Chapter 9 & 10

1. It seemed as if chapter 10 was a review of chapters 6 & 7 when discussing the importance of community learning and assessment. Chapter 9 was more appealing to myself as a professional in realizing the potential technology has in our classrooms. The chapter discussed visuals and how visuals can help students learn difficult concepts. This reminded me of using the visuo sketchpad and phonological loop in order to interpret and encode the problems presented. But, technology is completely changing the way we learn. We are moving from rote memorization to applying information and skills which can impede the old information and become mixed up or in with the new. Context was also discussed as far as being able to transfer learning from school to home based on the context students learn. Matlin discusses the importance of learning in context and how that helps students correctly encode and remember information. And who could forget A.I.? Need I say more, Matlin?! We must also use technology to scaffold learning and allow our students' learning about technology to be built in order to become an expert rather than a novice.

2. As I read the chapter on technology, I could not help but wonder about ambiguity (Matlin, ch. 9). Sometimes it is difficult to know what someone is saying unless you are face to face reading their body language and listening to their voice pitch changes to find more of the meaning behind what people are saying. ClassTalk was discussed as an online discussion (seems to me like blackboard) but I have found (from my blackboard experience) sometimes ambiguity can exist within the words we place on the computer. How can we, as a tech savvy world, figure out how to combat ambiguity and make sure everyone is on the same page when we are unable to see faces and know whether or not the work that was produced was actually produced by the student (or, did someone else do the work for them?). And, what about the social norms that could occur? I think I have offended some students in the class because they were of a different nationality and I didn't realize it at the time and said some brash words. How are we teaching students to be proper when speaking and how to hold a conversation when the conversation bats back and forth among screens?
3. As a teacher, I must be considerate of scaffolding my students' learning with technology. I need to provide some tech in my class so I do not limit my students in a world that will rely almost solely on technology in the near future. The learning programs discussed would greatly help my students when adjusted to their level and open the lines of communication (dialogue) and excitement in my classroom. I would love to use more of the internet to communicate with my parents as far as blogs and homework to give extra tips and hold all accountable or to provide online chatting with my parents. I need to help my students become successful in the competitive world as far as academics are concerned, but I must also be conscious of the fact that I need to prepare them for the world of technology so they can compete in it as well.

Chapter 6 & 7

1. Learning environments are essential to classroom learning and we must differentiate our instruction to meet the needs of our students. Chapter 6 discussed how learning is no longer rote and that ties into all that we have learned this semester with using higher order thinking and questioning which uses more cognitive processes because one is actually "thinking" and processing rather than simply memorizing. Education is becoming more stimulating! (Well, we hope that it will!) Within learning environments, in relation to diagnostic teaching, one must use students' known misconceptions and teach the students how to combat that (ambiguity, chapter 9). We discussed how we as teachers must inform and teach our students ambiguity not only in learning, but also in the world we live. Page 135 hit home with the learner-centered environment. It was interesting to see that this author and Matlin are on the same page when using context to teach. The text discusses using home and community to reinforce learning or provide additional learning opportunities which are helpful or complimentary to classroom learning. Matling discusses how we learn better in certain context and it helps information to become encoded into our long term memory. And isn't that the goal of learning?!
2. I'm a bit tired of hearing about the assessing but chapter 6 gives some insight to testing...but it does not answer my question. If assessing should be ongoing and truly drive our instruction, then why do we waste our money on state testing that really appears invalid and doesn't give us a reliable source of information on how we can drive our instruction? A lot of people teach to the test, so then why assess at all if we are teaching it? Why are we not teaching that higher thinking and showing our students how to apply one formula to multiple situations? Assessment is no longer a tool, it has become a way for teachers to put a grade on a grade card. Most teachers don't assess more often because it takes too long and taking the info and applying it takes time out of the designated "plan time" so the tests simply pile up and waste not only the teacher's time preparing, copying, and administering, but also the students' time because they took a test for no reason at all...just to be thrown in a trash can.
3. As a "not so seasoned teacher," I found the information on assessments to be important and to turn the wheels in my head. I want to be a more reflective teacher and providing more mearningful assessments should help that reflection. We need to take a step back and look at our teaching and how we are teaching and assessments will keep myself and my students on their toes. Having lower readers, I need to constantly see what my students need and this is one way to go about finding what they need. I also liked when the book said we must have a balance of activities in our day. I need to do more of this with my kids. We seem to have the same routine so every now and then, I need to balance the activities with them to make sure I am covering other topics and/or ways of learning using their intelligences.

Chapters 10 & 13

1. Multiple cognitive processes are utilized in both language and written production using the phonological loop, executive executive, visuospatial sketchpad, and working memory. Oral language production also exercises the tip-of-the tongue phenomenon while it also allows for ambiguity due to prosody. Not only does oral language produce discourse but it is only polite to use more positive directives rather than negative. Writing uses the multiple cognitive processes including (in addition to those above) long-term memory, semantic memory, and schemas. But, writers beware, overconfident writers must make sure that their writing matches what they mean to say!

