Response to Module D-Teaching All learners by Rhiannon

http://caonie.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/module-d-teaching-all-learners/#comment-19

This post raises some very interesting ideas in regards to the disconnect between Stan’s teaching style and his students learning style. Your inclusion of Harris’s theory was particularly effective and made me reflect on the idea of self-efficacy. If students are stuck on the ‘behaving’ level as you suggested, then the students’ self-efficacy would be very low. This leads to further problems as Snowman suggests “…students who do not have happy and productive learning experiences in school disengage, disrupt and dropout.”(Snowman, 2009, p236) Stan’s overall prejudice for the community and the school in general does nothing to fight the cycle. Instead Stan needs to recognise the rich source of culture and intelligence in every class, and embrace it within his lessons. If he attempted to move from a behaviourist approach towards constructivist learning, Stan may see improved engagement within his classroom as students will feel more connected to the experience (Snowman, 2009).

                Your reference to Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence is effective. I feel this could be further explored through Bloom’s Taxonomy. The six areas “remembering, understanding, applying, analysis, evaluating and creating” (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, pp.67-68) provide a basic scaffold for learning which can be particularly useful in classrooms with large gaps in differentiated learning.  This would allow students to engage with content in a structured environment that builds on previous learning.  By combining the two theories within the classroom, Stan could provide a rich scaffold whist allowing for the different intelligences amongst his students.

Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds). (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational objectives. Complete Addition. [Longman: New York}

Snowman J., et al. (2009).Behavioural Learning Theory: Operant Conditioning (Chapter 7). In Psychology Applied to Teaching. (1^st Australian Ed.) [John Wiley & Sons: Australia] pp.223-261

Snowman J., et al. (2009). Constructivist Learning Theory, Problem Solving and Transfer (Chapter 10). (1^st Australian Ed.) [John Wiley & Sons: Australia] pp.334-371