The Effectiveness of Incorporating Principles of Cognitivism - Essay Example

Learning Theories Task 2 Ruth Ramirez Western Governor’s TASK 2 PART A Create a lesson plan for 6th, 7th or 8th grade. LESSON PLAN Name: Ruth Ramirez GENERAL INFORMATION Subject(s): English Topic or Unit of Study: Literature – “A Worn Path” A Short Story by Eudora Welty Grade/Level: 8th Instructional Setting: regular classroom setting, students are grouped for the activities. 25 students in class; eighty percent students are English Language Learners, predominately Hispanic, low income, at-risk students. 2 students are special education with an Independent Education Plan for mild behavior modifications. A teacher’s assistant is assigned to the classroom and a special education Resource Specialist is also available for assistance. STANDARDS AND OBJECTIVES English Language Arts Standards for California Word Analysis, Fluency, and Systematic Vocabulary Development 1.1 Analyze idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes to infer the literal and figurative Meanings of phrases. 1.2. Use the analyzed words and idioms fluently in its proper context. Literary Response and Analysis Analyze the relevance of the setting (e.g., place, time, customs) to the mood, tone, and Meaning of the text. Writing Applications 2.2 d. Support judgments through references to the text, other works, other authors, or to Personal knowledge. Lesson Objective(s): a. Students must have a reasonable grasp of the meaning of vocabulary words from the text by their competency in understanding the words that would enable them to competently narrate the story. b. Appropriately describe the circumstances that led to the sacrifice that the main character for the love she bore of her grandson. c. Summarize or retell the experience of the character to realistic setting to determine the student’s grasp on meanings and feelings conveyed in the story. Review and Assessment: Consistent with the theory of Cognitivism, the assessment shall be made to measure the student’s performance will be non-threatening. Such, the use of the traditional systematic periodic testing (Elui, 2008) will not be used but instead, student’s performance will be measured based on their scores in the simulations and exercises. Also, to encourage further participation and gauge efficacy of the lesson plan, an informal discussion shall be held after each session where students can provide feedback about the course. Feedback is necessary so that the lesson plan can be adjusted according to the student’s cognitive style (Harizaj, 2011). Instructional Materials: Pictures of different states/places Oslo paper Crayons/drawing materials (timeline of the story) Resources: “A Worn Path” A Short Story by Eudora Welty INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN Sequence of Instructional Procedures/Activities/Events 1. The teacher prepares timetable that will be used in the activities of the class and also as an assessment tool to determine the performance of the students. 2. Review The teacher shows pictures of different states/places to lead students to know the importance of the setting in the text to be read. The students guess where the places are (5 minutes). The teacher also reviews or gives definition of various vocabularies. This will help in deepdening the students’ undersrtanding of the subject matter. 3. Presentation of New Information or Modeling: The teacher introduces the author of the story, Eudora Welty (5 minutes). Discussion of the plot follows to introduce the activity. 4. Guided Practice: The teacher shows the students how to make a timeline by showing a sample applied to everyday life/schedule of a regular student (5 minutes). 5. Independent Student Practice: Students will make a timeline of the story, taking note of the trials that the main character has to bear for the love of her grandson (15 minutes). 6. Culminating or Closing Procedure/Activity/Event: Students will be asked to narrate the story based on they understood it. They will be encouraged to use their own words, and not necessary the words from the text to determine their proficiency in using their vocabularies in contextualized writing. Pedagogical Strategy (or Strategies): Illustrating the timeline to deduce the plot and theme of a short story; collaborative learning Differentiated Instruction: Students who cannot draw will be encouraged to use stick figures and simplistic drawings or they can simply write a sentence detailing the experience of the main character. ELL’s or special needs students will be paired with higher level students and will have additional assistant from the Teacher’s Assistant. Student Assessment/Rubrics: Assessment shall be made based on their performance in the class activities. The following are rubrics to be used for checking the timeline to be made by students: Criteria Accuracy 40 pts. Creativity 40 pts. Neatness 20 pts. Total 100 pts. PART B.  Describe how you could modify the lesson plan you provided to incorporate Cognitivism. 1.  