Jinu’s Webpage

The Fighter Within

Created by: Justin Balatbat

Table of Contents

Introduction

Things that Influence our Learning

Developmental Learners

The Many Ways Children Learn

Observations Influencing Our Philosophies about Teaching

Introduction:

Good morning/afternoon/evening person who is reading this! I hope you enjoy the webpage I have designed for the LRS 100 class. I am not a person of many words, but I hope you and I will be able to use this as a guide to become a better teacher.

*~Power is beyond your control when you cannot control it yourself~*

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1.) What are the things that influence our learning? What are our learning styles?

17.	What is one intelligent behavior that has always been true for you?
	I have been known to be a "perfectionist". I usually try not to be even though I do it out of habit anyway.

18.	What is one intelligent behavior you wish everyone shared?
	I wish everyone shared their love and passion for something they want to do to the world, as long as it is nothing bad because nothing is impossible in the world. We only make it difficult to attian by seeing out limits in life.

From this survey, I have learned that I have strengths in Music, Logic, Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal, and Visual intelligences. Unfortunately, I have very low verbal strengths. However, I have average strengths in the Naturalistic, Existentialistic, and Interpersonal intelligences which helps me balance out my low verbal skills. My large strength in music would explain why distractions of music would help me concentrate on my homework. Also, it would explain why I do not work well in groups when it comes to speaking out my own mind because it would be best if I wrote it on paper.

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2.) Who are children as Developmental Learners?

For the second half of the observation, I drove to Chase Park to finish my research and observations. At the park, there was a mix of different age groups of children, infants, young children, and adolescences. The group of infants had their parents watching and taking care of them. One infant ran to the musical xylophone on the wall near the slide. She began to play with the musical instrument. Her mother then comes up and begins to play one of the songs along the wall that is given. She points out the different sounds of the pieces. The infant then begins to tap the same pieces of xylophone as her mother did and played a song. Through this, she is playing to learn how music is created by such a toy along the wall. The child’s fine motor skills develop as she continues to play the tunes off the wall. This was also one of the quick judgments I made in my “facts” column. Then, I began to observe another set of children afterwards. A group of young children that ranged from middle children to early adolescent children played on the baseball field playing baseball. The children interacted with each other by tagging each runner out, throwing the baseball to the batter, and giving signals to how to throw the ball. This is helpful for their physical and social-emotional development. The children are physically moving around the bases in order to win the game and gain the exercise they need. The children are also giving each other social-emotional development because of the interaction with each other as they try to encourage their teammates to win the game. Unfortunately, with these groups of kinder and humble children, there was a group of children who was near opposite. A group of adolescent skaters were skating near by the bleachers I sat. When one of the skaters fell of his skateboard while trying to do a trick, he began to shout out inappropriate, profane words. He then threw the skateboard across and hit the metallic fence. After, he obtained his skateboard once again, and his friends mocked him of his failed efforts to do a trick. That mockery the adolescent is receiving gives him maltreatment to the social-emotional and cognitive development. Because of the adolescent’s reaction after failing, it shows he was treated when he was younger. I have also observed another group of young and old adolescence. Their actions towards each other viewed to me as if they were good friends. Whenever one of the adolescence would attempt to make a trick on the gymnastics rings or bars, the rest would watch their performance and applaud, even if they mess up. This gives signs that they were not maltreated. Unlike the other group of adolescence, this group was kinder and more humble to each other. As children learn through outside experience, they develop more into all three developments. In a learning environment, their development is geared more towards the academics rather than in any of the other developments.

In my second observation, I went to Chase Street Elementary School. For three hours, I observed a group of First graders. During the first half, the children were learning the basics of English by having the teacher read to them. As the teacher read aloud, the children followed by reading the text aloud with him. This is a boost in a child’s cognitive development and partly of the social-emotional development because they are developing new vocabulary and writing skills in the language of English as they are reading orally aloud. The teacher then began to have the children read to each other. As the children recited the same text as the teacher read, the children develop reading comprehension skills and new vocabulary. After, the teacher wrote simple words, such as “an, and, ant, pant, and pants” to have the children easily spell and recite the word. This is also development in the cognitive field because of the new vocabulary is easily inserted into the child’s memory with its easy pronunciation. During the last half of the observation, the children were allowed to play outside as they ran for lunch. The children experienced development in the physical field because of their physical activity on the playground along with development in the social-emotional field because of their teamwork with one another when they played four-square and kickball. After Lunch ended, the children were brought back inside the classroom. The teacher had assigned each child a task to get things in order. There were two office monitors, two attendance monitors, and so on. This gives a child a sense of responsibility and a feeling of importance in the classroom.

