Many teachers at all levels use "contracts," wherein individual students agree to behave in certain ways or complete specified work. Have you seen contracts used in this way? What does the literature/theories suggest about their strengths? What are their shortcomings? What do you think?

Through my experience as a classroom teacher, my philosophy of education has developed to include the thought that it is our students' job to attend school and learn, for that will give them the tools and skills required to be successful members of society.  Therefore, ideally speaking, I should not have to implement an incentive program for good behavior.  As I reflect on my elementary and junior high school experiences, I can remember most of my classes quite well.  We did not conduct ourselves in the manner that many students do today.  I knew that if I misbehaved in school, I would not see the light of day for some time.  This was because my parents promoted the importance of education.  According to readings I have done from proponents of "assertive discipline," the problems faced today in classrooms result either from students that come from homes that are not supportive of education, or from those students who do not always 'buy into' the importance of, or accept their role in, education.  These are the students who do not always conduct themselves according to established classroom guidelines and can often influence the behavior of other members of the class.

As a result, it has been necessary to implement various behavior management programs within my classroom.  The plans I have implemented have taken on various forms and incorporated many of the ideas and trends that become the 'hot topics' of education.  These have been successful only in part.  As a result, I have developed a management system this year that incorporates many of the ideas previously used as well as some presented by both Ginott and Skinner in Building Classroom Discipline, Ch. 3.

Fifth grade in our district is looked upon as a transition year.  To support this philosophy, the "Cardinal Coupon" plan is designed to help transition the students from what they were accustomed to in fourth grade to what will be expected of them in sixth grade.  My class and I sat down together at the beginning of the school year to establish the 'classroom rules'.  I found this to be particularly helpful in that the students take ownership and more responsibility for following guidelines they have helped to establish.  This has proved to be more effective than dictating the rules as the teacher and authority figure.  This also allows me to use Ginott's idea of "sane messages" in terms of "congruent communication" (Building Classroom Discipline, 61) when classroom disruptions and misbehavior occur.  It affords me the opportunity to address the action rather than attacking the student's character.  It is the belief in my room that the students know what is expected of them, and they choose their path, whether it be the appropriate or inappropriate choice.  This goes against the ideas of behaviorists in that "behaviorism teaches that we are not responsible for our actions. If we are mere machines, without minds or souls, reacting to stimuli and operating on our environment to attain certain ends, then anything we do is inevitable" ("Behaviorism", DeMar).

After the classroom rules were established, the "Cardinal Coupon" plan was discussed.  A time period was established by the team of fifth grade teachers.  This began as a two week interval and has  evolved into a six week interval as the team has become more comfortable with implementing the plan.  Basically, the students receive a certain number of coupons at the beginning of the allotted time.  The students must earn a given number of coupons in order to participate in the incentive activity at the end of the given time period.  The number of coupons required varies with the duration of time and on the incentive that will be given.  The students can earn coupons basically on the "get caught being good" philosophy (Building Classroom Discipline, 73), or by exceeding appropriate behavior expectations.

The "Cardinal Coupon" plan is one type of 'contract' used within my classroom.  It was established with the class as a whole, but the students can function as a whole or individually within that whole.  They help each other by making reminders of appropriate behavior and expectations.  This has proved to be successful for the group of students I have.  There are always those that have more trouble following the rules and maintaining control of their behavior, but they currently respond to being left out of the incentive.  There are a few students in the fifth grade that cannot control themselves, and therefore, never make it to an incentive.  They eventually learn to expect this, and it is therefore not a surprise to them when they do not earn the reward.  It is in these instances that such plans don't address the needs of all the students.  The students with severe problems know they will never earn enough coupons to attend an incentive activity.

It is in these instances, as well as many others that arise daily in the classroom, that I must consider the individual.  There are many children that come to school with 'baggage' from home or elsewhere and are at developmentally different stages.  Some students, due to a variety of factors, are more advanced than others, both emotionally and developmentally.  Therefore, I must look at them individually.  This again goes against the behaviorists' idea that, "Students should be graded according to uniform standards of achievement, which the teacher sets for the class" ("Behavior as a learning theory").  When I must look at the individual because they are not succeeding, I often establish individual contracts.  These can be designed to intervene on the academic level, behavioral level, or a combination of the two, depending on the student.  These contracts are most successful when the parent is involved and there is a good deal of communication between home and school.