Analyze the effectiveness of incorporating principles of Cognitivism in the lesson plan. Activities in the lesson plan are already aligned with principles of Cognitivism. Cognitivism is concerned about making students fully understand the concepts (Casas, 2011). Contrary to Behaviorism, which relies on memorization for mastery of the subject (Arizona State University), Cognitivism relies on higher thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Therefore, to incorporate principles of Cognitivism in the current lesson, one should focus on making students use higher thinking skills in mastering the concepts that will be taught (Casas, 2011). The first means of instruction is to use visual and verbal content at the same time. It entails the use of visual aids in the explanation of the story to better facilitate expedient learning on the students. The use of pictures is important because it appeals to the visual sense of the students. It is not enough to just mention Mississippi to engage students. Pictures will aid in making them imagine what they can find in the setting of the story. Also, instead of making students read the story right away, it will help students to understand the story more if the teacher presents vocabulary words used in the story. The short story makes use of the setting to highlight the theme. Therefore, for the main task, students are assigned to construct the timeline of the story. In making the timeline, they are expected to base their work on the events of the story. Making the timeline will challenge their analytical skills as they cut out Grandma Phoenix’s trail. Likewise, the visuals they will make will help to strengthen their knowledge of the plot, hence lead them to a deeper understanding of the story. This method supports Cognitivism as the teacher engages the student through use of visual and verbal content involving the students to make their own timeline thereby learning the story analytically than mimicking words that they barely understood. This way, the students are able to synthesize important events in the story through the board work activity facilitating easy comprehension of the events in the plot. The principles of cognitivism will also be used as teaching strategies by relating the story on the background or experience of the students. “A Worn Path” is a story of a grandmother who sacrifices for her grandson. Despite her old age and weary body, she still bears all the trials of traveling from the woods to the city in order to avail of some free medicine for the boy (2012). This “drama” in the plot contains heavy emotional content that is universal whereby every student can relate to the sacrifice made by a grandmother or a family member. This emotionally charged aspect of teaching will engage the student to relate thereby facilitate learning instantaneously. To concretely incorporate the principles of cognitivism in the lesson plan, the prepared worksheets shall be used that would facilitate the analytical understanding of the story. These worksheets will be composed of four parts, namely, vocabulary, plot, character, and theme. They would serve as while-reading exercises to facilitate understanding. These worksheets are prepared before the actual teaching commences. Each part is composed of exercises or questions to check if students understand what they are reading. The first part, which is vocabulary, will feature some words/idioms in fill-in-the-blank exercises such as: “ My _____ is gone.” (l.26) Students will look for the missing word in the statement using the copy of the story they have been provided. This suggests that the story’s paragraphs should be numbered for easy reference. After completing the statement, students will identify what it means. Choices may be provided, depending on the capability of the students. The worksheets are helpful because they also serve as non-threatening assessment tools whereby the student’s performance and level of competency can be gauged. The second part of the worksheet is plot which will require students to identify the important events in the plot. Advanced students may be asked to complete a plot chart. Completing the story plot will further aid students in understanding the story. The exercise will also help the teacher know if the students understood the story and the concept of the story plot. The third part, the characterization, could include character sketches as follows: Students will enhance the figures by making them male/female to sketch Grandma Phoenix, the sick grandson, the hunter, and the nurse, etc. They will dress up the characters based on what is said or implied in the story. The students will make bubble captions for each character and input what they perceive the characters are thinking. These sketches will further motivate students to read and understand the story. The last part, which is the theme, will require students to explicate the theme of the story as they answer the questions as follows:  Who is the main character?  What is her/his struggle in the story?  How does he/she overcome the problem?  What inspires him/her to achieve her goal?  What is the message of the story? How can you relate to this message? The use of the worksheets will definitely facilitate understanding the story. In addition, they also serve as guide in teaching as well as a diagnostic and assessment tool. C.  Describe how you could modify the lesson plan you provided to incorporate constructivism. 1.  