp. 246-283). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Main Arguments and Support: The author begins the chapter by providing and overview of cognitive perspectives on learning. The main points of discussion include:
The author goes on to use this information about the cognitive perspective to argue for the effectiveness of some teaching strategies:
Response: The part of the cognitive perspective that appeals to me the most is its attention to organization of knowledge. Focusing on the way that people organize knowledge thematically explains why you might teach astrophysics differently to a PhD student with a physics degree than to, say, a fiction author. They have different knowledge bases, so you approach them differently. A behaviorist would say, I suppose, that they would also approach these people differently because they have different histories that build different contingencies, but I find that theory to have less traction when it comes to designing instruction.
4. Woolfolk, A. (2007). Complex cognitive processes (Chapter 8). Educational Psychology (pp. 284-327). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Main Arguments and Support: The authors elaborate on some of the cognitive processes described in Chapter 7, and use them to support four main arguments about effective teaching:
Response: The most interesting sections of this chapter, in my opinion, were on promoting attention to defining attributes and helping students move beyond surface features. I have found consideration of examples and non-examples quite effective in my own learning, though I have never thought about whether or when doing this to construct a definition (inductive reasoning) or to understand a pre-stated definition (deductive reasoning) might be advantageous. I'd be interested in looking into that question more. That kind of change in instructional sequence is the kind of adaptation to curricular materials I'd like to enable via digital delivery of the curriculum materials to teachers.
5. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. In International Encyclopedia of Education (pp. 37-43). Oxford: Elsevier.
Main Arguments and Support: This article presents the basic tenets of the ecological model for human development proposed by the author. There are three key arguments in the article, articulated and supported as follows:
At the end of the article, Bronfenbrenner also mentions that the idea of proximal processes affecting genetic heritability has also been proposed, but does not have much support yet.
Response: I'm most intrigued by the second argument. Let's look at the first half first: negative effects of environments can be tempered by attention to proximal processes. That idea seems to directly combat the problem of "rising tides," or the complaint that good-for-all approaches raise everyone up and don't close achievement gaps. Tempering the effects of poor environments seems to level the playing field. Then again, now we can consider the second half: positive effects of environments are increased by proximal processes. Now we're widening gaps. What's the solution? Do we only promote advantageous processes in less advantaged environments? What are the ethics of that?
6. Yi, C., Hayashi, A., & Tobin, J. (2007). Lessons from China and Japan for Preschool Practice in the United States. Educational Perspectives, 40(1), 7-12.
Main Argument and Support: The authors of this piece argue that the differences in preschool practices in China and Japan, as compared to the United States, are interesting food for thought that challenge some widely-held American assumptions about appropriate educational experiences for young children. As evidence, they offer six preschool episodes, three from China and three from Japan, along with the teachers' commentary about why they handled the episodes as they did. The episodes were as follows:
Response: I do not know much about early childhood learning, but I found this article very interesting and the perspective useful. I would be interested to see the results of a study asking American teachers how they might take up the ideas and adapt their own practices.
7. COGNITIVE SECTIONS OF: Greeno, J., Collins, A., & Resnick, L. (1996). Cognition and Learning. In D. Berliner & R. Calfee (Eds.). Handbook of Educational Psychology (pp. 15-46). New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan.
Main Arguments and Support: The overall argument of this article is that the three major perspectives on cognition and learning (behaviorist, cognitive, and situated) all have differing assumptions about the nature of learning and motivation that in turn lead to different design principles for learning environments, curricula, and assessments. This week, the assignment was to read the cognitive sections. The authors argue that five design principles stem from the cognitive perspective. Those design principles, and the evidence provided to support them, as as follows:
Response: It was interesting to note that cognitive design principles have been taken up in a number of learning environments and curricula that I am familiar with, I have seen very few assessments that seem to align with the cognitive view as stated in this article. This article gave me a new way to talk and think about some of the issues brought up by a heavy focus on standardized assessments in this country.
8. SITUATED SECTIONS OF: Greeno, J., Collins, A., & Resnick, L. (1996). Cognition and Learning. In D. Berliner & R. Calfee (Eds.). Handbook of Educational Psychology (pp. 15-46). New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan.
