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.

Chapter 7

1. Chapter 7 discusses mental images and how they can be stored in our brains; there is an ongoing debate between a propositional code and an analog code within these parameters. Interference is an issue with images and can occur between the actual visual image and the image in your mind in which these interferences can also effect one's motor imagery. Mental images are also stored in our brains as cognitive maps in which we use them to navigate images we see into storage in our memory and allow them to "guide us" when we are recalling information and visually see a map in our mind. One issue with cognitive maps is that they are distorted and are inaccurate with spatial errors.
2. When discussing the theories in the imagery debate, it reminded me of Chapter 2's distinctive features when discussing how we process a stimulus' features because I began to think that we look at those features and visually process them into our working memory, encode them using memory strategies, and process them into long term so those features are placed together and, in fact, could make a cognitive map of a location or area-or just a simple figure.
3. I would like to see those who are spatially inept or struggle with that issue to have been discussed. In most case studies, it discussed that there were always some who performed better (so I would assume they have better spatial skills) so I would like the author to have gone more in depth and looked at as to why they did not perform as well in the studies pertaining to the mental imagery. Interference was discussed and I can see that as a "disability" to the mental imagery, but I would like to know more about how and why some just don't have that cognitive spatial ability which would seem to place them into the "lower performing" groups in the studies. This would greatly help me as a teacher with students who just were not made the same way as higher achieving students.
4. The imagery debate made me more cognizant that my students are possibly storing mental images not only as pictures but possibly also as a language representation. I am also more aware that some students are not going to be good at rotating images and aligning figures in their mind. It seems more difficult for some but that can relate to my kids' reading when they may not be able to differentiate between different letter fonts because they simply cannot align or rotate the features from their "known" letters into different letters they do not recognize and they are unable to rotate those features into the letter that they know.
5. I find that the studies might be legitimate but I am unsure of all of the studies because they do not give any information related to those participating in this study. Since the book talked about the differences (although not quite as large as we thought) between genders with spatial abilities, I think the study would be more reliable if we knew the ratio of males/females. That could skew the results if more men or women participated and make the case studies researcher biased.
6. I think that this information has helped to improve how we teach to meet the needs of our students. We have learned that some students are more spatial than others and others are more visually processing. This helps us as professionals to realize that some students need to get up and move around to learn and some learn by looking at a stimulus and placing that image in their brain. And some are just going to be able to spatially move objects in their heads while others just have not been wired that way. We have to be creative and teach to different needs.
7. Again, I have to continually refer to my low reading students (since that's all I have) but this chapter helps me to see that not all of my students are going to place learned information the same way into their brain, so maybe I need to recreate and consider those differences among my students. I also need to consider that interferences can occur and maybe it's not that my students just don't "Get it," maybe it's just that at that moment during the learning process, an interference occurred between the visual and mental images.
8. I cannot imagine how much fmri's cost, but there has to be a better way of viewing the brain's activity during specific cognitive tasks. Right now I don't have the answer to that for a cheaper version of the test, but I would think that we could continue to have groups that are more "heterogeneous" and conduct studies analyzing responses rather than brain activity.