The idea of contracts for students can be supported by the behaviorist perspective (Building Classroom Discipline, 75).  The problem with the behaviorists' school of thought is that it lacks consideration of the child as a whole.  There are many other factors that influence their lives and who they are.  They are a product of their environment as well as of their prior experiences.  As I have seen in my classroom and experiences, there must be a combination of, or balance between, these schools of thought to produce the best environment for students.

References

Personal:
Elementary school and junior high school, 1980-1988
Golf Middle School, 2000-2001

Websites:
Behaviorism as a Learning Theory
Behaviorism, DeMar

Books:
Charles, C.M. Building Classroom Discipline, Sixth Edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. New York.  1999. Pg. 56-76.
 

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Explain a fear, phobia or some euphoric action of yours that seems to be linked to a typically "neutral" stimulus, like a color, a piece of clothing, place on the highway, seat in a car, or whatever. Do you remember any classical conditioning event from your past that might have created this type of response? Be sure to identify the UCS, UCR, CS (or previously neutral stimulus) and CR for your audience.
 

A traumatic early childhood experience, traumatic, that is,  to a three year old has continued to affect me throughout my growing-up years and into young adulthood, manifesting itself as a minor, but noticeable, form of claustrophobia. Even though I am aware of its origin, and have made concerted efforts to overcome my fear, it appears as though  I am destined to live with it.

The experience which has plagued me continuously remains quite clear in my memory, and is one of my first recollections of my early years.  Asleep in my bed, I was awakened by the feeling that i was trapped and having difficulty breathing.  I had somehow become entangled in my blanket , and the more I fought to free myself, the more my panicked state kept me from doing so.  I remember my sense of smothering amidst my muffled screams for help. After what seemed like endless time, I remember the relief of being loosed from the dread blanket by my mom and being able to gulp the air of freedom.  It was weeks before I was able to fall asleep under the covers, and this experience had even farther reaching effects.

I developed a terrible fear of having clothing pulled over my head.  I remember the panic setting in every time I had to put on a T-shirt or a pullover sweater.  It required my mom holding the neck open wide so that I could always see outside as it passed over my face.  I also became frightened of being in confining spaces like elevators or closets.  Eventually my parents even moved me out of my bedroom into the adjoining tandem room which had windows all around.  This "spare " room had an "in-a-door" bed which could be folded up during the day to leave my room wide open.  I know  my parents were concerned that I was being overtaken by my fears and discussed it with the pediatrician.  His feeling was that if not too much attention was given to my concerns, I would eventually outgrow them.

I have outgrown them to an extent, or I have learned to cope with my phobia.  I confess, however, that I will always take an escalator rather than an elevator, if I have the option, and that I avoid places that are dark and crowded.  I seek out rooms with an expanse of windows and high ceilings.  Also, when I shop for clothing, I continue to avoid "pullovers" and opt to buy articles of clothing that either button, zipper, or that I can step into.  When I travel, I always request a window seat, and i use fluffy comforters rather than the type of blanket that I can easily wrap around me.  It continues to amaze me that I can still clearly remember this frightening experience as a young child and, try as i may, I find myself  still adjusting to the deep seated fear that continues to linger within me.

So, in examining this scenario from a behaviorist’s standpoint, I can identify the different conditions and responses that allow this aspect of my past to fit the model.  First of all, there is the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), the blanket with which I was covered at the age of three.  The unconditioned response (UCR) would have been my entanglement in the blanket as I slept.  The conditioned stimulus (CS) would be twofold.  One would be my fear of pulling things over my head, and the second would be my fear of confinement  in enclosed spaces.  The conditioned response (CR) would be the careful selection of clothing and my continued avoidance of confining or crowded spaces.

This assignment provided me with both a flashback into one of my past experiences and a revelation about its impact on me throughout the years which followed and into the present.  I certainly can say I have had a true 'learning' experience.  Huitt and Hummel say that "learning can be defined as the relatively permanent change in behavior brought about as a result of experience or practice' (Huitt & Hummel, 1998).  I have made changes in my behavior as a result of the traumatic event I experienced as a child (Skinner).  Actually writing about this event has given me a new perspective not only on my own actions, but on the actions of my students as well.  This is a real testimonial for "the baggage" children may bring to school with them which may affect their ability to learn and function in the classroom.
 

