Group Project

1. Group Project Blair Hanson, Jeff Huth, Michael McCartan

2. Graphics What is a Graphic? • Graphicis a broad term • Simply, an image • A graphic may be used on its own or to accompany text • Graphics can be seen on paper, on websites, in textbooks, on billboards, and in many other forms of media

3. Graphics What kinds of Graphics are there? • Photographs • Paintings • Graphs • Diagrams • Numbers • Shapes • Symbols • Logos • Maps

4. Examples of Graphics

5. Graphic Organizers What are Graphic Organizers? • Representations of knowledge, content, ideas, or notes • Usually text contained within a specific type of graphic (e.g. a diagram) • Often created by learners to retain information, or by educators to help convey main ideas

6. Graphic OrganizersWhat kinds of Graphic Organizers are there? • Venn Diagrams • Flow Charts • “KWL” Charts • Picto-diagrams • Basic Lists • E-Charts • T-Charts • Sequential, • Compare/Contrast, • Character/story, • Cause and Effect, • Vocabulary, • and Note organizers

7. Examples of Graphic Organizers

8. Enhancing Learning …Using Graphics • Grab students’ attention • E.g., using arrows or symbols in text to highlight key points • Incorporate Learning Styles • If most of your students are visual learners it would make sense to displays graphics to diversify a lecture-style lesson • Engagement • Often necessary for visual and technology-geared students in 21st century classrooms

9. Enhancing Learning …Using Graphic Organizers • Clear Task • Graphics organizers are very clear in what they are asking for. This allows students to know exactly what information they are supposed to write down. • Note-taking • Ensure all students are taking down the necessary information during a class; young students do not need to decide for themselves what needs to be written down and what information to ignore • Assessment • Graphic organizers also serve as homework assessments of students’ progress and as formative assessments of what students have learned • Organization and Retention • Visual learners, especially students with disabilities, tend to retain more information when they visually see it being recorded and categorized

10. Views of Learning Behaviorism Both Behavioral and Cognitive views of learning have an influence in today’s classrooms. When a teacher uses a strict, regimented schedule, they are taking on a behaviorist viewpoint. Students will learn that certain assignments are due on certain days of the week. They also learn to expect and be prepared for a quiz if that quiz is always given on the same day. Learned behavior is also used in taking attendance. Teachers will have their students “sign-in” or “punch-in”, just as many teachers do with their Smart Boards. This quickly becomes routine, part of a behaviorist approach. Similarly, behaviorists think of learning as sequential and hierarchical. This means introducing material in a very specific order, both within a specific classroom and between different levels of school in one subject. A foundational understanding of a subject is necessary before building with additional, more advanced pieces of information.

11. Views of Learning Cognitive Psychology Cognitive views of learning are used more and more in today’s classrooms. These techniques include presentations, games, discussions, and group activities. They utilize special positioning and location, motion and movement, and two-way interactivity. Some teachers use these methods to “flip” their classrooms: students listen to an e-lecture at home, and classroom time in school is then used in “untraditional” ways as students complete different types of work and assessments at school. Cognitive psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, and Jerome Bruner have contributed ideas such as assimilation, the “Zone of Proximal Development,” and scaffolding to the cognitive approach. Each of these ideas, although unique in its own right, focuses on the students, the way they learn, and how their interactions with others contribute to learning.

12. Behaviorist View Cognitive View • Concerned with observable, measurable behaviors and actions • External sensory stimuli have the effect of altering behaviors and actions • Deal with specific actions • Believe we learn to do something • Learning involves forming associations between specific actions and stimuli before or after the action • Concerned with mental activity and the process of thinking • No gathering or analyzing of data based on behavior; learning takes place in the mind • Deal in mental representations • Believe we learn that saying and doing things leads to particular results • Learning involves the formation of mental representations of the components of a task and the realization of how they are related • All knowledge is constructed • Learning occurs when hierarchical layers are sequentially built • Connections are made, whether behavioral or mental, between the knowledge that already exists and the newly acquired knowledge

13. Merging Viewpoints Ideas in Practice Most teachers realize that both of these views of learning have some degree of merit. Curriculum for almost any subject is created using a scaffolding or layering structure. Certain foundational concepts are first introduced to students early in a given semester. The concepts introduced later on are built on top of knowledge learned earlier in the class, and students’ abilities are taking into account when deciding on course difficulty and pace. In fact, this construction, which combines ideas from both the behaviorist and cognitive viewpoints, could be used as an analogy to describe the entire American education system.