Analyze the effectiveness of incorporating principles of constructivism in the lesson plan. The use of Constructivist approach will further make the lesson effective hence incorporating constructivist principles will benefit the students. Constructivism believes that students are capable of constructing ideas out of concepts they are given. In such case, students in the constructivist classroom are tasked to perform activities that challenge their creativity and their judgment. They are expected to think out of the box, come up with original ideas, and test ideas to obtain conclusions. The main challenge of the constructivist approach is to guide students to think, interpret and evaluate ideas. Unlike in the behaviorist classroom where the teacher is the source of knowledge, the teacher in the constructivist classroom acts only as a facilitator. Therefore, the teacher relies on Cooperative Learning groups to think and analyze ideas together in order to arrive at conclusions, formulate thesis, or test principles. Central to this approach is the adaptability of constructivism where it can be modified according to the progress and needs of the students thereby facilitating continuous learning among the students (Casas, 2011). As the students progress, part of the modification of the lesson plan is to allow students to answer the worksheets. The teacher can divide the class into groups of five and perform advance activities. For instance, one group can work on the plot, another on the setting, still another on the characterization, and finally on the theme. In many cases, students working in groups learn more than those in lecture classrooms. This happens due to accidental learning and acquisition. By interacting with others, students will not only learn the target concept, but likewise analyze issues from different standpoints as they consult and interact with others thereby enhancing the student’s learning experience. This cooperative learning and group-based activities in the advance stage of constructivist approach considers the diversity of the learners. Group activities allow better interaction, thus accommodating individual differences including cultural diversity and learning styles or difficulties. According to Ryan, Cooper and Tauer (2010), teaching strategies should be culturally responsive, given the diversity of cultural backgrounds of students. To attain this goal, teachers should think of exercises that would allow students to get to know each other better and be sensitive to other cultures. For example, students can help each other make a poster showing the important characters in the story. This activity will be fun and fruitful for the students. For the culminating part, students can relate their own experiences with that of the main character. Considering that the theme of the story is the grandmother’s sacrifice for her grandson, the students can reflect on their similar experience of having a loving grandmother who looks after them. Sharing emotionally charge experiences to the class will help to bring out diversity in the cultural and family values of the students. Such will also promote camaraderie among the students. Another way to incorporate constructivist principles is to have the students write a story similar to the tackled story. This will demonstrate their knowledge of the concepts taught, especially characterization and setting, which are central to the story. Students may also be asked to use the vocabulary terms in their own sentences for practice. This activity will mostly benefit English language learners. For students with difficulties in associating with others, group learning will help to make them interact with others and get out of their shell. Furthermore, students may also be asked to do role-playing activities. Role-playing can help students understand the story better. By performing the scenes, students will be able to construct a deeper view of the issue being tackled in the story, that is, the lack of sufficient health services in remote places in the countryside. Further activities could also include finding old folks in the country and chatting with them through social networking sites. The teacher can arrange this activity with people he/she knows or ask students to find people to interview. The interview should focus on how country folks get by with some traditional or herbal medicines, first aid measures, etc. due to the lack of medical resources in their area. Other people may also share experiences how they travelled from their place to the city hospital in order to avail of hospital services. Doing this, students will write down notes about the interview and include them in the portfolio. References Behaviorism. (n.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2012 from Learning-theories.com Carbon adventures. Retrieved October 12, 2012, from Arizona State University Web Site. Casas, M. (2011). Enhancing student learning in middle school. NY: Routledge. ELUI, EBELECHUKWU P. (2008). INTEGRATING ASSESSMENT INTO THE LESSON PLAN TO IMPROVE LEARNING: A FOCUS ON NIGERIAN PRIMARYSCHOOLS. A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE 35TH CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT HELD AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY, ENGLAND. Retrieved November 13, 2012 from http://www.iaea.info/documents/paper_2b7120477.pdf Harizaj, Marsela (2011). The Role and the Task of the Teacher in Having Effective Teaching in EFL Classes Applying CLT. Sino-US English Teaching, 8 (3):145-151 Ryan, K., Cooper, J., & Tauer, S. (2010). Teaching for student learning: Becoming a master teacher. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Welty, Eudora. A worn path. Retrieved October 5, 2012, from The Atlantic Monthly. Read More