Self-efficacy and Self-regulation

How might self-efficacy and self-regulation contribute to the intervention plans you use in your case study?

Elementary Education Case Study:

You engage your third grade students in cooperative learning activities at least twice a day, changing heterogeneous group members once every four weeks. You have agreed upon routine procedures that your classroom community uses within their small groups, including the roles and responsibilities of group members. Lately you have noticed that one small group always seems to have difficulty grasping material and completing their project in an acceptable manner.  You observe this group carefully and find that Lisa seems to be the catalyst for their problems.  She gets angry with others if she does not get the job she wants and refuses to do her part in contributing to the group’s learning.  She constantly interrupts others in her group.  She does not pay attention when her group prepares for class presentations. 

In the social cognitive learning theory, self-efficacy is defined as the belief that one is capable of executing certain behaviors or achieving certain goals. As our book states, self-efficacy plays a key role in how hard an individual tries, how long they persist at challenging tasks, and how much they learn and achieve. In my intervention plan to change Lisa's behavior in her small group, I first want to find the root of the problem that is causing Lisa to act out. One possibility that could be causing Lisa to not contribute to the group and to disrupt their learning is that Lisa may have a low self-efficacy about the academic task the group is completing. Because Lisa may feel that she is not capable of achieving the role her group has given her or does not think that she is good at the task the small group is performing, she does not try hard in the group and as a result does not benefit from learning nor does she benefit from achieving an academic goal. To help with this, I will sit down with Lisa and together we will set goals for Lisa to meet that are both challenging and attainable. If Lisa feels that she is capable of succeeding at an academic goal in her group, she will be more likely to contribute to the group and to cooperate with her group members. Once Lisa achieves the goal her and I have set for her, her self-efficacy will be higher and in return she will benefit from learning and from achieving an academic goal. In addition, I will be sure to encourage Lisa and support her throughout the process of achieving the goal we have set for her to help boost her confidence that she is capable of meeting the goal. 

Furthermore, the social cognitive theory also involves self-regulation. Our book defines self-regulation as the process of setting goals for oneself and engaging in behaviors and cognitive processes that lead to goal attainment. For this part of the intervention plan, I as a the teacher will serve as a model showing Lisa how to control her impulses when she feels upset in her group. Lisa and I will discuss how it is possible for Lisa to control her anger and emotional impulses and I will provide Lisa with a stress ball that she can squeeze whenever she starts to feel upset or angry in her group. I will tell Lisa to squeeze the ball and breathe in 2 deep breaths in order to prevent herself from becoming angry in her group. In addition, I will use cues to make Lisa aware of her emotional outbursts by tapping her shoulder or tapping her desk and this will then cue Lisa to squeeze the stress ball to calm herself down. Eventually, I will not have to cue Lisa and she will squeeze the stress ball on her own to control her emotions. Hopefully, this will eventually end in Lisa not feeling the need to squeeze the stress ball because she has realized how to control her emotions and that she is able to learn more and achieve her goals when she controls her anger. This will overall lead to a change in Lisa's behavior when working in her small group. 

This article from education.com talks about how teachers can use games to teach their students how to self-regulate. This would be especially useful at a young age because the younger children learn to self-regulate, the more academic success they will have. I plan to use these games in my classroom to model to my students how to control their behavior. 

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/self-regulation-children/?page=2 

PLE Post #8

Consider your CSEL intervention case study. Are there tools from a behaviorist view for either encouraging productive behaviors or discouraging undesirable behaviors that you could apply to the case? What are they? 
Now, compare the interventions that you have identified above with what you think might work from a cognitive or constructivist viewpoint. How do they compare to behaviorist tools? What are the benefits of each theory, and what are the deficits? Which theory might play a larger role in how you determine classroom management? 

Elementary Education Case Study

You engage your third grade students in cooperative learning activities at least twice a day, changing heterogeneous group members once every four weeks. You have agreed upon routine procedures that your classroom community uses within their small groups, including the roles and responsibilities of group members. Lately you have noticed that one small group always seems to have difficulty grasping material and completing their project in an acceptable manner.  You observe this group carefully and find that Lisa seems to be the catalyst for their problems.  She gets angry with others if she does not get the job she wants and refuses to do her part in contributing to the group’s learning.  She constantly interrupts others in her group.  She does not pay attention when her group prepares for class presentations. 