Main Arguments and Support: As mentioned in annotation #7, the overall argument of this article is that the three major perspectives on cognition and learning (behaviorist, cognitive, and situated) all have differing assumptions about the nature of learning and motivation that in turn lead to different design principles for learning environments, curricula, and assessments. This week, the assignment was to read the situated sections. The authors argue that seven design principles stem from the situated perspective. Those design principles, and the evidence provided to support them, as as follows:
Response: I found these sections quite interesting because I had never associated the development of discourse practices or problem-based learning with situated perspectives. I had thought of these things as simply promoting a different kind of thinking -- one that was more conceptually than procedurally oriented. Now that it has been pointed out to me, it seems obvious that a situated perspective makes sense for problem-based learning and discourse. I had often conflated situated cognition and distributed cognition (and they are related, certainly), but now I think I have a way to think about the differences. Situated cognition has to do with the connections of knowledge to context. These connections can be made via distribution of cognition across people and artifacts, but need not be.
9. Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Main Arguments and Support: Brown, Collins, and Duguid argue for a change in schooling to reflect a cognitive apprenticeship model, which acknowledges that learning and knowledge are intimately connected to the contexts in which they are acquired and applied. The apprenticeship model, they argue, makes explicit the fact that knowledge is connected to action, and the "cognitive" label makes it clear that the physical skills associated with a traditional apprenticeship are connected to more generalized knowledge. The authors use two sub-arguments to demonstrate the need for this new model of schooling:
Response: I am particularly interested in finding ways to better foster mathematical thinking rather than rote mathematical skills, so I enjoyed the two examples of cognitive apprenticeship given in this article (from Schoenfeld and Lampert). I'm left with the same questions I have about any educational intervention that represents a big change to traditional schooling: How do we support teachers in implementing it? What features of the larger school context make this difficult? In particular, I would expect teachers to express concern about the amount of time it would take to teach via a cognitive apprenticeship model, and whether use of this model would leave their students unprepared for standardized tests. I am not saying this is a reason not to suggest cognitive apprenticeship as a model or encourage its use. The focus on context on knowledge use just made me think about the broader context of school from the teachers' perspective.
10. Resnick, L. (1987). Learning in School and Out. Educational Researcher, 16(9), 13-20+54.
Main Arguments and Support: Resnick makes two main arguments:
Response: I think Resnick sets forth a strong argument in the article assuming one buys the premise that the purpose of schooling is to prepare students for jobs -- and more generally, the responsibilities of adulthood. However, I question that premise. In particular, I don't think it makes sense to consider elementary school a place to prepare students for the workforce. Resnick uses examples from elementary school at some points in her article (e.g., kids figuring out how much more money they need to buy an ice cream cone), which tells me that she did not intended to discuss only secondary school. I do think that elementary schooling could benefit from some of reforms that Resnick suggests -- helping students to become adaptive, for example -- but I do not think her rationale applied uniformly to all levels of schooling.
11. MOTIVATION SECTIONS OF: Greeno, J., Collins, A., & Resnick, L. (1996). Cognition and Learning. In D. Berliner & R. Calfee (Eds.). Handbook of Educational Psychology (pp. 15-46). New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan.
Main Arguments and Support: The authors make arguments about the meaning of motivation in each of the three major perspectives on learning (behaviorist, cognitive, and situated), relating it specifically to models for learning. The arguments are:
Response: The most interesting aspects of this section of this paper, in my opinion, were the excerpts that related the three theories of motivation to each other. For example, the work showing that use of external rewards can dilute the power of intrinsic rewards was intriguing. I'm curious about the implication of this. On one hand, this result suggests that the ubiquitous external rewards in schools are problematic, as they could decrease intrinsic interest. On the other hand, elimination of external rewards will only be helpful if one assumes that there will be intrinsic interest present and ready to replace it. Cognitive theorists claim that all learners are naturally curious, but I am skeptical that is so in relation to all school learning for all students.
12. Dweck, C. S. (1999). Caution -- Praise Can Be Dangerous. American Educator, 23(1), 4-9.
Main Argument and Support: Dweck argues that praising students for their intelligence (particularly after completing easy tasks) can have detrimental effects, and we must instead focus on praising students for their efforts. This, she argues, will help to make them more resilient in the face of challenging and therefore make them better learners throughout their schooling. Support: As support for her argument, Dweck cites the following research results:
Response: This was a nice follow-up read after reviewing the motivation sections of the Greeno, Collins, and Resnick piece. It addressed, in part, the issue I raise above about the detrimental effects of external rewards and how we can address that problem. Removing external rewards in their entirety in favor of relying on intrinsic motivation seems problematic because it assumes that all students will have intrinsic motivation for everything. Dweck offers a solution that seems much more tractable: don't remove the rewards entirely -- in this case, don't stop praising entirely -- but rather be careful to praise in particular ways. The effort-praise seems a particularly powerful alternative to me because it actually seems to build intrinsic motivation, rather than removing it.