Chapters 6 & 13

1. Chapter 6 discussed memory strategies to help retrieve information from long term memory including techniques such as mneumonics (chunking, first-letter technique and the hierarchy technique). The differences between metacognition, metamemory, and metacomprehension were also discussed and how they are realted to memory. Chapter 13 discussed the differences and similiarities between babies, children, adults, and elders with memory. I found it quite interesting that younger children believe they are smarter and answer more questions correctly as compared to older children and adults who are realistic in how they believe they perform in recall/memory tasks.
2. Chapter 6 reviewed a bit of chapter 5 in order to show that long term memory plays a major role in memory strategies (mainly because the strategies help retrieve the info from the long term memory). In order to recall information, one must have properly stored the info in long term so it is there to recall. The levels of processing and self-reference effect are two ensured ways to encode information and keep in long term memory.
3. I am still unsure of how to teach my low students how to retrieve info. Maybe it's not even a retrieval issue. I'm beginning to wonder if it boils down to how they encode the information from short-term into long term and that is causing it to get lost or not stay in long-term. My students are so low they have no metacognition...let alone the thought of metacomprehension. I'm good to get them to read the words of a basic book and get basic comprehension, let along think about how they are thinking. What do I do with those having memory issues? Would these strategies help or hinder?
4. I'm beginning to wonder this myself. I'm thinking if I begin to explicitly teach my students this higher order thinking (metacognition) and strategies to help them encode (i.e. learning in context) and utilizing their background knowledge, them maybe this would help them place it into long term memory and help their retrieval. I would like to begin teaching them categorizing and using more imagery. I have also been thinking this week that I should give them more time to think about what we are learning so it might be possible that they have time to process the info and have a greater retrieval.
5. There appeared to be valid case studies used in the two chapters. However, I questioned the testing effect case study on p. 170 when it failed to provide the students' age (in which I'm wondering if this could have been developmentally inappropriate depending on the age), how the students were divided into groups, and no control group was used. My wondering is if the ones who waited longer and scored higher are the more academically inclined students and that just happened by chance.
6. In chapter 13 when discussing older adults and how they are unable to maintain or retain information that should be placed from working memory to long term memory, I cannot help but think if there is a way to combat this. In one study, those with higher vocabularies (or seemingly education) did better on memory tasks than those without. I wonder if we became proactive and trained middle-aged people to stimulate their minds and practice memory strategies then maybe we would not have this discrepancy. We worry more about older adults and leaving them alone but why is it that we are not helping to train them and taking care of the problem before it happens?
7. Memory strategies should be taught even as early as pre-school age. One can begin with categorizing, teaching students to make connections to everyday life, and begin teaching visualizing. These strategies will begin a basis for correcly encoding info into long term memory so it is ready for retrieval. Even as kindergarten and first grade students begin reading, teach them explicitly what the strategies are and why we do them (this should in turn teach metacognition).
8. When thinking of all of the case studies, they all appeared to use money and time conscious research. We can continue to research strategies in schools. Classrooms are cheap, in place, and provide a ready to research atmosphere that is ample for 9 months of the year. Most teachers should be willing to allow someone in their room to explicitly discuss or administer memory strategies and calculate how they work.

In regards to Ray's comment last week, I realized I worded the answer wrong and I appologize. I meant to say that it is impossible for teachers to become complete experts on their content knowledge. We must be competent and have a knowledgeable understanding of our area, but it is impossible to understand and be experts in every single aspect of our content. And, with my area, it would not be ideal to be an expert in every single area of reading. With all of the foundational theories, everyone's reading techniques (at least the ones marketed), and current studies, we would never become an expert in our content because it is constantly changing. It might be more impossible. So, that is why I said we should know our students but I also think we must have an understanding and be good at our content. Experts might be a far cry because we would be reading research constantly and never obtain expertise because it is always changing. We might try, but I believe for these reasons it would be difficult. But, look at historians. They must specify an area to study to become an expert. But, to me, reading encompasses an extraordinary amount of material (we even use it across the content areas it's so vast) so would it be possible to become experts at reading? Or, maybe just experts in one aspect of reading?

