Persoal Learning Theory

Piaget's Cognitive Development

Like: I like the different stages that Piaget's has outlined. They make sense to me, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete and formal all seem to go in accordance with what I understand.

Dislike: I dislike the confusion I have between assimilation and accommodation. They're so closely related and it's hard for me to differentiate between them using examples. I also have some frustration knowing which stage applies to some examples we've gone over. Concrete and Formal seem very similar to me.

Vygotsky's Cognitive Development

Like: I like the Zone of Proximal Development, it is easy to understand and explain. I can see how students and all people move up and down in this learning development theory. It's simple, what we can and can't do on our own and what we can do with help.

Dislike: I also have trouble with the definitions for scaffolding and guided participation. From my loose understanding, the only difference is that scaffolding is help from a superior and guided participation is more with groups and people from a peer group.

Erikson's Psychosocial Development

Like: I like Erikson's theory because it goes into more depth than Piaget's or anyone else. The 8 stages are easy to understand and are adequately explained to help me see where people fall into categories. I can also see where I have been at stages of my own life and see what stage I might be in right now.

Dislike: There are so many of them! They all make sense, but some of the definitions are explained differently then what I'm used to. I have a hard time remembering all of them. If I can' tremember all of them off the top of my head, the odds that I actually think of them and use them while teaching are slim.

Kohlberg's Moral Development

Like: I don't like anything about Kohlberg's theories, mostly because I don't understand them, I did worst on the test on these sections.

Dislike: The reasoning behind each theory was confusing to me and I didn't understand how he came to the justifications and explanations that he did. Each of the stages seemed interchangeable to me and that's why they were confusing on paper.

Goleman's Emotional Intelligence

Like: The idea that it is something that I can recognize and manage. And being able to do so with others is beneficial in the "real world."

Dislike: There is nothing I disagree or dislike about emotional intelligence.

Information Processing

Like: Making the analogy between learning and computers makes sense to me. Information can be input, stored and retrieved later is broken down into simple enough steps that it makes following it easier. I also liked doing the visual model in class, that helped me understand it's process too.

Dislike: The two different lost stages were confusing at first, I couldn't understand how there could be two or where they'd fit. The different categories that fall into long term memory were also a little confusing in order to try and find where new information would be stored.

Knowledge Construction and Higher-order Thinking

Like: I liked the community of learners, spiral organization and problem-based learning definitions and examples from this section. These ideas made clear sense to me and helped me understand how I can implement them in my future classroom, especially creating a community of learners.

Dislike: Bloom's Taxonomy gave me all kinds of trouble throughout the semester. I disliked the different verbs and how I was expected to remember them all or at least under which category they fall. Especially in curriculum, they killed me. However, I understand that it will be important for me to utilize them correctly in my classroom in order to test and evaluate students most appropriately.

Behaviorism

Like: Token economy hit home for me because it was my fifth grade teacher, through token economy, that taught me to be responsible. He would give out "bucks" for assignments and we would use them for just about anything, parties, prizes and whatever else we could think of. It taught me responsibility. It worked behavior on me.

Dislike: I'm pretty sure the majority of the class feels the same about negative and positive reinforcement and removal and presentation punishment that I do. They are confusing!

Social Cognitivism

Like: This one also helped me understand better the way I learn. I learned about self-efficacy and vicarious reinforcement as well as self-regulated learning. All of these summarize how I learn and it made things more clear for me. In my future classroom, I need to be a good enough teacher to encourage students and help them develop a positive self-efficacy.

Dislike: Reciprocal Causation has been muddy for me since the beginning. I can't tell if it's something that we are supposed to manage as teachers or if it's something the students are supposed to be aware of as learners.

Group and Individual Differences

Like: There was nothing I like about group and individual differences.

Dislike: I disliked the stereotypes that come with groups and then placed on individuals.

Motivation

Like: I liked learning about all the different ways to motivate myself and my future students. I think this one is important because with all the different students will come different ways of motivating them. Learning the differences will help me help them. Specifically, intrinsic motivation helps me and is clear

Dislike: There is nothing I dislike about motivation.