Brain Booth Reflection

Visiting the Brain Booth was very interesting to me. All of the activities were there to sort of relax you in a concentrated way. The most interesting one was the machine you hooked up to your ear and it turned green once you were relaxed. I think there could be a lot of benefits of incorporating these activities in my day or a children’s day. For a child it can give them a chance to relax, express themselves, and concentrate on one activity that they are trying to accomplish. The machine that I found most interesting can help a teacher gage which child may be under more stress and has a hard time relaxing. I think it can also help children reset their minds and refresh. Doing the same thing everyday in school, thinking about everything you need to do after, and counting the minutes until school is over can build up a lot of stress. The Brain Booth can be there to help children relax and reboot in the middle of the day.
The theory group presentation may be relevant to teaching children in the way that it welcomes children’s experiences and how they construct their knowledge and meaning from that. It is important to have children apply their school life and home life to the outside world. This allows children infinite opportunities to discover the world around them. Children love to share their experiences and this experience allows them to use those experiences to learn. Every child is going to look at the world differently and the constructivist theory allows for them to construct their own knowledge. The children become active learners and learn through doing activities and reflecting on them. A teacher can be there to help point out that doing this certain action led to this certain response. Scaffolding is another big role a teacher has in the classroom for this theory. The experiences with the child and the world, the teacher and the world, and the child and the teacher is what makes up this theory.

Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory can be implemented in all classrooms. It’s a way of learning through observing socially. The teacher can be implemented into this by modeling what behavior they expect of of children or point out another child who is modeling the desired behavior. What the child learns is all based on them. They can either choose to learn through observing others or decide that doesn’t really interest them.
In our presentation we showed a dance video where we all learned socially the steps to the same dance. That is an example of social cognitive theory that many did not realize they are learning socially through that. The hula hoop activity showed the theory more obviously. All of us were looking at our neighbors to see what action they did to get through the hula hoop. We got to choose what action we would learn to use for when it was our turn. We also learned what we chose not use through what we observed that did not work.
Everybody learns differently and for some this theory matches the framework of how they obtain knowledge. This theory can be very useful to all types of learners because it practices some key aspects that are required for all learning. Motivation to learn is as prominent as attention. If someone is not paying attention how can they learn from what is supposed to being observed. Motivation is key because everyone still needs a reason to learn. The motivation behind the hula hoop would be that someone would have observed someone that did not get through the hula hoop through the first time. The motivation behind that would be to learn what not to do what that person just did because they did not want to mess up too.

Complex Cognitive Theory

In the complex cognitive thoery looks at a children as a growing being that is constantly learning. This theory is similar to a constructivist outlook on children and how they learn. In a school setting this could be very similar to the Child Development Lab. Allowing children to discover the world around them by themselves and the adults to act as guides for support. In the presentation we did sink and float as one of the activties. This allowed children to creat hypotheses of what they thought was going to happen. They explained why they did through past experiences. The children go to perform experiments when they dropped the item into the water. The children are able to draw conclusions after observing if it sank or float. The teacher may ask them why they think it floated instead of sank, like they thought. I think cause and effect is big in this theory to show the children that they did this and got this result. Talking them through exactly what they did and why they think they got that effect. This is very helpful in problem solving with children and getting the children to think creatively and critically about different things they can do.
As the teacher you are just there for the child’s support and scaffold their way without telling them exactly what to do. This takes away from the child to think critically and draw conclusions. A lot of reflection is included in this process and it is important for the child and the teacher to have constant reflections throughout the day. When a child knows that doing this get this response, may affect the way they behave. The child is able to discover the world on their own without being taught everything through experimenting, interacting, and reflecting.
One thing that I do not like about this theory is the distinct stages that children should be in at a certain age. Every child is different and is experiencing life at a different rate.