2. This week's reading made me wonder if hesitations in speech are considered stuttering. I also found the section discussing activation (329) to be highly confusing. I even tried the example at the bottom to be helpful but I'm not sure what completely constiutes what always makes sounds more highly charged. I was also wondering, pertaining to writing, why there is limited research on writing and why they don't study emails that could provide more information and understanding into young students and language.

3. I have multiple students who have language production issues and the vocabulary and terminology from the chapters helps me to understand why my students use the language "errors" they do. It also reaffirms that the sign language (Tucker signing-phonemic sounds are related to hand signs) is research based and helps students to remember words. Since writing requires multiple cognitive processes and can be difficult for many students, it is important for us to encourage our students in writing through self-efficacy and allow them multiple opportunities to help by allowing students to outline their thoughts in writing at any time in order to not overload their attention.

Chapter 9-I read it, but I don't get it! (Chris Tovani wrote this book title)

1. Chapter 9 discusses language and comprehension. Previously discussed semantics relates to language because language and comprehension ARE meaning. Everything we say, read, or listen to are attached to meaning that we must keep in our working memory until we are able to interpret it and place it either into long term or stay in short term and then possibly vanish. Ambiguity was a meaningful part of this chapter and discussed how our eyes pause longer with eye saccades when encountering ambiguous words. This could effect comprehension because the information stored in working memory could be lost during these longer pauses in eye movement.
2. When it comes to artificial intelligence...I just don't get it! I have absolutely no background knowledge on this topic and some of the words used are a foreign language to me. I just cannot grasp how a computer could try to act like a human. No human is perfect so why would they make a computer program that is perfect to match up against an imperfect human? I understand they could be beneficial in some aspects, but how could a system emulate our cognitive processes when all we have are theories and not facts about our cognitive processes.
3. This chapter was tailor made for my students. I work with struggling readers and find that my students have low language abilities and low comprehension. After reading this chapter, I have reasons as of why they might be struggling with the oral language they hear and interpret along with why they might be low comprehenders. I am now more aware of how I must word my language with my students and how I can scaffold their understanding when they might misinterpret the text due to ambiguity. I'm also beginning to wonder if some of my students suffer from Broca's aphasia or Wernicke's aphasia. The symptoms tend to sound like some of my kids and I'm wondering if I could somehow help them by being more understanding and rethink my language I use with them.

Chapter 12

1. Chapter 11 discussed heuristics as far as how we go about solving problems (how we attack problems) and chapter 12 went further into depth on heuristics as they are realted and effect our reasoning and decision making. Heuristics also referred back to our working memory because this process requires our working memory to begin the reasoning process by figuring out our initial conclusion might not be correct. Reasoning also utilizes our processing, in some cases top-down is beneficial and in others, bottom-up should be considered as well. One eye opener from last chapter came back to haunt me again in this chapter! 11 talked about our background knowledge and how it can effect our problem solving and again, it showed up in 12 too! 12 discusses how sometimes our background knowledge can conflict with logic and cause us to make an incorrect decision by clinging to our background knowledge and simply not looking at the facts presented. This chapter also reminded me of the testing effect from a previous chapter which discussed that students seem to think they do better on tests than they actually do. They have a confidence level that is unrealistic. Well, apparently adults do as well! Overconfidence also occurs in adults when making decisions. I am extremely guilty of this, have been convicted, and will try to be better about this when making decisions. I will be positive, yet look at all of the possibilities before making overconfident decisions.
2. As much as blackboard discussed the confirmation bias, I find it still questionable that others don't take the time to look for counterexamples. I believe this is true for most researchers, but I do believe that some people and their personalities lend themselves to find this incorrect. For example, aren't most kids guilty of this? I'm not a parent but I know that kids will give every option in the book as of to why their decision is correct against the theory/parent answer given. Just thought I'd use that and look at the other side of the theory to try and prove it wrong! I am trying to look at disproving the theory rather than proving it! But, in actuality, isn't it true that some jobs require oneself to look at the opposite and disprove?
3. Again, this background knowledge info from last chapter has come back to haunt me for a reason! I believe I need to be aware that my kids (I have low readers) often rely on their background knowledge to make a decision. They are unable to make good judgements based on information because they rely heavily on their background and add their personal info when making a decision. It is also important to come to the big realization that media can influence my kids' decision making. The other day we were reading a story and one student made a connection as of to how it was related to a Hannah Montana episode (fortunately, I had seen the episode). I realized it was similar, but knew the endings were different. The student was unable to see that the endings were different and added the tv show ending instead. Not only does that effect their reading strategies, but it also makes them believe everything they see and hear. I had two 1st grades boys fighting and wrestling. They told me that was ok because they play that on their playstation. Again, media is seriously hurting our kids' decision making because it doesn't allow them to see the outcomes (which was bruising and detention). Unfortunately, they had to learn the hard way.