Chapter 5-Long-Term Memory

1. Long-term memory encompasses engrained memories stored which can be recalled when something/someone reminds you or asks you to remember something. Everyone's long-term memory can be affected by personal experiences (schema), exaggerating a situation based on our experience, or even allowing our emotions to change how we viewed a situation at that time now stored in our memory. Long-term memory is stored memory and includes episodic, procedural memory, and semantic memory.
2. In chapter 2 of how people learn, the text discussed chess players and how they are experts in their field. It then went on to describe how those experts use chunking when storing information (chess moves) in their brains, apply critical thinking to many aspects of their game rather than a simple formula, and have an extensive recall. Pages 141-142 in Matlin reinforced the information from the online text and was consistent with the same information.
3. I am still unclear on the eyewitness testimony section. I understand that one's memory can become skewed and not able to clearly remember the situation exactly, especially after a longer amount of time has passed, but then why did psychologists allow shallow research prior to the 90's? Why is it that eyewitnesses were key in a court case but yet now they have placed many lives at stake due to lack of research on a topic that could have mistakenly killed many innocent people?!
4. I believe that the implicit and explicit memory tasks struck me for my profession along with the schema. It's important for me to keep in mind that the two tasks should be used in equal amounts to truly get an accurate understanding or assessment on students. The schema is super important for reading because everytime you read, you should apply your schema in order to connect and grow deeper into your text so you might remember it rather than forgetting it. This whole week I just wondered how I could better build schema for my students so they might have a better understanding of their text. (A lot of my students have not even had the experience or memory of going to a shopping mall!)
5. I am beginning to wonder just how biased the author is. On page 148, the author begins to give her opinion about Bush's reasonings for war. I began to wonder how biased she is and if the studies she has included are studies that only support her theory beliefs. Also, page 150 had a study completed by 2 people (I'd hate to even say researchers) and there was not a credible source sited, just the date the study was completed. How valid is this?
6. The study on memory is important because it allows us to research and find there are many differences between how we perceive situations and therefore how they are stored in our memory. I also must say it has completely made a difference in eyewitness testimonies since they are no longer held as the greatest evidence in a case. Memory is also important in improving how we teach students with recall. It helps us, as educators, to figure out how to engrain important info into our students but more importantly how to recall it.
7. I would use this info with my low reading students in making sure their schema is correctly built and they perceive situations accurately. By allowing students to access their schema, it is allowing it to stay used and ready for quick recall.
8. I am thinking the September 11th study was completed in a cheaper, faster method. They only saw the participants twice and we had no idea of their background or schema that may have effected their answers. The researchers also did not have them fill out a questionairre or cared to find out where they were during the time of the attack. There was no control group so how were they in reliability?

Chapter 2-How People Learn

1. There are novices and there are experts. Experts look at the whole picture and see how they can solve problems by synthesizing their understanding or knowledge while novices just see the surface of the problem and apply basic understanding or knowledge gained...they are unable to synthesize their understanding. As educators, we should become experts of our students because content knowledge expertise is of no value unless we are able to continually use it, keep it current, and apply it with our students based on their learning needs.
2. The author discusses how experts are able to chunk information into their working memory by chunking it into "familiar patterns." Matlin reinforces this understanding when he states that we are able to chunk information into our short-term memory, since it holds limited information, by units of 5-9 chunks so we can better remember the information.
3. I am still not clear on how we can hold many accountable to being novices and not experts because they simply do not see the "whole picture." I don't believe it is an intelligence issue because our memories are able to hold the knowledge but what if the reason one has not become an expert because no one has explicitly taught or told one that we should try and synthesize the knowledge we have and apply it to other situations? Maybe we should begin to look at those who are experts teaching the content and point the finger at them because they are withholding that information and assuming they will pick up on that major concept!
4. As stated in #1, we as teachers should not become experts on content but rather on our students. I need to apply this by truly looking at each student individually and finding their strengths and weaknesses to teach each one specifically. I also need to keep in mind that their working memory only holds 5-9 chunks of info so I must not overload them but continue to reinforce the concept so it is practiced and moved out of working memory into long-term and is conditioned or habit to them.
5. It appears most information is valid but I have to wonder where they got all of their people for the case studies. For instance, did the chess players come from a place where chess is more of a sport and not looked on as "nerdy"? It appears that the study studied 10-11 year olds and college aged students and was comparing their working memory with chess to remembering numbers. The two are completely different and should not be compared because some players just might have the skill of chess down to a science of understanding but that does not mean that they have more or less of a working memory because they can or cannot memorize and recall numbers. Maybe they are just not wired to memorize numbers but they have just been conditioned to play a game of skill.
6.It is important to see that there are differences between experts and novices in order to try and counter-act the issue and strive to nurture more novices to become experts. The book offered no additional information as to why the examples given had not become novices, it simply appeared that it was due to how they process their information into their working memory that seems to make them more apt to their knowledge and synthesis.
7. I can continue to use the working memory 5-9 chunks when providing my students with new information as to not overload their brains so they are unable to remember. I also need to begin allowing them the experience to think critically in order to become experts in their thinking. I believe I can have some 1st graders who are experts at questioning. But, when they move to 2nd grade, they will no longer be experts because the bar is now raised higher to move to the next level in questioning.
8. The discussion between historians and gifted high school seniors could have been conducted in a better manner. This study should have saved time and money by comparing masters students working on their thesis papers rather than the high school students. The researcher obviously knew the outcome prior to administering the test so why waste time and money and the poor seniors' egos by setting them up for failure. By comparing those with the same amount of schooling and those writing their thesis (they are or should be more experts in their field through the writing of their thesis), the researcher could have had a more accurate result and used something already in place at an existing college, rather than drag the historians and seniors to a different location.