Information Processing Theory

The information processing theory had some new information that I didn’t know. This theory takes a stand of opposing the behaviorist theory. Information processing refers to the time between hearing something and responding. I already knew that part of information processing but I did not know about all of the input and output that are included. Memory is also very important in this theory. Some people have a photographic memory and some others have a better time remembering words. Every single person sees and/or interprets something differently even if it is the same exact thing. This is all based on their own information processing and how theirs works. Some things that can affect that is age, attention spans, activity level, and specific learning disabilities.
This is a good thing to take into a classroom with children because it allows you to remember that everyone processes memory differently. Just because your teaching method really works for one child doesn’t mean it is working for all the children. Keeping that on my mind will allow me to create lesson plans or activities that incorporate all types of learners. Every child came from a different background and is raised differently from others. They all have their own perspective of what they hear, see, and touch and there is not one right way to do any of these. Giving activities of exercising memory and perspective would help improve those skills in children at an early age. I think it is good for children to talk about what they see and why they see it that way. This helps other children learn that not everyone sees the world like them. This also helps the teacher learn from the children. It gives you a hint of what kind of learners you have in your class.

Behavioral Theory

The theoretical perspective of the behavioral theory can apply into teaching children in many aspects. We know that all behavior is learned through this theory. If children can learn a bad behavior they can be taught to unlearn it. The group gave out chocolates to everybody that said “thank you.” The children were learning to say “thank you” if they wanted to a chocolate. The reward is something that can teach a new behavior or even a sound can. In classroom’s there is certain behavior that teachers want. They want you to not speak when they speak, raise your hand, and treat others nicely. When a child does not do this behavior there are consequences, to teach them to not do it. When a child does do a behavior they may receive a star to promote that behavior. Some of the behavior tests that they showed us in class promoted phobias and fears in the tests that were done. This just reiterates that any behavior can be taught or learned and it is important that we are doing it to improve students not create fears.
For me, I would model appropriate behavior that I would want my children to learn. There is always going to be consequences for bad behavior in schools but I think it is important to not categorize that child as a “troublemaker” or “no good” from that situation. Clearly laying out the rules for the children in the beginning of the school year will give them the responsibility to choose to make those actions. Holding children responsible is very important and telling them which behavior they did and how it was wrong promotes them to not make that mistake again. When some people think of behavior they immediately think of wrong behavior and the consequences that they would have for it. But I think it is more important to teach good behavior as well. To focus on the positive and the negative is very important to me in my teaching future. Responsibility of children’s behavior is important for them to know and learn how to be an independent person.

“Once In A Lullaby”

In the film, “Once in a Lullaby” the chorus teacher and the children created something beautiful. In the process of that a lot of learning occurd. Children would sometimes have issues that needed to be resolved. Sometimes it was between two kids or it was personal. Either way Mr. B was there to help the children problem solve. During that children would hear the other child’s point of view and get to express their’s as well. There was also a lot of attention and focus that had to happen during the entire process. It can be very hard for children to control their emotions and excitement when something that big comes along and they had to learn how to regulate that and channel it to somewhere else. This showed a lot of patience the children had to acquire. Mr. B did a great job of allowing and encouraging the children to express themselevs and to never be afraid to do that. There was also some leanring occuring that had to do with cause and effect and consequenes. The young lady had to realize what she caused had an effect and led to the consequence to be taken out of the chorus. Respect was another thing that was really important that they learned even if they don’t agree with somebody.
What I noticed about this kind of teaching was how much it worked. It really was successful and it showed to everyone that crossed their paths. Mr. B created a safe place for the children to feel comfortable and to take risks to express themselves. This space did not allow any judgement and everyone was equal. It allowed children to feed off of other’s creativeness and mature. This kind of teaching stuck with all of the children and that showed when they could not physically express themselves when they were teaching. The children, the teacher, and the celebrities will never forget this experience for thei entire lives and it all starts with the teaching of Mr. B and his involvement and care for these children’s lives.
What seemes powerful about this experience is how much this positively affected everyone it surrounded. For the kids they got to experience a once in a lifetime thing. The teacher got to see all of his hard work that he puts into caring for these kids, teaching them, and mentoring them shown and proved to millions of people. The celebrities and the media got to experience commitment, practice, talent, passion, and love all in a group of elementary schools kids. I think it made everyone feel a little bit more humble and appreciate the people who care for them and the time they put into what they put out.