The Wonderful Blog Which You ve Never Seen

Over 100 years ago, a Russian scientist by the name of Ivan Pavlov published the results of his work. What he termed “condition reflex” was the first model of learning - Classical Conditioning. So what does this have to do with education? A lot!

Since that point in time, numerous other researches have continued their investigation on how individuals learn from Piaget to Bloom to Krathwohl just to mention a few. With all of this documented learning research during the last 50 years, why are we still not achieving the measurable performance success that we know is possible?

Possibly, through intentional and unintentional actions, an old malady for lack of a better word has gained additional ground. I have named this Performance Failure Conditioning. During the last 20 plus years, I have been observing this disorder and have come to realize the enormous detrimental affects upon our society.

So what is performance failure conditioning? Simply speaking, individual performance is conditioned to fail because known obstacles are not removed or are intentionally placed in the path to performance success.

Within education, performance failure conditioning has become rampant. During my first education course over 15 years ago, the professor made the following statement: “Over 90% of you will teach as you were taught in spite of what you learn here.” Those words haunted me because even though I was a good student, I had learned early in my K-12 educational experience to work around poor teachers. And after reflecting about the total $25,000 plus college investment for a Bachelor’s Degree in Education, those words haunted me and continue to do so even today. I became aware very early on how conditioning played an important part of my professional development and day to day living experiences.

Another example centers around training teachers. Incoming teacher performance is conditioned to fail because teachers not trained to overcome the number one obstacle that prevents engaged learning from happening - attitudes. I have surveyed over 1,000 teachers the last 5 years and have learned that students’ attitudes are the major obstacle in creating an engaged learning environment. Redeveloping attitudes is not part of the elementary, middle school or high school college teaching curriculums. Earning my teaching degree later in life, I can also personally attest to this fact. Since it is not part of the training, then these new incoming teachers have indeed been conditioned to fail.

Also, in many school systems, there continues to be unqualified teachers who are practicing within the classroom. Their lack of instructional knowledge and certification definitely affects the performance of their students. Their behaviors are conditioning the students to fail. Student achievement within these dysfunctional classrooms is one of the worst examples of performance failure conditioning.

Performance failure conditioning is not new. This disorder has been around for many years. However in today’s world where every moment within the classroom must be one of high performance, performance failure conditioning must be eliminated.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, President of ADVANCED SYSTEMS, works with large urban to private schools, certified staff, support staff, students and parents to improve performance in 30 to 180 days. Using proven tools, we can quickly and affordably identify the gaps in YOUR organization, provide you with an Action Plan that you can easily implement along with developmental programs from executive leadership to student leadership.

What would the value to you be if everyone within your school all rowed in the same direction with energy and enthusiasm?

ADVANCED SYSTEMS

Connecting Passion to Purpose to DOUBLE Performance in Real Time

Tags: attitude, Development, education, failure, performance, public schools, school, student, success, teacherattitude, Development, education, failure, performance, public schools, school, student, success, teacher

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Much has been said and written lately about providing students with choices. I’m all about any methods which will improve student involvement in class, giving them ownership in their learning. There are many ways to give students choices, options, or just to provide random results and change up the monotony. This article will discuss how to use random results in typical class situations.

Ever wonder if you choose certain students more (or less) often in class than others? Or would you like to be able to completely call on students at random?

A great technique is to make and use an index card deck with your students’ names on the cards. On the first day of any of my classes, I pass out blank lined index cards (we use the 3 x 5 size) to all the students. I then have them fill these out with information we can use later on in class. Then I collect them and keep them separated by class with a rubber band. Then I can quickly access the names of all of my students. This helps for learning their names quickly too.

The random calling technique will increase your students’ attention, since any one of them could be chosen at any time without you playing favorites or ignoring anyone. Always try to choose several students each time you use the cards, and everyone will quickly understand that they may be the next person called. No student wants to be embarrassed, so they will all formulate some type of response to give in case their card is drawn next.
What information needs to be on the cards? That depends on what you want to know about your students. I ask for at least their names, parent’s names, and phone contact numbers.