13. Stipek, D. (2002). Profiles of Motivational Problems. In Motivation to Learn: From Theory to Practice (pp. 1-7). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Main Argument and Support: Stipek describes five patterns of behavior that she argues illustrate typical motivational problems in school-aged children. She does not provide any evidence for these profiles, but does say that further information will be given later in the book. The five profiles are as follows:
Response: Although these are caricatures (as the author admits), I have worked with children in the past that fit these profiles. Anxious Amy, in particular, is one that I have seen many times. I do not think it is a coincidence that the author uses mathematics as the example of the subject that is anxiety-provoking for Amy. This makes me wonder if all of these profiles are things that students carry with them into every class, or if the profiles tend to change depending on the school subject, teacher, and so on.
14. Steele, C., & Aronson, J. (1995). Sterotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797-811.
Main Arguments and Support: Steele and Aronson argue that students who are members of groups for which there is a pervasive and negative stereotype experience a phenomenon called stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is a sense of pressure or fear that one will fulfill or confirm the stereotype about one's group. This leads to anxiety and other effects that in turn lead to lower performance on tests. Steele and Aronson argue that stereotype threat explains why, even when they have equal resources and preparation, often minority students underperform on standardized tests relative to their White peers.
As evidence for this argument, Steel and Aronson share the results of a series of four experiments:
Response: I read this article many years ago as a master's student and enjoyed revisiting it again. As a novice methodologist, upon this reading I particularly enjoyed tracing the development of logic across the four studies. One question I have is whether or not the methodology could be adjusted for any potentially stereotype threatened group.
15. Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.
Main Arguments and Support: Citing relevant literature, Ryan and Deci make five arguments, which as as follows:
Response: I found the following quote from early in the article particularly thought-provoking: "Frankly speaking, because many of the tasks that educators want their students to perform are not inherently interesting or enjoyable, knowing how to promote more active and volitional (versus passive and controlling) forms of extrinsic motivation becomes an essential strategy for successful teaching" (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 55). My first reaction upon reading this was that it was a flawed argument. Should we just accept that the tasks students do in school are not inherently interesting, and work within that limitation? Or should we instead work on making the tasks interesting? I believe that one of the problems with a lot of mathematics education is that it focuses too much on the most direct and straightforward, and therefore the least interesting, aspects of mathematics. A change to more interesting problems (that are, admittedly, more difficult to implement in instructional contexts) generally has positive effects in classrooms. Thus, I felt like Ryan and Deci were, perhaps, trying to solve the wrong problem. I was surprised, however, to find myself persuaded that both viewpoints -- theirs and mine -- have a role in my general way about thinking about mathematics education. For example, I do believe that we should be more clear in telling kids the ways that early math connects to later math, letting them know how one skill supports a later one. This sets up one of Ryan and Deci's categories of extrinsic motivation -- regulation through identification -- that is much closer to intrinsic motivation than the kinds of extrinsic rewards I'm used to thinking about. In short, I was struck by how much the introduction of a continuum of extrinsic motivation changed my mind about the idea.
16. Labaree, D. F. (2003). The Peculiar Problems of Preparing Educational Researchers. Educational Researchers, 32(4), 13-22.
Main Argument and Support: Labaree argues that faculty of schools of education face particular challenges when it comes to training former K-12 teachers to become educational researchers. He points out four particular clashes of worldview to support his argument:
Labaree argues further that education faculty should purposefully address these cultural divides, helping to sell teachers on the value of the researcher perspective, thereby narrowing the teacher-researcher gap.
Response: I found this piece quite interesting. I am not a former teacher, and I have for years found that my perspective is different than the former teachers with whom I work. This article put words to some worldview contrasts I have experienced in the past. In particular, as a curriculum developer, I often engaged with long conversations with my former-teacher colleagues who felt strongly that their personal experiences should sway the way content was presented.
17. Pinker, S. (2014). Why Academics Stink at Writing. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on 10 October 2017 from http://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Academics-Writing-Stinks/148989/.
Main arguments and support: Pinker argues that there are three key reasons why academics are poor writers. The reasons, and Pinker's support for them, are as follows:
Response: I see a lot of truth in Pinker's reasoning. It's the last argument that I find particularly problematic. In my experience, not only is there no reward for clear writing, there is a reward -- in the form of publication or funding -- for overly technical and jargon-laden writing. In some contexts, I have been encouraged to write with more technical vocabulary and complex sentences. Where does that leave us? How do we change the norm?