Module 1.. Summer fun!

Our first week of reading has us engaged in chapters 1, 2, and 3.  Anita Woolfolk and the book Educational Psychology prepares future teachers for the classroom. Educational Psychology is “the study of the development, learning, motivation, teaching, and assessment in and out of schools” (Woolfolk, 2019). It is important to understand how to teach and how students learn. Motivation and assessment play important roles in how students learn. Teachers need to evaluate each student's needs and teach them accordingly.

The first chapter of the book gives an overview of what classrooms are like today as far as demographics and diversity. The United States is growing in population and will continue to grow which makes the classroom become more diverse. On page 4 it says that by 2044 more than half of the population will be members of a minority group and I figure even farther down the line that number will be close to one hundred percent. Chapter 1 also talks about confidence and about making a difference. Basically, chapter 1 gives a background of the types of students to expect and being prepared with the knowledge of how to teach the students. While observing a Physical Education teacher at ST. Damian in Oak Forest I learned a lot about adjusting to the needs of each student. The student's attitudes would change daily depending on what was going on at home or in their lives. The teacher would observe these changes in the students and alter different things. One student has emotional issues and would roll around on the floor so the teacher would let him be and the student would eventually come to join the rest of the class when he was ready. The teacher always had control of the class but chose when to engage and not to engage. Chapter 1 also talks about different research methods in educational psychology and the purpose/questions answered. These research methods help to assess what is working and the effects of the research. It is important to understand how someone is being taught and how they are responding to what is being taught.

The second chapter touches on cognitive development and the brain. It is interesting how the brain develops and what affects its growth. The myths and truths table were interesting to read. It appears our brains are more durable than expected. Piaget's theory of cognitive development was also interesting to compare with Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development. Piaget proposed that children are active learners that learn through their environment and developed in stages while Vygotsky believed children developed through conversations with adults, complex mental activities, and performing challenging tasks that promote growth. I felt like they both had valid points and both their theories hold true to a child's development. On page 62 “Vygotsky believed that learning is an active process that does not have to wait for readiness.” When my daughter was a baby, she learned how to do everything quickly. She walked before she was nine months and was potty trained shortly after. My youngest daughter learned at a slower rate and it took her over a year and a half to walk and closer to two years to potty train. Both of my daughters grew up in the same environment with the same parents. I feel my older daughter was more motivated mentally and conquered these tasks because she strived to do something even though she was not physically ready. My younger daughter did not care to learn these tasks and even though we tried to motivate her she was not mentally ready to conquer these tasks. I felt I put in the same effort for both of my daughters, but I could tell that my older daughter understood more of what I was saying, and my younger daughter did not.

The third chapter covers self, social, and moral development. The chapter talks about how children develop through the adolescent and elementary school years. I like how the chapter talked about exercise, recess, obesity, and eating disorders. I have always felt that having a healthy body contributed to having a healthy mind. On page 77 the book says, “Physical activity and participation in athletics have benefits for all students’ health, well-being, leadership skills, social relationships, brain development, and even learning.” I feel the body is like a machine and one part cannot be ignored. Many people go to school to educate their minds and never bother to exercise their body and vice versa. The body needs to be taken care of as a whole and each part relies on the other parts for peak performance. While reading through the chapter I found out that I am an authoritative parent which I do not know if this is bad or good, but I feel I give my daughters a ton of love and I am controlling with high expectations. I want my daughters to know how much I love them, and I try to help them avoid mistakes that I may have made. I try to push them to be the best that they can be, and I teach them that they can do anything if they put their minds to it. They often ask me “why do I care so much?” “nobody else parent cares as much as you do?”. One day they will have children and hopefully see why I care so much. The chapter also touched on divorce which I felt affected my daughters dramatically. I feel my daughters still struggle with their relationship with their mom and it will affect them their entire lives. Erikson’s eight stages of psycho-social development was also a motivating read. I compared the chart on page 97 with my daughter's progress growing up and felt that many of the stages were accurate. Every child is different and has factors in their lives that may delay or accelerate a stage. I also find myself in the late adulthood stage reflecting on my life and trying to figure out what is important. This is how I have come to be an adult student changing my career at my age. The final part of the chapter I am going to talk about is moral behavior and development. Kohlberg had six stages of moral reasoning and after reading through them I felt they made sense to a point. The average person may think these rules apply but thinking deeper and using common sense will lead to making decisions for other reasons. I think of laws that are made like stage 4 says. “Laws and authorities must be obeyed; the social system must be maintained” page 109. Laws change all the time; one day something might be morally wrong and then the next day it is morally right because the law said so. For years marijuana has been illegal and morally unacceptable; now the government is making it legal and ten years from now nobody will remember it was morally wrong. It is the same with alcohol from back when it was illegal during prohibition times. Now nobody thinks it is morally wrong to have a drink in a social setting because it is legal, and everyone does it. For the most part, the six stages are on track with how society views morals but there is always going to be some deeper thinking that will contrast with what is morally right or morally wrong.