Educational Psychology

I think that my lesson went over really well. The students in my class don't tend to master skills immediately. It takes a lot of repetition for them to completely understand and master a task. But, I think that they did really well with this lesson. The students were able to pick the correct picture card when given options to find a specific one about 60% of the time as a whole class (this is a very good number for this class). They were able to complete the steps of bowling with partial physical prompts, other than students who are not coordinated enough to complete the steps on their own, they had more physical prompting. If I would have had the time, I would have liked to have taught this lesson to the class multiple times and given them more opportunities to practice the steps of bowling. To increase motivation, I wish I could have had more tools so that we could break into multiple groups to practice the activity and students could have had more opportunities to use the toys...

For my lesson, I taught a life skills lesson on how to go bowling. The students really seemed to enjoy it. We were practicing for a field trip that they were going to be going on the next day. I used a lot of ideas from Piaget in planning my lesson. The students I taught, were ages 4th-6th grade, they had profound disabilities. None of them are able to talk or communicate other than when given two choices of pictures they can choose the one they want. Some of the students are in wheel chairs and not able to move themselves across the room. For my lesson, I focused a lot on play. I made sure to include play in the lesson by letting the students practice bowling. The students were able to bowl mostly independently with the use of a ramp made out of pvc pipe to roll the ball down to hit the pins. The students used Piagets play theories, by being able to bowl on their own, but also having to watch their peers bowl, and we focused a lot on clapping and congratulating peers after they...

The teacher I work with does a great job with this. I think that it is something done a little more easily in special education than in regular education. Each student has different biology, and ability of how much they can learn at once. The teacher I work with provides each student with individualized tools for learning, even if they are working on the same skill as another student. Each student has an individualized reward/behavior system. She is always providing different ways for the students to learn, we are never learning in the same way, which is great for the students. I think that the student have a great need for more of this in their lives at school and at home. Things need to be different for each student so that they can all learn in the best way possible for them. When I teach, I also try to differentiate my lessons for each student depending on their level of learning too. so that each student can get as much as possible out of the lessons.

In my field work, the teacher I am working with uses a lot of constructivism in her students learning. She does a lot of sensory and play activities that allow the students to be active in and explore the topic being talked about and reflect by asking questions and inquiring about them with the teachers and one another before going into a lesson on them. She does this by providing toys and objects for the students to platy with that relate to the theme of the lessons to use in their centers, and providing sensory table experiences that also relate to what is being discussed in class. Students are able to collaborate together to find out new things about the toys, objects, and topic being learned about..  I think that the students have a high need for this type of learning, they need to be able to explore things and learn them for themselves. These students need a purpose in their learning more than other students so it is very important for them to find ways to do this themsel...