Regarding the case study above, there are tools I could use from a behaviorist view for both encouraging productive behaviors and discouraging undesirable behaviors that I could apply. To encourage productive behaviors, one strategy I would use is creating a contingency contract with Lisa. Lisa and I would meet and discuss the behaviors that she is demonstrating in her small group and how those behaviors go against the routine procedures that our class agreed upon regarding small groups. Lisa and I would then discuss desired behaviors for working in small groups that I expect Lisa to demonstrate and agree upon a reinforcer when Lisa demonstrates this behavior. The reinforcers would be positive reinforcers that increase the occurrence of the desired behavior. Reinforcers could be both primary and secondary depending on what Lisa decides motivates her to behave more. Primary reinforcement could be candy whenever Lisa appropriately behaves and cooperates with her group. Secondary reinforcements could be praise, extra recess time, a homework pass, a ticket or token, etc. Another positive reinforcement I could use to increase a desired behavior would be the use of a behavior chart and a work habits chart. For this strategy, every time Lisa demonstrated good behavior in her small group and stayed on task and participated, Lisa would get to put a star next to her name on both the work habit chart and the behavior chart. When Lisa fills up an entire row on either chart, Lisa will receive a reward. The reward could be candy, getting to take her shoes off in class, getting to eat lunch in the classroom with a friend, etc. On the other hand, there are behaviorist tools I can use to discourage undesirable behaviors. One tool I could use is presentation punishment. When Lisa misbehaves in her small group and does not participate I will scold Lisa in front of her peers and Lisa will relate her behavior with an undesirable response from me. Other punishment strategies would be taking away recess time, adding work for Lisa to complete, removing Lisa from the small group and having her work alone, moving Lisa's desk to the front of the room or by my desk, etc. All of these forms of punishment would seek to decrease the occurrence of Lisa's undesirable behavior. 

From a constructivist viewpoint, I would not use reinforcers or punishments to encourage good behavior or discourage bad behavior. I would understand that it is important for Lisa to build her own understanding of why her behavior in her small group is not the correct behavior because currently it is apparent that she sees no issue in the way she acts. For instance, I would offer Lisa an opportunity for restitution when she misbehaves in her group. For this strategy let's say I see Lisa constantly interrupting her group, I would then call Lisa over and ask her if she knows what just happened in her group that might not make me happy, I would then tell her that she was interrupting her group members and it was making it hard for me and her peers to concentrate on what we are trying to do, then I would tell her that I do not like when she interrupts her group members and ask her if she can please do something to fix this problem, Lisa should say yes and I would ask her what she thinks the best thing for her to do to fix this problem is. This strategy allows Lisa to form her own understanding of why her interrupting others is not the correct behavior and also allows her to form her own understanding of how to correctly fix this problem. In theory, this constructivist strategy would decrease the occurrence of Lisa interrupting her small group members because she formed her own understanding of why it is an incorrect behavior and associates it with the fact that it upsets the teacher. 

A constructivist viewpoint focuses more on the cognitive processes of Lisa and how she as an individual has formed her own understanding of how one should act in a small group. A behaviorist viewpoint creates associations between reinforcers and punishments and the student's behavior. Behaviorism does not focus on the student's cognitive processes. Instead, it focuses more on the environmental stimuli and how they influence a change in the student's behavior. 

The benefits of using a constructivist approach for behavioral management is that it requires students to own their actions and be held accountable by their peers. In addition, it allows for them to gain confidence, self-respect, and the ability to express themselves as they build an understanding of appropriate behavior through their experiences. A downfall to using this approach is that learners do not always construct an appropriate meaning or understanding despite our efforts to promote conceptual change. The benefits of using a behaviorist approach for behavioral management is that it is very helpful in dealing with challenging behaviors through the use of reinforcers and punishment. A child is more likely, in my opinion, to decrease or increase a behavior if they are receiving something enjoyable, having something enjoyable taken away, or having something undesirable presented to them. A downfall to using this approach is that it completely ignores cognitive factors that take part in how a child behaves. In addition, reinforcers and punishments might not always be the best way to handle a situation and reinforcers might influence a child to pick up a bad behavior like rushing to get their work done just to get the reward. 

While I would like for constructivism to be how I structure my classroom behavior management, I feel that behaviorism will play a larger role in my classroom environment especially since I will be dealing with younger students. I feel that students will react more to the occurrence of reinforcers and punishments in terms of their behavior than they would having to take ownership for their actions and create an understanding of why their behavior is correct or incorrect. That being said, I won't give up on the idea of implementing constructivism but behaviorism is just a more familiar strategy to me when it comes to behavior management. 