In my first observation, I was able to move to different settings that complied with my schedule, unlike in my second observation which made me give up my day to stay at an elementary school. Also, in my first observation, I saw that the children developed more in the social-emotional and physical aspects outside of a learning area, rather than in a school setting where cognitive development thrives. Finally, I also saw that most of the time, the parents were there to guide and support their child in the first observation, whereas in the second observation at the elementary school, the children were guided by one adult. My observation, in general, had to be manipulated because of my settings, my surroundings, and my techniques of hiding within the area of children. In my first observation, my settings and surrounds were much broader, along with my techniques of hiding from the children. In the second observation, I could not hide from the children, and the surround was just one closed place, the classroom. In the next three observations, I plan to have more distance between me and the children I observe so that the adults would not think I was stalking them. Also, I would change the way I observe by not giving opinions in the “facts” column. Finally, I would also be more secretive of my motivations towards the public by pretending to be interested in something else rather than their children.

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3.) What are the many ways in which children learn? How do we record and analyze student learning?

At the Getty Museum, I was able to observe two children and their guardian or parent. As I took the tram up the mountain, I saw a child and her parent. The young girl was looking outside the window of the tram and asked her mother what was holding them as we went up the mountain. The mother told her that it was just magic and that everything in the museum was magic. The child looked outside again and asked me the same question. I did not answer, but I had a feeling that she was learning something about the tram. She had an understanding that the tram was held up by a magic cord or by magically flying towards the museum. I continued to follow her and her mother inside the museum. They went to the “Icons from Sinai” exhibit first. As I followed them, the child looked at one painting of Mother Mary, or an image that resembles her. She, then, was about to touch it as she said that she wanted to be carried on to her shoulders. Through this, her understanding of mothers influenced her to reach out to the painting. As she was about to touch it though, the mother slapped her hand, and she began to cry. Even though she was expressing one of Piaget’s theories where children are exploring their world, she stopped because of her understanding of not touching the painting. Afterwards, she did not touch any of the paintings anymore within the hour I followed her through the exhibit. Because of the mother’s slap to the child’s hand, her schemes told her that it was bad to touch the paintings on the walls.

For the next observation, I went to the Lab School on Wednesday. Even though my hours were limited, I was able to observe the kindergarten children playing in the playground. For the most part, the children looked like they were innocent young children. Unfortunately, there were some who were not so friendly and very shy. During the observation, there was one child that particularly kept alone. He climbed the pole with spirals all over and a plastic umbrella on top. When someone came over there, he jumped down and went to an area where there was no one. Although it seemed strange that he kept to himself, he showed that he had intrapersonal conflicts as he had low social interactions, as well as self-esteem. As I continued to observe him, he continued to isolate himself. Even when children invited him to join him, he walked away, played with the tricycle alone, and went to the other corners of the playground. In addition to this child’s behavior, there was other negative behavior throughout the observation.

On the slide, there were two children tying a rope onto the pole above the slide. They both slid down the slide and began climbing it with the rope. A third child joined their party, but one of them seemed like they did not enjoy his company. As he was tying his rope, one of the children untied it and threw it near the tree. He kept on trying though and kept on trying to tie it. The process continued for three times until she showed her aggressive behavior by pushing him down the slide. The other child, however, took his rope and tied it on the slide for him, showing prosocial behavior towards him. The child that threw his rope away in the first place left as they began to play. The child that was bullied moved on and played. Even though his was bullied, he stood up because of his persistence. He showed his high self-efficacy in believing that he is able to climb that same slide they were on.

Throughout the observation, there was a huge difference when I observed children while trying to hide and hiding behind the one-way mirror. No child looked through the mirror to check was going on. They did not suspect my presence. They were acting as if nothing was going on and that no one was observing thing for research. In addition, watching them from the one-way mirror helped me design a better research paper because they were in their natural settings acting naturally. Because of this, I was able to observe children in a different light. Even though they seem so innocent, they have so much to learn about cognitive skills and social behaviors towards others. They are all just one track minded and self-centered for now. Later on as they develop new skills, they will have better cognitive skills and social behaviors towards others. If I was one of the teachers that were able to teach the children, I would watch some of them carefully and show them alternative ways to deal with their social problems by giving them partners to be with the whole time. I would also create ways to enhance their cognitive development by giving them hands-on projects, such as painting art with their faces and noses. As for social problems, I would partner each person up with the person they do not seem to get along with very well and tell them that they have to work together in order to do a project, such as relay racing against one another. If they refuse, then I would have to partner them up with someone they do not know in order to have them further develop their social skills with another child.

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