Lost in Circuit City...Does anyone have a map?

1. Being a newer teacher, that is one who has taken his standardized certification test recently, I found this chapter to be right on course. In the content area and the APT, they have included questions concerning technology in the classroom. I found that this information is a good strong basis for setting up a multi-level comprehensive educational game plan. Most students today carry some form of electronic device, it is imperative that we as teachers take advantage of this generations tech savvy. In the last chapters we talked about the different learning centers. The text focused on how we can use different sorts of technology to help foster those groups and maximize their potential. It also gives us different ways to see how our students learn, how they in-take stimuli and then reproduce it. Everything I is about how computers, personal learning devices, and other cutting edge technology is the future. If we have been charged to educate the future generations, incorporation of these themes (tech advantages) must be implemented and used.

2. I am actually okay on understanding what is going on. In this book, things seem to be clearer for me to understand. Like the Cognition book, they give examples of research, but I believe this book makes its practicality more realistic and visual and that is very helpful for me.



3. In my job I use so much tech stuff that it is ridiculous. We incorporate high end electronic devices that measure your heart rate, your flexibility level, your bicep strength, your body mass, and other vital signs. This machine can give you a estimated work-up of yourself and things you may be at risk for it you don't meet certain levels. In addition, based on your numbers this machine can make conditioning and fitness programs. Another one that we implement is heart rate monitors and we have the ability to download this information from the set that records this for our students. I have no incorporated the use of a Playstation in my teaching..the use of Dance, Dance, Revolution is huge at my high school. In this new flat modern world, there are two languages everyone speaks...money and technology. I am doing what I can to make PE more enjoyable while also exposing my students to the different things they can and will see in the adult world.

Sometimes I Share,,,,,,Sometimes I Don't

1. I am so glad that I bought this book (How People Learn), I would have struggled reading it on that web page. This week's reading was very interesting. Being that I teach PE, I am technically in what they call a non-traditional class setting.(Some people don't even consider me as a teacher) It was very interesting to learn about different environments in which learning can take place. I go and watch the traditional classroom teachers and watch the different approaches they take toward their students. Assessment is huge, I believe it is necessary, but I do believe you must have multiple ways of assessments. Just like we learned in the cognition book, everyone has different ways of storing, processing, and applying retained stimuli. It only makes sense that some will need different ways to be measured on how and what they learned. This chapter did a good job of linking processes to application.

2.I did not understand the first part of chapter 7. I know it was lead in to the rest of the chapter, but for some reason it just seemed over my head.


3. The application of chapter 6. Chapter 7 really did not do anything for me. I would love to incorporate the different learning environments into PE. Knowledge based learning and community based learning would be huge when it comes to physical education. In the suburbs around Chicago many of the school districts already are doing things like this. They have taken their curriculum and expanded it to reach not only students, but also staff and family members. Here at Alton, we participate in community based learning by having outside people (YMCA, YWCA, Conditioning Coaches) come in and give lessons to our students and explain the importance of living healthy. Where we fall short is in our assessments. We basically only have one,how long can you stay in your target heart rate. Another problem I am working on fixing is including the community as more than just a sponsor, but also as an active participant. I am going to do a little trial and error with the different environments and assessments and see how it goes. I will report back.

Did I Say That? What I meant was......

1. This chapter was a carry over from the previous week discussing language. While I thought last week was a little bit more clearer, this weeks work did correlate after I read it twice. Transitioning from reading language to actually speaking it was the final connection I think that could have been made. I never thought of such things as slip of the tongue errors being a cognitive process or break down of a cognitive process until reading this text. The chapter went into more depth about terms that were mentioned in last weeks readings. Discourse and narrative being the two main ones. From there it transitioned from writing back to bilingualism.

2. One thing that I was confused about was the transitioning of chapter 10. Why did it go from talking about speech to briefly talking about writing, back to speech (acquisition of second language and profeiciency)? From what we have learned throughout this semester, this caused interference that hindered my ability to fully comprehend what was going on in the reading. LOL (Gotta love application)

3. How do you apply this in your work? The beginnings of my teaching career, I started off in two bilingual schools. It is very interesting to see the dynamics of bilingualism at work, especially with Hispanics. I believe that them learning both languages actually makes them better speakers. It is amazing how they will be having a whole conversation in Spanish and drop in the occassional english words. I encourage this learning for I think it makes better students.

Shhhhh! Quiet....Read the words on my lips, no new linguistics

1. This topic fits into what I have previously learned by completing the circle. We have talked about thought processes, comprehension, interferences, and more, but never from the view of language. In our society, in human society, language is the key factor in everything. It is how we communicate, it is how we understand, and how we remember. It gives names to objects, places, and people. Whether it be verbal or through reading this chapter gives a circular outline to other areas: working memory, semantic memory, comprehension, and other cognitive processes that help shape our everyday lives.

2.Surprisingly this is the first time that I think I understand everything that I read. Part of that is because I was looking for articles on everything in the chapter so I got a whole lot of supplemental information that was very helpful.