Chapter 3

1. There are three types of attention processes: divided attention, selective attention, and saccadic eye movements. The processes explain how our attention can or cannot focus on what is happening at the moment. There are also multiple theories that explain attention such as neuroscience research and visual reasoning for attention. The chapter also discussed consciousness and its relation to attention and vision with thought suppression, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and blindsight.
2. The feature-integration theory discussed one can easily find and target, could be a word or a specific picture, when it is in a specific color and different from the irrevelant items. The website discussed when using less color and distractors one can more easily view and understand the content presented-thus, reinforcing the the study by Treisman and Gelade. The chapter also discussed brain lesions in which people might not see specific places in the viewing field which accounts for "unusual deficits" in attention tasks. My father-in-law suffers from this. It is hard to keep him on task when eating because he believes he is finished eating and wants to leave the table because he cannot see his food. Or, he often sees the food on others' plates and wonders why he doesn't have it (he cannot see it on his plate). His attention is diverted constantly because of his visual problem. Chapter 2 discussed brain lesions and prosopagnosia with not recognizing human faces. So, lesions, depending on where they occur, can effect different visual or attention processes.
3. I am still not clear on where ADD fits into the picture. This is the attention processing chapter. It did touch on OCD but not a lot of students are OCD. We, as teachers, struggle with students who have attention issues and how to combat them with our teaching.
4. As discussed on blackboard, I wrote about how my students use the attention process of saccadic eye movements. I have realized that most of my students read word by word and pause longer to figure out the word because they are taking the whole word and stretching it out letter by letter sound. Their attention is focusing incorrectly. I need to try and teach my students more about taking larger eye movements and looking ahead at words when they read. This will hopefully increase their fluency and comprehension because they will be more apt to thinking about the story and not about decoding letter by letter. I guess the whole is bigger than the part! 5. Again, previous chapters back up the theories stated that seem to make it valid. I am not quite sure about the bottleneck theories. The book discusses it is too simplistic and goes further to discuss how it might be incorrect. The author does go to say that there are some credible parts of the theory but I cannot seem to find if the author is for or against this theory. There is not a lot of evidence to back it either way (or am I missing something?)
6. Attention is important because it allows us to see that there are different modes and reasonings why and how our brains process information and reverts to what is happening in our surroundings. It allows me to understand why some of my students conduct themselves the way they do during our small group lessons and during independent reading. I have more of a concept that each student is different and their attention processing is different. It's like differentiated instruction but I'm going to call it differentiated attention! This chapter also helps explain my father-in-law! He suffered a major stroke and now cannot see everything-especially things on his dinner plate. I need to be more patient with him during dinner because I have an understanding as to why he is acting this way!
7. I can use the saccadic eye movement attention processing with my lower readers. I will use this concept when working with my students in taking them one step forward and take their attention from reading letter by letter to reading word by word and looking ahead to help with fluency and comprehension.
8. I think that the white bear and cocktail party effect could have more easily been studied through surveys. It would have been a faster and cheaper method. The white bear could have been studied in a high school classroom setting quickly and without any cost. As for the brain research discussed, I still think that there has to be a more cost effective way to research the brain lobes without the expensive PET scans. If anyone can think of a way, please let me know!

