Module 4 week 4

In this weeks readings we became pretty familiar with metacognition which means knowledge about our own thinking processes (p318 chp 9), or as Woolfolk would say thinking about thinking. I like the example of "thinking about thinking" maybe thats the while mind thing and thats why I am a psychology major, because I myself am always thinking about what I am thinking about the mind is an amazing thing. Anyhow moving on to what Metacognition is or at least what it involves p. 318 declaritive knowledge which is about yourself as a learner, the factors that influence your learning and memory and the skills and strategies and resources needed to perform a task. An example of this can be how some individuals need to have soft music playing in the background in order to concentrate without the music they cannot read and understand what they are reading. next is the procedural knowledge or knowing how to use the stategies an example of this could be how we use flash cards to remember facts when we study for a test. the final kind of knowledge is self-regulatory knowledge to ensure the completion of the task knowing when and why to apply the procedures and strategies. metacognition is very useful and can be a great way to help a student understand and develop the proper way to establish learning. Another helpful resource is the KWL which is a great way to find out what a student knows about a new subject or topic as well as for students to figure out what they want to know and to determine what they have learned about that about that subject or topic.

In chapter 10 we learned about complex learning environments (p.364) which are problems and learning situations that mimic the ill-structured nature of real life. As a psychology major I think this is something I found very useful. I think we expect our children to know what to do or how to handle any situation, but this is not always the case and as a school psycholgist I hope to that I can help my students to make connections with real life situations that are inevitable, my hope would be that I can prepare them to the best of my ability to always handle life situations with grace, maybe even to pray about if that is an option. Real life situations will not come with instructions therefore complex learning environments when apped to me will be different than that of a classroom setting.

In chapter 11 of Woolfolk we learned about modeling this is when students learn by watching others (p. 400) this can be a child watching an older sibling draw a picture or even watching film personalities. Woolfolk says in order to learn by observation we must pay close attention, for example when we are learning to play the piano we must pay close attention to see what keys we need to use. next we must remember what keys we need to touch in order to make the sound we want. 

There was so much information this week in chapters nine, ten, and eleven. I found that so much of this information can be applied to me working with students even though I will not be an educator. For example I can use social persuasion with my students who might be overwhelmed as I have seen in my observation in Ms. Martinez's classroom. sometimes the students felt very overwhelmed and whould become very anxious and in some cases Ms. Martinez said even violent with other classmates. Mind you the majority if not all the students have behavior disorders. This takes me back to the complex learning environment I think many students have so many other things going on in their lives and they simply need to know how to deal with real life situations even though they are not adults. One student comes from a foster home and sometimes he is not provided with basic needs and Ms. Martinez has some basic items such as tooth brushes/tooth paste, deoderant, and even socks just incase her students need them. This is the sad reaity for these students and this is their complex learning environment.