This article discusses the effectiveness of implementing a constructivist approach to education. One section specifically deals with social and moral education where it discusses that children benefit from making mistakes, experiencing the consequences, and developing their own reasons for following the rules. I recommend you take a look at that section!

http://www.education.uiowa.edu/html/iae/iae-z-op-devries-1-5.pdf

Metacognition

Consider a lesson plan you might use. Which metacognitive skills/abilities are involved as students gain facility/knowledge in this domain? 

For this post, I am going to use an example of a math lesson plan on word problems for 3rd grade. Using the Dr. Seuss book "I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today!", I will build upon my students' prior knowledge of subtraction by introducing them to word problems. This story involves subtraction by the main character reducing the number of tigers through various excuses. The main character of the story goes from 30 tigers to 29 to 22, etc. However, the entire story can be seen as one giant word problem: "If the cat, the main character of the story, started with 30 tigers and ended with 1, how many tigers were sent away?".

To start off the lesson, I will introduce the concept of word problems to my students by telling them that math equations are not always written in number form. I will draw on the board for them an example: 4-2=2. I will then tell them that math problems also exist in word form and that a number equation can be used to solve the word problem. I will then write an example of a word problem: "Ms. Hallock has 10 kids in her class. One day, Ms. Hallock only had 7 kids in her class. How many students were missing from Ms. Hallock's class?" Then I would show my students that I can use subtraction from the word problem to find my answer by writing 10-7=3. 

Next, I will introduce the story to my class and have them predict what they think the story will be about based on the new math concept we just discussed. I will tell my students that what they predicted the story would be about connects to the new math concept I just introduced and that this story will help them to better understand word problems. Making predictions and connections are metacognitive skills that are important for comprehension. 

Then, I will read the story to my class and tell them to pay special attention to the story so that they will be able to answer the various word problems the story contains. Throughout the story, there are a number of places that allow for me to stop and ask my students questions regarding the cat reducing the number of tigers. I would ask my students "If the cat started with 30 tigers and now has 22 tigers, how many tigers did he send away?". I would explain to my students that it is important to stop and check for our understanding when learning new material/reading text by asking ourself questions or explaining to ourself what is being read. I would then ask my students to first explain to themselves how I could use subtraction to find the answer to this word problem. Then I would have them turn to their neighbor and discuss how I could use subtraction to solve this word problem. This would involve my students in self-explanation by verbalizing to themselves how to solve the problem. In addition, discussing it with a partner would involve monitoring their comprehension of word problems by checking their own understanding and the understanding of their peer. I would then have someone volunteer to tell me how to write the problem. 

After finishing the story, I would tell my students that we are going to solve a word problem together that relates to the story we just read. I would write the problem out: "If the cat started with 30 tigers and ended with 1 tiger, how many tigers did the cat send away?". 

Then, I would tell my students that they can use the word SOLVE to help them remember the steps to go through when working a word problem. Next, I would walk my students through the SOLVE process.

1. Study the problem. (I would have my students read the problem silently to themselves and decide what the problem is asking them to solve for. I would then ask my students to tell me what they think the problem wants them to find and then I would write what I think the problem wants us to find. Checking their answer based off my answer is a way for my students to use the metacognitive skill of comprehension monitoring by checking to see if their understanding matches with the correct answer.)
2. Organize the facts. (I would tell my students to look at the problem and identify what information is important by circling the most important words and numbers. Picking out what information is important to finding the answer is an important metacognitive skill. I would ask my students to think about what information they circled and to verbally explain to themselves how they know this information is important. This demonstrates the metacognitive skill of self-explanation, which helps to further their understanding of the material. I would then tell them what information I circled and allow for them to monitor their comprehension by comparing their circled words and numbers to mine.) 
3. Line up the plan. (I would first have my students decide what operation they need to use to solve this problem. Then, I would have my students work with their partner to write out an equation to solve the word problem and explain to one another why they chose to use a specific operation and why they set up the equation the way they did. This allows for additional comprehension monitoring. I would then write out the correct equation to be used to solve the word problem "30-1=?.) 
4. Verify your plan with computation. (As a class, we would test out the equation we came up with by solving 30-1=?.) 
5. Examine your answer. (I would ask my students if the answer we got to the problem makes sense to answer the question of how many tigers the cat sent away. We would then as a class decide whether we thought this answer was correct or not.) 

To conclude the lesson, I would have my students write out the answer to the problem in a complete sentence and then write what steps they used to solve the word problem to further expand their comprehension of word problems. This involves the students using the metacognitive skill of summarizing which enhances their learning and memory. 

This article explores what metacognition is, why it is important, and how it develops in children. It discusses why teachers need to help children develop metacognitive awareness and identifies factors that enhance metacognitive development. 

Developing Metacognition