Chapter 2

1. Chapter 2 focuses on visual perception and how the brain functions to make sense of what is seen and how certain "features" (lines and curves, etc.) come together to make objects which then become known objects to our brain. Several theories discuss why and how we see objects either from their "features" of similarity or differences or by geons which form 3-D objects. Bottom-up processing is also discussed and how when we see and object, the information from that object begins with basic object information and is then passed up through the process to form a complex image which is then seen as the complete object. During top-down processing, we use our background knowledge to help us recognize the object and begin with the top, most complex thinking, and end with the basic understanding of what the object is (color, shape, size, etc). This top-down process is used during reading when readers use context clues to read meaningful words, yet both processes are working together to figure out the object. It is also used in object recognition but can become an issue if one fails to see that something has changed and was not able to recognize or see the change. The chapter also discusses face recognition and how one looks or perceives an entire face rather than just a certain feature of the face.
2. Chapter 1 discusses early Gestalt theory and how one sees the whole picture rather than each part that makes up the entire picture. Chapter 2 discusses that when one perceives an image, he/she is able to see the object as a whole made from certain patterns rather than a mass of chaotic lines going every direction in a blob. Chapter 1 also discussed the information-processing approach and discussed that when processing information through the brain, the information is passed through one phase at a time. This approach follows along the bottom-up and top-down processing. The two processing concepts discuss too that information is passed either up or down depending on the process in stages as well.
3. I am still unclear about background knowledge and how it fits into knowing an object. If a child is reading a story about animals and he/she comes to an unknown word, looks at the object and completes both top-down and bottom-up processing but is still unable to identify the animal or figure it out from the text "features" then the child ends up skipping it and might never know what the animal is unless down the road the student encounters it and someone tells them or they see it on television and it is spoken to them. How do we build their background knowledge so they understand and "know" the objects to run them down both processes to understand and recognize it and place its name with it?
4. The section discussing top-down processing and reading applys to my teaching when discussing word superiority effect. Context is important to my readers and is helpful when my students don't know a word so they skip it and come back to see if they can "figure it out." I need to make sure I choose meaningful text so my students are able to practice using context clues and that processing. This should also help my readers read more quickly because the letters are more meaningful when attached to meaningful words. The book says that this should allow readers to move more rapidly through the text.
5. The author uses multiple research studies to support the theories. I believe what is discussed because the author discusses the theory and gives "holes" the theorists are missing in their studies. For example, when discussing feature-analysis theory, the author uses Gibson's research to back foundational neuroscience research. Then, the author used Hubel and Wiesel's research to continue to give supporting research on the topic. The author then goes on to discuss the problems with the approach. Multiple researchers were used to support, yet the holes in the research were clearly given. I believe the info given in the chapter because I have multiple experiences that can show for each theory. But, like each theory, there are instances that show the opposing side of the theory.
6. Perception is important because it allows us to see how we process information. It allows us to see that there are problems with perception processing and we, as educators, must take into account that students might use different processing techniques to find the same outcome. It also helps us to become aware that there might be problems with visual processing and the brain. It is helping me to understand that my students are slower readers possibly because they are having visual processing problems that I need to allow extra time or techniques to help them read.
7. I can use this information when assessing all students with a running record. I can take into account the visual images they are using from the pictures, consider their background knowledge, and assess their answer given for the text. This allows me to discuss answers with the speech and language teachers to find if there are any major problems that they might need speech and language services. This is one assessment for proof that a student may have visual impairment.
8. I believe that student perceptions of written text or objects can easily, and cheaply be assessed by any classroom teacher. Simply keeping simple DRA, running records, and oral answers documented by the teacher would provide evidence. Most students are sent to a doctor now to assess visual perceptions so why not use the data from teachers to assess a student's situation and needs? Does it really matter what part of the brain is not functioning? We, as teachers, have proof that something is not working and that is what matters. Brain research is expensive and if we document the occurances we can easily assess what students need to help them and provide support and accomodations.