In one upper corner, write in the student’s hour (I also like to circle the number) so you can sort them out easily later. Other useful information could include text book or calculator numbers, birth dates, and even students’ interests or hobbies.

How often do I use the cards? Several times each hour! We use the cards in warm ups so everyone has a random chance of being picked. The cards are used for choosing random teams or groups. They are great for class discussions, since students cannot just be quiet and disappear; every discussion question can be answered by several students in succession, who must either build on previous information given or generate a new line of thinking. I also use them to ask questions before students are dismissed. If the question is answered correctly, I let that student leave early.

The cards can be shuffled each time you use them, or you can leave the order and pick up there again later, ensuring you’ve called on every student before repeating.

Now, can you stack the deck? Of course! Because you hold the cards, only you know if you’ve chosen truly at random. This is useful when you just know a student isn’t paying attention, or if you want to check understanding by a specific student.

Should you worry about students who still seem to never be called upon? That does happen, but it will even out as the year goes by. I’ve had the opposite happen too, where a student was actually chosen three times in a row, even though I shuffled the deck each time!

Student hobbies or activities can be great for making connections to class material. As a warm up or sponge activity, for example, use your cards to randomly call on students to state how what they learned in class could be applied to or connected to their hobby.
The cards are great for choosing students to read aloud in class. And as the teacher, you can still stack the deck to match up appropriate students with a paragraph’s difficulty level. I also try to assess student’s reading ability by choosing particular passages I want them to read aloud. Then I make sure the student’s card is chosen.

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For this article, and more on teaching and education, be sure to check out our website:
http://www.starteaching.com

Frank Holes, Jr. is the editor of the StarTeaching website and the bi-monthly newsletter, Features for Teachers. Check out our latest issue at:

Tags: education, learning, school, student, student teacher, students, teacher, teacherseducation, learning, school, student, student teacher, students, teacher, teachers

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A person’s education is actually never completed. We are all lifelong learners. We do however, have formal education systems that are finite and well defined.

An experience that is nearly universal in western societies is the experience of grade school and high school. These institutions do more than educate us in academics, of course. They also socialize us and are part of our life-education process: how to make friends, good decisions, establish personal standards, and so forth.

Some children will continue their formal educations by going to directly from high school to a college or a technical school, and that is where most will have their first taste of true independence. Here again, the institution does so much more than merely academic education.

How well prepared a graduate fresh out of high school is for the experience will quickly be revealed. There are classic pitfalls awaiting young college freshman.

Food, money, study habits, recreation. Each of these areas requires attention for the young student to do well.

Food: The reason for the term “freshman fifteen” is that suddenly the teenager is on his own with respect to food choices. Many students begin by making poor choices, and quickly put on extra pounds.

Money: Students who have suddenly got to balance their own checkbook and make large payments on things like tuition and housing without prior experience and coaching about handling money are at a disadvantage that could be disastrous.

Study habits: Some freshman aren’t prepared for the collegiate expectation of time outside of class devoted to study. They don’t recognizing that it’s a full-time job.

Recreation: There is no curfew and students living in dorms can be of drinking age, so alcohol is readily available. Many teenagers on their own for the first time are sorely tempted by the sense of freedom for experimentation.

Knowing ahead of time about potential problem areas allows parents to help their college-bound children get better prepared. Making good decisions is obviously not something one takes a crash course to learn how to do. It is the habit of a lifetime, and as parents, we begin to teach our children to make good decisions by allowing them sufficient independence while they are still at home and directly under our care.

The freshmen who were tightly restricted at home, and never encouraged to think for themselves, are generally the ones who go wildest as freshman. They’ve been given a taste of freedom they weren’t ready to handle.

If a parent thinks that a graduate needs more time and maturity before going to college, it is wise to give that time. It isn’t necessary to go straight from high school to college. Sometimes, it is better to see to our continuing education after expanding our life experience.

Callista Neuharth’s articles on topics related to college are published at You Go College , providing valuable free information about education. Also visit Yes Education for additional articles by Callista.

Tags: college, education, food, moeny, parenting, recreation, school, student, study habits, universitycollege, education, food, moeny, parenting, recreation, school, student, study habits, university

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