Chapter 11

1. Problem solving is intertwined with other processes including "attention, memory, and decision making." Attention cannot be divided when problem solving or it will not be completed to the ability of the one solving the problem (divided attention). When placing the information into one's working memory, one must properly store and organize the information based on useful and not useful information just as we categorize information into our semantic memory. Mental images also play a key role in problem solving with visual perception with the features the images hold by using symbols and visual (written) representation to solve a problem. The visual representation of graphs, diagrams, and pictures allows those as visual learners to conceptualize the process and find an outcome.
2. I am still not clear on which problem solving strategy is the better strategy? Again, I feel as if the 3 given do not address my lower students because the three processes appear to be more higher level thinking. My kids do see it as it comes (they surely don't begin with the end in mind) but I still don't believe they have the critical thinking skills to figure out how to problem solve. They are used to their parents feeding them the answers so where is that strategy?! Where do my low reading kids fit?Does it depend on the type of problem, one's learning style or personality?
3. As far as the creativity section applies, it just continues to reinforce that intrinsic motivation is more effective that extrinsic motivation because extrinsic decreases creativity and I need to be aware of that because I want to foster creativity in my classroom. It was also eye opening to see that attention is important in problem solving because I believe that is where my students struggle and it explains why their problem solving is lacking due to their attention struggles. I am more aware of this and will now try to combat this in my room to create more opportunities to build problem solving skills in reading.

Chapter 8

1. This chapter discussed 4 models or approaches to classify semantic memory: the feature comparison model-organizes items by their features, the prototype approach-organizes items by placing them up to the prototype to see if it fits or doesn't fit the category, the exemplar approach-categorizes information by allowing our background knowledge of items and their features to set the example for a category and to see if items fit into the category, and network models-interconnections allow concepts to connect and how and what is retrieved based on those connections. Along with semantic memory, schemas and scripts were discussed with how inferences can effect memory along with inferences made on gender types and the implicit memory tests developed in order to find the true validity of how we as a society have truly gender sterotyped.
2. This entire chapter reminded me of how we encode material into our long term memory, specifically I thought of the network models approach as the hierarchy technique mnemonics because it seems as if they are all "interconnected" to a specific hierarchy or stimulus at the top of the scheme (ex. apple from chapter 8 and the animal hierarchy from chapter6). It also reminded me of the features we learned about in earlier chapters and how items have features that make them what they are and "make an apple an apple." The 4 approaches all appear to use those features in order to categorize items into our memory.
3. I am still not clear on how to "fix-up" my students with conflicting schemas. The book seems to give warning signs and examples of the fact that it does happen, but I need to know how do I fix those with schemas that are what we as classroom teachers would consider not right because they are conflicting with their comprehension and basic understanding. I know that we are all guilty of this but it is really messing up my kids' comprehension. What can I do to better scaffold this misunderstanding and help them to be aware that what they know might not be right! They are already low level learners..how will they even be able to assess what's right and not right?
4. Schemas are important in reading especially when reading a book the student has ample schema about for it helps a student have a better understanding of what he/she is reading and one can make connections more easily when schema is present. I am also more aware that incorrect schema can be lethal to my students' understanding during reading and interference can also occur and interrupt their understanding or recalling after time has passed.
5. I see a possible discussion point from chapter 6 when discussing that students will remember more after a period of time (such as Jill's experiment where we had our kids look at the picture cards for 1 minute, recall them, and then 15 minutes later recall them again) and from this chapter when it discusses how a delay in recalling can occur over time. I realize this experiment was completed over a period of days and the stories were extremely similar and in the recall so the students did poorer but in the encoding recall as for learning, time is an advantage. I find these 2 to be contradicting because a lot can happen interference wise to one's memory during learning over time and cause information to become distorted or pieces lost just as the similar stories told interfered with the schema. My thoughts support my findings with the picture experiment with my students for they did worse after 15 minutes of recall because they were interferred by reading a book, talking with other students about the book, playing a game, and then getting ready to leave for the day. It was a disadvantage that I believe is more valid than the book supports.
6. It allows us to see that maybe we do store information in similar fashions (according to their features) but yet we place them there in different ways (encode them by prototype or exemplar approach) so maybe recall for some students when reading a book might pull out different information depending on which approach they used. Kids have different experiences and different perspectives so I believe they place those items in their memory differently so they must retrieve it differently. I also found the section on gender sterotyping to be eye opening for me as a researcher to be more aware that this exists and I must be careful not only as to the content I write to not be as biased but to also know that those I might study do have a bias and that could skew results to research studies.
7. I'm beginning to use it now as I think about my students when I am reading with them and how their schemas might be incorrect as compared to what they are reading might not match up and allow for comprehension errors. I would like to know more about how I can attend to more fix-ups with schemas but as for now I can begin to also see that when my students are making connections or asking I wonder questions during reading, they are each categorizing the information they are receiving from the text differently.
8. The section on inferences and gender sterotypes has come a long way as compared to how they used brain scans to assess thought processes and how it is now computer generated answers which is more quick and simple. But, I also question the integration and delayed recall for I would believe there has to be a better way of testing this method. Why not figure out ways of solving this problem rather than proving that it exists? That might be the better, more relevant method.