Learning Log #7

What?
In this chapter I was able to learn a lot about the construction of knowledge and how it has came to be. There are so many interesting concepts that I had never thought of before, that the text brought up. It is common for both teacher and students to have conceptual change, especially those dealing with specific beliefs that have been taught to them for so long. As teachers we will deal with students with a confirmation bias, because it's how students learn and remember things. Every day experiences may also effect their misconceptions, and don't comprehend how new concepts don't match their beliefs. Emotions play a big role in knowledge, and children attend to have strong emotional connections to their beliefs, which is very hard to get rid of or change. As teachers this may be a challenge but there are ways we can get around them. We first of all need to become aware of these misconceptions, we can then begin slowly teaching the truth and slowly build upon those upon them. This will allow students to learn the correct ways and help us teacher monitor what the students are writing and saying in group and class discussions.
This chapter also emphasizes the organization of knowledge, which is so important for children to start learning early. Teaching generalizations, which can be divided into two different categories undergeneralize and overgeneralize a concept can help the students in their learning abilities. Students may also find the nature in concepts, or construct a mental prototype. Teaching the students to also use exemplars is also another great way to organize their knowledge and information, people have so many capabilities it's just a matter of putting them to work.

So What?
This information is so important for me as a teacher, so I can know how to help my students better organize their knowledge that I give to them. I want to help them be better learners, and understand the information I give to them. I feel like I can be a better teacher because of this information because it has given me some backward knowledge on knowledge construction and different teaching techniques about conceptual knowledge and learning. It has also given me a greater understanding on conceptual understanding to use in the classroom to help provide building blocks for my students learning and knowledge. This chapter also has given me some great ideas on getting my students involved in distributed cognition and how they will benefit.

Now What?
I will use this information that was provided in this chapter to help students better understand how important the things being taught or the assignments given are. It will also be great for my students to have the opportunity to teach find what kind of learner they are and see what works best for them. I want to make sure I fully understand all the different ways of constructing and understanding information, so I can better help each and every one of my students in their knowledge organization. I also would like to know ways for me as a teacher to know that my students are actually mentally organizing things they learn. I will help my students accurately understand what is being taught in my classroom. I will first organize my lesson plans around the core while incorporating different learning and teaching techniques. I will also make sure they understand each topic maybe by relating it to the students' personal experiences, cause like I said before it's a connection to the emotion. I will also use this information I learned in this chapter to help me better organize my conceptual thoughts and teaching strategies.