Response to Linda -- In response to: "If students
create own learning by making sense of their experiences shouldn’t part
of Ed Psych focus on the student’s ability to apply new knowledge to
new situations?" Yes! Education
Psychology should investigate the ability to apply new knowledge to new situations.
The foundation of learning deals with learning new knowledge. Then students
must apply that knowledge to learn something else, or to solve a specific
problem. A lot of learning occurs based on experience and not what is "taught"
by others. Ed Psych should definitely look at this knowledge. I have found,
in my relatively short teaching experience, that students learn faster, and
are able to apply that knowledge faster, when they are learning on their own.
This is where the teacher becomes the facilitator. I have a fourth grader
who has a lot of difficulty with math. Her twin cousins recently moved in
nearby. They also have learning disabilities. This student helps her younger
cousins. This help that she is giving them has increased her ability to work
through her own math difficulties. Now, this will not make her difficulties
go away, or make a major increase in her abilities, but it is beneficial.
She is applying the knowledge and that is increasing her retention abilities.
Response to Tammy -- I like your wonderings regarding the "Wild
Boy" and civilization. Being
"civilized" is really a relative concept. What one society might
call civilized, might appear as uncivilized in another society. I see that
this has happened over and over in our history. We feel that a group of people
are "uncivilized" so we go about forcing them to become "civilized".
We did this to the American Indians. We forced them to abandon their culture.
We also did this to the slaves. We took them away from their world and then
called them ignorant when they did not fit into our. Who gives use the right
to say who is civilized and who is not?
Response to Amanda -- "I wonder how many educational
psychologists are former teachers" -- I wonder the same thing about all
of those politicians who seem (or at least think they do) to know exactly
what and how all students should learn. When is the last time they have been
in a classroom, and responsible for a child's education? "I wonder how
a teacher can trust educational psychologies when they are always changing
(what teachers thought was good 30 years ago seems not so good today)"
-- How can we be expected to teach, based on their theories, when they can't
even make up their minds what those theories are? This is also similar to
those "wonderful" politicians!
Response to Glenda in regards to Karin's Wonderments -- I
agree that many of the "latest and greatest" are pushed on educators
before they are proven effective and successful. During
my student teaching, my supervising teacher was given this new test MBA (I
forget right of hand what the letters stand for) to give the students when
testing in preparation for annual reviews. This test came from the district's
Special Ed Co-op. It is a condensed version of the Woodcock-Johnson. As we
gave this test and looked at the scores, we found that the results were skewed.
Students appeared to be performing at much higher levels than they actually
were. She spoke with the co-op to see if she could resume using Woodcock-Johnson
in order to see more accurate results. They said no, keep using this. Just
last month, I had a student move in from another district in that co-op. The
test results in the student's record were from that same test. Do the "officials"
ever check things out before they use something? They received a suggested
from a well-respected, veteran teacher, but ignored it. Why? Who told them
that this test was so much better? Did they actually try it out on students
before requiring all of their teachers to use it? It makes you wonder just
what planet these "officials" come from!
Response to Colleen -- In Regards to #1: "I wonder
what a PET scan of Victor’s brain would have shown. What kind of brain
activity would doctor Itard have seen and what changes would have been observed
as he worked with Victor?" It would be very interesting to see a PET
scan of Victor's brain. I would also be interesting to compare and contrast
it with the scan of another child his age. I wonder what differences there
would be, and what similarities we would see....