References

Websites:
Behaviorism as a Learning Theory
The Behavior System, W. Huitt and J. Hummel, 1998
Operant Conditioning, B.F. Skinner

Books:
Charles, C.M. Building Classroom Discipline, Sixth Edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. New York.  1999. Pg. 56-76.
 

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Many people, when first learning about the Canter model, have the reaction that it is overly controlling of student behavior. Do you think so? Make a convincing argument to defend your position.
 

Discipline - exactly what it is?  How is it achieved?  Is there a foolproof plan?  These are age old questions always posed to, and by, classroom teachers.  When first learning about various discipline plans, it is easy to develop ideas and assumptions on effectiveness, implementation, and control.  For this reason, I have chosen to compare and contrast the Redl-Wattenberg, Dreikurs, and Canter models of discipline.

In studying the Redl-Wattenberg model, I was able to glean some hint of proposed teacher behavior regarding communicating expectations, but nowhere were these specifically and concretely communicated to the student.  In this model, the students should innately know what the teacher's signals intimate i.e. shaking head, eye contact, frowning, proximity control, etc.  Most students would understand that they had elicited the teacher's disapproval by receiving these signals, but would they necessarily know why?  Without specifically knowing what caused the problem, can preventing and eliminating unwanted behavior be an expectation?  Neither was there specific mention of concrete communication of classroom behavior expectations through teacher - class interaction.  This is a very basic aspect of both the Dreikurs and Canter models, and in my own classroom, absolutely indispensable.

The Redl-Wattenberg model puts too great an emphasis on diagnostic thinking.  Every teacher innately does some appraisal and intuitive thinking about the "personality" of the students and the class in general, and naturally, this help in planning goals, but there must be some very basic rules that apply every year to every class.  The Canter and Dreikurs models, however, emphasize the insistence on appropriate behavior and each individual's responsibility to choose to behave and receive rewards or otherwise experience the consequences.  In the Canter model, it is required that class time be spent discussing the necessity of, and establishment of, ground rules for behavior that will neither interrupt teaching nor learning.

Dreikurs, through his list of do's and don'ts to the teacher, gives instruction for setting up a "democratic" classroom ("assertive" in Canter's terminology).  Also given are specific concepts to be taught which parallel those of the Canter model.  A teacher, though, is left to his/her own resources to develop a plan of action.  Redl-Wattenberg value appropriate behavior for there was no reference to communicating a reward system.  Rather, good behavior was "expected" not "rewardable".  This was a very real expectation in past generations, and certainly in my own "school days".  Students behaved because they were supposed to and came to school with "self-discipline" instilled from home.  The current generation, however, for various reasons, has not been ingrained with this attitude.  We as classroom teachers have to convey and teach the expectations of appropriate classroom behavior.  This cannot be an assumed learning, or left to chance.  A sound discipline plan must include a means of conveying expectations to the student, home, and administration if it is to be effective.  Only the Canter model has this intrinsically built in.

Insofar as responding to disruptive students, the Redl-Wattenberg model emphasizes using aspects of group behavior to achieve desired goals.  This is less desirable because first,  no clear-cut guidelines for implementing this approach are given, and second, there are too many instances when appealing to the group exacerbates the problem by giving the offender the attention being sought, or encouraging "jumping on the bandwagon" by others who may identify with the offender.  Also suggested is the restructure or reschedule of the planned lesson/activity to eliminate undesirable behavior.  This is necessary to do on occasion.  However, unless it is clear that interfering with teaching/learning will not be tolerated, a weak or non-assertive teacher may find restructuring/rescheduling becoming a commonplace occurrence.  Some bright, but not necessarily goal-oriented students might even decipher this technique and learn to "use" it often to get the teacher "off track".  How, then, will today's stringent curriculum goals be met?