3. The topic of language is so broad,that it is hard to define where I would use it in my work. So I am going to talk about the factors affecting comprehension: I have a tendency to be very sarcastic. With this tendency I often use negatives in the sentence structure. Through the reading I now realize that than can affect how my students comprehend words (instructions). In accordance with the negatives, the use of nested structures tend to overload my students. Amazingly, I tell myself all the time since I have started this class to not complicate students and overload their stimuli receptors. Ambiguous wording in sentence structure hurts comprehension because it does not allow students to use simple processing to access memory or learn new concept. In PE, where there are common terms that have different meaning depending on how they are being referenced this is an important aspect that I am going to monitor more diligently.

I made a decision-then got classified !

1. This chapter was a little different from the rest. In this chapter we discussed decision making and the factors that affect it. One major area I thought was interesting was the biases. Belief bias is a major factor in decision making because we can let what we think we know or believe not let us make informed decisions. Another bias is confirmation bias. This says that most people tend do prove the affirmative than to deny it. I believe this falls in line with how we take in stimulus and remember. In an earlier chapter, Maitlin described how human memory is more efficient when it is dealing with positive stimuli. Therefore, I believe we have a built in mechanism to go after the positive.

4. What I would like to apply to my own work is bringing together both two points of decision making discussed in this chapter. Overconfidence and Availability Hueristic. At my school I have ran into many students that make poor decisions based on being overconfident either in their own ability or in the lack of ability of authority in school. It would be very interesting to teach this technique of availability hueristic and see if decision making improves. Instituting the frequency of something and the familiarity of an event are both techniques that can help this overall decision making process. It would be interesting to see how they respond.


8. I believe that decision making processes can be improved through a combination of theory and practical application. In schools today we spend so much money on character education--what to do, what not to do...but it is not in-depth. There are very few programs that allow for practical application. Mentors, Parents, Teachers, and high level school officials can implement decision making program and opportunities that will make children/students more successful. This would not take any more money than what is available now, just a redistribution of current funds and a more in-depth policy to implement it.

I got problems, Can you solve them?

1. This chapter is about problem solving and problem solving techniques. The author goes into how we identify problems, but I found the area of how we processes them more interesting. I found the examples in the Means-Ends Heuristic to be very sound from my way of thinking. I believe that by breaking problems down into smaller digestible sub-problems. This allows for multiple ways of trying to work through the problem. In my own personal opinion, I believe this is what allows students to absolve themselves from certain situations. They break it down then rationalize why the problem occurred and keep working a conclusion until they find one that doesn't place honest on them.

2.I found this chapter very interesting and relating to chapter 8. I thought the information we learned about how we store knowledge gave me a better understanding of how we solve problems. Though the author did make this relation in the book, how we intake general knowledge will have a profound effect on how solve problems, I thought that he could have went deeper. How does the different approaches of how we store stimuli affect how we problem solve? Is there a difference?

3. What am I still not clear on? Functional Fixedness! I have read and I think I understand the basic premise of functional fixedness. Yet, I cannot think of an example where it has happened. Does that mean my mind is not fully wrapping itself around the ideal? Then I began to wondering since I network my knowledge maybe I see a lot of things having multiple uses so this process doesn't happen to me as much.

I know how to do it, but what all does doing it entail?

1. This chapter is about our ability to store and process. We begin first with everyday tasks (semantic memory), the second part is what we include in our scenes of know how. It is the study of both intake and output, and how this effects our decision making processes.


2. A continuance of memory function in the brain chapter 8 really focuses in how we store and access our general knowledge. The first part talks about the structure of semantic memory. The second part of the chapter handled schemas or the scenes we store in our head.

3. What I am really not clear on is how they have labeled all these types of semantic memory types individually, but 3 of them have rather minute differences. Throughout the book, I notice that this is a on going thing with certain processes in the mind. Is this just a book filler? It just seems like a lot of the processes are similar if not identical.

4. I normally operate based on the network models when it comes to semantic memory. I store stimuli and link different things to that stimuli as well as other stimuli. To me this allows for me to erase the chaos known as my memory. Most of my players use exemplar, and while it is good for them-it tends to lead me to ramble because while they are asking for examples, examples are linked in my head which often get me off subject. This made for a very long season...though the girls joke about me now.

5. The way the author linked the networks to a information web- or a graphic web, was a very good visual. When I sat down and thought out my processes and wrote them down, I realized that this was how I think. He helps me visualize through description (Chapter 7), almost giving a picture of the internet,but in our minds.

6. The information in this chapter is good when dealing with students. So many many times students like us come in with pre-determined ideas. Their schemas help them in deciding what new information they are going to accept and which they are not. I thought the that back half of the section was huge, especially when dealing with these new kids who have access to so much more information than students of the past.

7. I have used this a lot since the second half of the season. In the beginning, I thought my girls did a good job of listening and doing what I asked. The second half, I notice more of a hesitance, often telling me, we don't do it like this. Then we had the problem of two peoples ideas of what success is and how to get it. Someone said on blackboard, the problem with schemas that are wrong, every time they are repeated they are reinforced. It took a while to get past this, but this information gave me a different perspective.

8. How to improve on these techniques and information. One thing I do now is try and give plenty of example. Changing up in this category is not hard, it all comes down to how you give and take stimuli. There are mental imagery exercises available to help control how you deal with semantic memory.