Section 2: The Science of Learning

One of our Head Start literacy goals is: "Student identifies 10 or more letters of the alphabet." If I was using principles of the Behavioral Learning Theory, I would choose activity structures that promote instant,positive teacher-to-student feedback such as small groups or one-on-one activities. I would also use a lot of encouragement because "the consequences of a behavior determine whether it is repeated and thus considered to be learned." It would be important to make my learning activities on the right level for each student because if they do not feel successful they will not want to repeat the behavior or participate in the activity. When working with "ego-centric" four year olds I really gravitate toward the Schema Theory. They are always thinking "What does this have to do with my world?" To help them learn letters of the alphabet I would help them make chunks of schemata about each letter, such as "This letter is in my name", "It is a curvy letter.", "Cow starts with this letter.", "My friend's name starts with this letter.", "It says /C/." To help build schemata like this we would play games in which we make name letter puzzles, draw letters and discuss them or sort them by characteristics. We would also sing songs that emphasize letter sounds.


If I looked at this goal from the Whole-Task Approach, I would want to cover letter knowledge from every angle. I would not only want students to identify each letter, I would also do things like teach them to write it, form it with clay, identify it in the environment, give examples of words that have that letter in it. This is looking at the letter as a whole as opposed to just one aspect of learning the letter. We would use many different modalities to learn the letter, such as: making it with our bodies, painting it, singing about it, finding it in the environment,reading about it and  jumping on the correct letter. Scaffolding would also be necessary to reach this goal. When we are forming letters I let students use materials that are fun and they are comfortable with such as playdough, dry erase markers and blocks before moving to pencils. I would also give a lot of fun tricks and practice for writing letters, such as, "To make letter A, you drive your car up the mountain, down the mountain and across." To approach this from a Mathemagenic Method, I would show students why it is important to know letters by discussing environmental print, bringing in older children to read or having speakers come in that use reading in their work.I can also model the use of letter knowledge by modeling how to make lists and write letters.
 
My comparison of Gagne's 9 Events and First Principles:

Gagne’s (9 Events)	Comparison	First Principles (4 Stages)
Gain Attention	Use prior knowledge	Learners solve “real world” problems
Recall prior knowledge	Learner is the focus	Existing knowledge is foundation
Present  material	Supports “real world” learning and allows student to expand on thinking	Learner demonstrates new knowledge
Provide guided learning		Learning occurs when new learning is applied
Elicit performance		New knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world
Provide feedback
Assess performance
Enhance retention and transfer

MOTIVATING LEARNERS

Attention: This is my main focus with my students, if I do not have their attention in the beginning of an activity it is hard to gain it. I elicit my students' attention by using more of a game format than sit and drill. I try to make students feel like they played all day and not even realize that they are learning. It seems that students who have a hard time keeping their focus are students that like to be constantly moving. Many games that I use involve jumping to the correct answer or acting out your answer.We also recently played a throwing game to practice our letter knowledge.

Relevance: To keep the material relevant to students I would first activate their schemata about the topic by brainstorming what we know about it. I might also ask students to bring something from home that is related to the topic, so they can make a connection.

Satisfaction: To help students feel satisfied with what they have accomplished, I first point out the importance of doing your best.Then when they know they have done their best I boost them with encouragement and praise to show them how good it can feel to do a job well done.We also review what we are learning, with discussion. video or pictures, so that students can actually see what they are accomplishing.

Confidence: This ties heavily into satisfaction because students can feel confidence when they know they have done their best. When something is hard for a student I try to break the task down into smaller tasks and give encouragement when small goals are met. This helps to build the student's confidence.

Design research is important because you cannot effectively teach until you understand how your students learn and take in information. We must explore all of the different learning theories because no two students are alike and we must teach for the way they learn.