Suggestions on the part of Redl-Wattenberg to add consistency and predictability to the curriculum, to remove students from the situation, and to eliminate seductive objects are great, but how is this to be achieved effectively, and how can it be used to modify inappropriate behavior?  This model does not help bring suggestions from the philosophical level to the concrete.  Also, to tell a teacher today to use physical restraint without absolute fool-proof guidelines is plain scary and reeks of "lawsuit"!  In short, the Redl-Wattenberg model is not specific enough.  It is typical of many classroom rules that allow for too much subjective response which can vary with day, mood, etc.  It provides no stability or consistency, and in today's society, would make it difficult for a teacher to justify such actions to parents and administrators.  They could even be perceived as hostile acts infringing upon student rights.

The Dreikurs model identifies that same four "mistaken goals" of disruptive students as does the Canter model: 1) attention getting, 2) power seeking, 3) revenge seeking, 4) displaying inadequacy.  These are to be dealt respectively with: 1) ignoring consistently and giving attention when it is not sought after, 2) teacher withdrawal as the authority figure to thwart the purpose of the disruptive behavior, 3) understanding, acceptance, eliciting support of peers, 4) never giving up, always encouraging, supporting.  Most of these, with the exception of the teacher giving up authority, are inherent in the Canter model.  However, the specific directions for implementation are not given to the teacher in Dreikurs.  Throughout Canter, the teacher is directed to: 1) clearly state expectations, 2) teach directions for different activities, 3) consistently impose disciplinary consequences every time a rule is broken, 4) use techniques such as "moving in", eye contact, "broken record", etc.

In analyzing and comparing the Canter, Dreikurs, and Redl-Wattenberg models in regard to each one's plan for responding to appropriate behavior, again I found little, if any, reference to this aspect of a discipline plan in Redl-Wattenberg.  Expecting students behave appropriately is a foregone conclusion and the discipline plan focuses only on those students who misbehave.  The reward for the well-behaved student is not to lose favor with the teacher by receiving one of those disapproving signals or by being singled out to "conference" with the teacher, or by actually being punished.  This is not a very realistic approach in most of the American public school classrooms today.

Dreikurs, in contrast to Redl-Wattenberg, places great emphasis on recognizing positive, desirable behavior.   I especially like the "democratic" premise that freedom is tied to responsibility and grows from discipline.  He favors encouragement over praise, and recognizes effort over achievement.  Dreikurs' model closely parallels Canter's "positives" -- he advises setting up logical consequences to deter misbehavior and to motivate appropriate behavior.  Good behavior begets rewards, while unacceptable behavior results in unpleasant consequences.  Dreikurs does not give specific methods for dealing with defiant behavior.  It is difficult to accept that a teacher can rely on students siding with him/her and thus giving support and strengthening the teacher's position.  Canter does not leave anything to chance.

After comparing and contrasting these approaches, Canter's model stands above the rest. It clearly and concisely communicates expectations regarding classroom behavior; clearly and concisely establishes rules; and clearly, concisely models the implementation of both.  Responding to appropriate behavior is not only foremost in achieving and maintaining good discipline, but it continually builds and strengthens teacher influence with students.  I do, however, prefer Dreikurs' term of "democratic" discipline to that of Canter's "assertive" discipline.  Even though I do consider myself an assertive teacher, I would prefer to be known as a democratic teacher by the community in which I teach.  It is term less likely to be misinterpreted by those who do not have a clear understanding of the assertive discipline philosophy.
 

References

Books:
Charles, C.M. Building Classroom Discipline, Sixth Edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. New York.  1999.

Articles:
Why Children Misbehave, by Bruce A. Epstein, M.D.

Papers:
Classroom Management, by Dr. Darrel W. Fyffe

Website:
Optional Elements of a Discipline Plan
 

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Given below is an email correspondence between me and Prof. Carolyn Evertson at Vanderbilt University. She and some colleagues have authored a very nice book on classroom management. I sometimes use that book when I teach Edpsy 316 on campus.  What is your reaction to my inquiry about the exclusion of asertive discipline from her textbook?

As each day passes, I am confronted with new situations and experiences from which I am continually learning.  Perhaps this pattern of growth and quest for knowledge and understanding is what ultimately guided me to choose education as my profession.  One of my avenues of ascertaining knowledge is through published works, whether they be textbooks, articles, papers, etc.  I try to search out works that provide a well-rounded perspective on the topic in which I am interested.  It is for this reason that I was troubled by Tom Anderson's e-mail, and particularly the response given, regarding the inclusion of assertive discipline in the classroom management book co-authored by Professor Carolyn Evertson.

