9: self-efficacy and self-regulation

Prompt: How might self-efficacy and self-regulation contribute to the intervention plans you use in your case study.


Identifying with the social cognitive theory, self-efficacy and self-regulation are huge factors of my learning theory.

The article I found defines self-efficacy as "the belief in one's capabilities to achieve a goal or an outcome." Obviously when a student's self-efficacy is higher, he or she is more likely to learn better and achieve more. It would be really beneficial to keep that idea in mind when planning interventions with Lisa. I assume that Lisa's self-efficacy is not too high in most areas of school. I would work to build it up by using some of the ideas below:

• Tailor tasks to Lisa's current self-efficacy level. Since students base self-efficacy on past successes and failures, I would want to provide her with a base of confidence, then build from there. This could start with providing some scaffolding earlier on, then gradually removing support as she grows. 
• Give Lisa reason to believe she can be successful. This would help her to gain confidence about her abilities and provide her with the support she needs. I might do this by pointing out her previous successes or just by affirming my confidence in her.
• Provide a way for Lisa to experience collective self-efficacy. Failure to perform well with her group could be damaging Lisa's self-efficacy even more, creating a cycle that continues her bad behavior. I would place her in a new group with a better group dynamic. Hopefully if it works well, Lisa would gain a greater self-efficacy when working with others.

In addition to self-efficacy, self-regulation would be important to keep in mind when dealing with intervention plans for Lisa. I think that this aspect of SCT would be the most effective in changing Lisa's behavior problems if well-implemented. Below I've listed a few strategies that could help turn things around.

• Let Lisa help set her own goals for how she should behave during cooperative learning. The book explains that students tend to be more motivated to work toward goals when they set them for themselves, instead of having goals imposed upon them. Letting Lisa create self-determined standards could give her some ownership over herself and her behavior.
• Provide a way for Lisa to control her emotions that could lead to poor behavior. This is the biggest problem area in the case study. Lisa gets very angry at her classmates when she doesn't get her way. In turn her behavior spirals out of control and she refuses to participate or pay attention. I would help Lisa find a strategy to calm her down before she reacts in such a way. It might also help to have a regular job rotation chart so that Lisa knows what job is hers that week.
• Have Lisa observe and record her behavior. The book explains that this can largely affect students' behavior. To implement this I could have Lisa mark every time she interrupts a classmate or displays a negative behavior. At the end Lisa could write a sentence about how she felt she did during the activity and what she could have done better. This would help by bringing awareness to the frequency of negative behaviors, and encompasses aspects of self-monitoring and self-evaluation.

This is a great page about self-efficacy in the classroom!
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/efficacy.html

8: behaviorist tools

Part 1: Consider your CSEL intervention case study.  Are there tools from a behaviorist view for either encouraging productive behaviors or discouraging undesirable behaviors that you could apply to the case? What are they?

In my CSEL case study a student named Lisa is having difficulties behaving in her group during cooperative learning activities. Chapter 9 of our textbook discusses many behaviorist tools for shaping student behavior. First the chapter explains ways to use reinforcement effectively. Reinforcement is used to increase a behavior. In Lisa's situation, I would try to reduce her undesirable behavior. In behaviorism, the strategies for discouraging these behaviors are extinction, cueing, reinforcement of incompatible behaviors, and punishment.

• Extinction: this approach would be to reduce Lisa's negative behavior by never reinforcing it.  While it could be easier for me as a teacher to just let Lisa get the job she wants to avoid disrupting the class any further, that would only encourage her to act out more. Initially this could cause an increase in behavior, but hopefully would eventually help reduce it.
• Cueing: the book suggests using body language or physical proximity to remind students what they should not be doing. If that doesn't work, you could go a step further and use a verbal cue. After a conversation about her behavior, I could apply this strategy by making eye contact with Lisa when she falls off track. This would have to be a later step in the process to adjust her behavior, but a good way to monitor her progress.
• Reinforcement of incompatible behaviors: this approach works by rewarding a positive behavior that cannot be performed at the same time as the negative behavior.  In the case study, I could use this by reinforcing Lisa's positive behaviors like working well with her group or paying attention.
• Punishment: there are several guidelines provided for administering punishment. One that I think would work well in the case study would be to simultaneously teach and reinforce desirable alternative behaviors. I would do this by explaining the alternate behavior that I would prefer Lisa to enact instead. This would hopefully help keep her motivated and avoid discouraging her too much. 

Part 2: Now compare the interventions that you have identified above with what you think might work from a cognitive or constructivist viewpoint. How do they compare to behaviorist tools? What are the benefits of each theory, and what are the deficits? Which theory might play a larger role in how you determine classroom management?

7: metacognition

Prompt: Consider a lesson plan you might use. Which metacognitive skills/abilities are involved as students gain facility/knowledge in this domain?

This week in my school rotation, I read a story to a class of 20 kindergartners. Once we were all in a circle on the rug I slightly panicked. In my head I was thinking, "What in the world am I supposed to be doing?!? They're all staring at me!" Luckily for me, my Reading Ed 430 skills came back to me and I remembered the process of a read aloud.

Before I began reading the book, I used the poster the teacher made to explain the schedule for the next hour.
"Our objective today is to identify fantasy and reality. First I'm going to read our book Bear Snores On. Then we are going to make a chart about things that are fantasy and things that are reality from the book. Next you will draw something from the book that was fantasy and something that was reality on your own paper and write a sentence. After that, we will meet back together and 'turn and talk' with our neighbors about what we did."  
I think that this layout helped begin the process of metacognitive thinking for the students because it made them aware of what was coming up. This agenda prepared their minds and gave them a preview of what we were learning and what we would be doing with that information. This shows the use of the covert strategy of identifying important information, especially highlighting the focus on fantasy and reality (which could have been missed since it wasn't included in the book's story line explicitly.)

Then I asked the students if they knew what the words fantasy and reality meant. No one did, so I explained that fantasy is something that is not real/cannot happen, like make believe. Reality is something that can happen in real life.

After that I moved on to the book. First I asked the kids what they predicted the book was going to be about. When they gave an answer, I asked them why they thought that. For example, one girl guessed the book was about a bear's friends. When I asked her why, she said because there was a bear with other animals on the cover. This questioning required the students to explain their reasoning, which is reflective of metacognition.

Next we took a 'picture walk'. As I flipped through the pages I asked the students what they thought was happening. One boy explained that something was sad, when I asked him why, he explained that he thought that because the bear was crying. In the same way as the cover prediction, these questions got the students thinking deeper about what they thought. Throughout the pages I asked the students to look for things that were fantasy or reality to warm up their minds for the activity later.

After the picture walk I began the story. While I read, students would share if they noticed something was fantasy or reality. When they did I would ask them why they thought so, and they would explain something like 'bunnies can't cook' or 'bears don't cry'. Other times I would use the covert strategy of comprehension monitoring by asking the students if what they saw was fantasy or reality. This let me know if I needed to explain further or if the students were understanding the topic.

After the students finished their illustrations and sentences on their own, they came back to the rug. I paired them up and asked them to share what they drew with their partner. This portion of the activity shows a variety of metacognitive skills. One is summarizing their work, providing a deeper understanding. Another is that in explaining their work to a partner, the students had to look back over their thinking to give an appropriate answer.

Big surprise, my article is from education.com! I appreciate the clearness of this article and how it provides multiple options for developing metacognitive skills in the classroom.
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Dev_Metacognition/