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Assessing Student Learning

  As I read Chapter 13, the information about formative and summative assessments made me think about the weight assessments carry in the classroom. I’ve always known that tests and quizzes are important, but I didn’t fully realize how assessments should be woven into everything we do, not just something we tack on at the end. Slavin explains that assessments are most useful when they are designed to improve learning, not just measure it (Slavin, 2020), which challenged the way I’ve been thinking about them. I honestly felt a little overwhelmed at first because there are so many factors to consider: reliability, validity, fairness, various types of assessments, and ensuring that I’m measuring what I think I’m measuring. Slavin emphasizes that a good assessment must be both valid, meaning it measures what it is intended to measure, and reliable, meaning it produces consistent results (Slavin, 2020). While dissecting this chapter, the idea that assessments are not just for grading st...
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Effective Learning Environment

  Reading chapter eleven on effective learning environments allowed me to brainstorm on the complexity and intentionality behind classroom management. I felt encouraged but overwhelmed at how many layers there are to creating a productive learning space. Slavin emphasizes that the most effective learning environments are those that are orderly and managed in ways that maximize time spent on learning (Slavin, 2020). That statement really stuck with me because I’ve always thought of classroom management as mostly being about behavior control. Now I realize it’s also about structuring time, transitions, and expectations. The most effective approach to classroom management is effective instruction (Slavin, 2020). Therefore, as I evaluate my classroom management from this past year, I am thinking about how often I was more focused on a behavior, versus trying to ignore the behavior and continue with the lesson so that instructional time was used efficiently. This chapter helped me shift...
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Direct & Student-Centered Instruction

  As I read through chapters seven and eight, I agreed with a lot of what was said, especially about the complexity of planning effective instruction. The concept of balancing direct instruction with more student-centered approaches made a lot of sense to me. I’ve always valued structure, but sometimes I feel like that structure can get in the way of student engagement. Slavin describes direct instruction as a highly structured, teacher-centered approach (Slavin, 2020) and says it is most effective when teaching well-defined knowledge or skills (Slavin, 2020). That helped me understand why I’ve relied on it so heavily, particularly in reading. At the same time, I’ve also seen students become passive during these lessons, which was also addressed in these chapters. What stood out to me the most was the realization that even the most effective strategies need flexibility. Slavin emphasizes that students do not all learn at the same rate and that lessons need to be adjusted to meet th...
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Cognitive Theories of Learning

  How information is received and processed in the mind is more difficult than I initially thought. Our brain is hard at work all the time, even when we don’t think it is. Information is constantly flooding our minds through our senses; however, what our brain does with the information is where the learning process gets complicated. There is a theory called the information-processing theory that is a cognitive theory of learning that describes the processing, storage, and retrieval of knowledge in the mind (Slavin, 2020). The information researchers have discovered about the brain is what helps teachers present information more effectively and efficiently to their students. As teachers, it is important that we understand how the brain retains information so that we can teach students to the best of our ability. When we are teaching our students, they are using the information-processing theory. This theory is made up of three components: the sensory register, working memory (or sho...
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Behavioral and Social Theories of Learning

       After reading chapter five of Robert Slavin's Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, Behavioral and Social Theories of Learning, I learned about learning, behavioral, social, and cognitive learning, and how these types of learning influence intentional teaching. This chapter starts by explaining an example that happens very often in my classroom. Slavin, explains first-grade teacher, Julia Esteban, and her process of teaching her students how to raise their hand to answer a question without yelling out. Julia calls on a student who is yelling out, then gets on to another student who yells out. I loved that Slavin painted this situation out for readers before diving into this chapter. This allowed me to reflect on how I reinforce classroom behaviors before reading about behavior and social learning. Even though Rebecca was the only student raising her hand, she was not demonstrating the correct expectation for the classroom when students want to talk. Reb...
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Literacy Development

After reading chapter two of Robert Slavin's Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, I better understand human development and how to promote literacy development in elementary and middle school children. The chapter begins by discussing how development is defined. Development, as Slavin defines it, is how people grow, adapt, and change over the course of their lifetimes, through personality development, socioeconomical development, cognitive development, and language development (Slavin, 2020). There is a lot that goes into how a person develops. Still, throughout this chapter and history, the argument is whether the degree of development is affected by experience and whether development proceeds in stages.  I see how researchers and psychologists believed in stages of development when they began research years ago. However, I think a child's development is determined more by experience and other environmental factors, but their genes are still significant. I also agre...
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