In Conclusion

This class has been extremely beneficial to not only myself personally but my potential self as a teacher in the future. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the material covered.

I want to take this opportunity to thank not only my fellow classmates but you Professor Nellis.

And all my best as we all write our own stories.

Functional Analysis

Functional Analysis is examining a students inappropriate behaviour as well as its antecedents (what happened before) and consequences to determine the function of that the behaviour may serve for the student.

Functional Analysis is more open assessment than operant conditioning. Instead of just looking at the behaviour, but question the behaviour. This idea is called positive behaviour support and assess the whole situation.
There are five strategies to the functional analysis approach.
1: teach desirable behaviours.
2: consistently reinforce new behaviour in a way which the student will appreciate.
3: in your class to have predictable routines.
4: provide frequent opportunities for choice.
5: provide adaptations to support academic success.

http://behaviourprobleminchildren.com/tips-for-handling-a-behaviour-problem-in-children 

Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning isn't about controlling or managing behaviour but focusing rather on assisting children to become normal human beings.

This idea takes a critical look at schools and asks why a child's educational containment is so similar to their parents whether it be natural order or simply cultural capital.

There are four points to operant conditioning.

The first is the most effective concept for desired change and that is positive reinforcement. This concept adds something to the situation to get a desired change. Examples of this would be awarding a gold star to a child when they do something desired or marbles in a jar to get a pizza party or something alike.

The second is the negative reinforcement is one of the most difficult concepts because you have to take something away from the child to increase a certain behaviour. An example would be if a student recieves an 85% average on all unit exams they are excused from the final exam because of this achievement.

Thirdly is positive punishment where you add something to the scenerio to reduce behaviour frequently used. An example is giving that student detention or picking garbage.

The last and fourth ideal is negative punishment is to take away something to reduce behaviour. I think this is one of the most simple concepts for example it would be like taking away a students recess time.

These four concepts have a lot of potential and I know through my education I have seen all of them used. I'm not sure if those teachers were aware they were using a life long tool but there is a lot of truth in every aspect. They're not only applicable to educational processes but to everyday influences.

Differentiating Instruction

A teacher must modify content, process and product through student readiness, interests and learning profiles.

Content: "What" and materials of learning.

Process: "Action," what the students do.

Product: What students have created.

Student Readiness: Where the student is in terms of knowledge and skills.

Interests: What is it the student has some curiosity in.

Learning Profiles: Index card about student as a learner (may include self assessment questionnaires).

This is a idea associated with Tomlinson, which revolves around the common sense that children will learn the best when enlightened with their interests and passions.

Personally I know that I am more likely to listen and ask questions about topics that I am interested in or may know something about. Especially in cases of children that have more difficulty in the classroom, it is very important to reach out to them and not necessarily change your teaching style but make amends to assist them.

FAT City Workshop

I unfortunately missed these two classes. However from the couple sets of notes and Google searches, I learned that this video was about how hard it is for some children to learn in normal classroom settings.
Learning disabled children have difficulty because they suffer from anxiety of being called on from even entering the classroom. Mainstream classroom runs far too quickly for LD children to process the questions and answers.
In a classroom positive reinforcement is very important, and when a LD children is called on, they're embarrassed if they're wrong and if there's no reinforcement if correct there's no reason to volunteer.
Also just because someone understands a the words they will understand the passage or words together.
These are some of the main reasons LD children have such a difficult time and it's very important for us as teachers to assess and assist with this problems.

Group vs Self Learning

We got the opportunity to watch the TED Talk on "World Peace & Other Fourth Grade Achievements."

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hunter_on_the_world_peace_game.html

This talk was presented by John Hunter who has created the World Peace game for his students. Through this game his students must think and reflect on many problems of the world. As well they develop compassion and acceptance for everyday tragedies and triumphs such as war, disease, natural resource discovery, and much more.

Hunter not only proposes an interesting way to get a classroom immersed in learning, but the World Peace Game is extremely self propelled. Reflecting back on my own learning, the years that teachers got us involved in our education are more easy to recall. I remember the rock unit in grade three because we polished our own rocks. I remember the Political unit in grade six because we had to run our own election, equipped with promotional buttons, posters and speeches.

Naturally not everyone is going to agree with me that self learning is the best. It is more so a priviledge which even through my own education students would abuse the opportunity with minimum performance; however some people learn better when it's hands on. Sitting in a desk listening to a lecture often gets boring and it's nice to have an activity to break the lecture up. I think a variation of group and self learning is necessary in a classroom.

Did You Learn Well in School?

I can always remember teachers telling my fellow classmates and I that not everyone learned the same. I remember being puzzled because for myself if I showed up for class, and even if I miss the odd class, I was still up to date on material if I asked for key points from someone who had attended. I can remember wanting to go out for supper on a friday night with a friend and them turning my offer down on the fact they had to study for a test the next week which I didn't understand, I just planned on reading over quizzes and looking over a chart or diagram the night before said test.

I guess for me retaining knowledge has always been something I've taken for granted. However as I got older, and more aware of those around me, it became clear how frustrating it was when school seemed to not be for you. My younger brother has extreme difficulty understanding in a normal classroom setting. He doesn't learn from reading. Infact, while he is an average reader for grade nine in regards to reading out loud from text or other book sources, he can very rarely tell you what he just read about. Through elementary teachers deemed him as lazy and simply a problem child. They didn't entertain the fact that this problem was something he couldn't control on the ground that our middle brother and I had been exceptional students who everything was straight forward to.

Unfortunately many schools are unforgiving. If you can't learn their way, that you simply have a problem. Coding is the process of assessing a single students needs which has a disability which may require extra funding and programming from a school. The student recieves a IPP (individualized program plan) to meet all their needs. This plan sets short term objectives, long term goals and assessing their progress to assist whenever possible.

My brother struggled and continues to struggle with his reading comphension because of the way his brain words. The school finally had a learning specialist in to assess my brothers learning in grade six after many visits to the proncipal from my mother and much pleading from another teacher. The specialist couldn't "code" my brother with anything specifically because he reads just fine and is operating at a math level higher than he should be, however in grade nine he now gets his exams read out loud to him and recieves one on one extra help in english from a teaching aid.

I suppose every system has its flaws, however I will somehow always have little faith in the education system in regards to the attention or lack therefore given to some students. After watching my brother so helpless, I never want that to happen to any other child. I have always felt guilty breezing through school so to speak while everything was such a task for him. That is one of the reasons I want to become a teacher.