Professor Evertson authored a book on classroom discipline that left out the approach of assertive discipline.  Evertson addressed this issue by stating that the American Psychological Association has labeled this approach to be psychological maltreatment (APA Monitor, January 1988).  I would be curious to see if the American Psychological Association has since revisited and examined the ideas of assertive discipline.  A plus to the Canter's assertive discipline plan is that "they have progressively modified their approach over the years" (Charles, 1999).  Perhaps some of the issues of concern initially raised by the APA have since been addressed.

If Evertson's textbook is used as a reference and teaching tool regarding classroom discipline, then it should be fair to say that the major approaches to the topic should be addressed and not just mentioned.  The information should be presented with both the strengths and weaknesses of the program addressed.  This would allow the reader to make their own, informed decision regarding that particular approach to discipline.

Evertson makes another point, referencing Emmer and Aussiker, in stating that "In spite of teacher and administrator perceptions that are often positive, there is not much evidence that AD training results in improved student behavior (p. 143)."  In researching approaches to classroom discipline, I have been unable to find one method that has proven to be a "fix all" method.  If this were the case, then discipline in the classrooms would not be an issue.

There are many different approaches to discipline; the type of person one is and one's approach to teaching/education factors into the mix.  Consistency is a key factor to effective discipline.  I have worked in a school which lacked a school-wide discipline plan.  This created much confusion with the students and staff and resulted in a significant amount of chaos.  Each teacher had their own method of addressing issues that would arise in the hallways and the classroom.  There was no consistency and instead of learning to curb their behavior, the students learned how to manipulate the situation.  I am currently employed in a district with a clear plan that is followed.  This applies to the general behavior and expectations within the buildings.  Each teacher then addresses the environment within their classroom in a slightly different way, according to their philosophies and personalities.  There is a world of difference in how students conduct themselves in this district when compared to the one in which I was previously employed.

Although there is an established school-wide policy in my district, it is general and does not necessarily address issues that might arise within my fifth grade classroom.  It is therefore my practice to establish added guidelines within my classroom.  I have studied and implemented different approaches to classroom discipline and have been happy with many of the ideas behind Canter's assertive discipline.  At the beginning of the year, I sit down with my class and we discuss expectations we both have.  From there, we develop some guidelines that will enable us to meet those guidelines.  A plan that encourages student cooperation (Charles, 1999) has proven to be quite effective because the students themselves become part of its development.  They take ownership for their part and in turn become more responsible for their behavior.  There is much less teacher confrontation when I have employed this strategy than with others.  Also, by establishing the expectations, guidelines, and consequences the students are more trusting and comfortable within the classroom environment (Charles, 1999).

Canter's assertive discipline plan may not be the best approach to classroom discipline, but a major strength of the program lies in that the program has been refined when concerns to its implementation have been expressed.  It is a plan that promotes a supportive, respectful classroom environment (Charles, 1999).  Although it may have drawbacks, as expressed by Professor Carolyn Evertson, it is an approach that is well known (Lesson 2).  For the benefit of those students studying classroom discipline, it should have been addressed within the Evertson's book.  Including the strengths and weaknesses of the program would have been an effective manner of presentation thereby giving the authors the freedom to express their concerns, but ultimately allowing the final judgement on the effectiveness, benefits, and appropriateness of assertive discipline to the reader.
 
 

References

Lesson 2 - E-mail correspondence between Tom Anderson and Professor Carolyn Evertson

Books:
Charles, C.M. Building Classroom Discipline, Sixth Edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. New York.  1999.
 

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What are some ways that you use punishment to control the actions of students? Are those ways effective? Are there other alternatives?

Teachers do not generally want to give control to their students as they have been instructed that the mark of successful teachers is that the teacher is in control of their class (Taylor, 1987).  The amount of control that teachers have in the class is often seen by the administration as a measurement of the quality of a teacher.  Administrators are usually happy if a teacher never sends a student to the office and interpret this as proof that the teacher is in control and must be doing a good job (Edwards, 1994).

Glasser (1984) states that control is necessary for the psychological balance in one's life.  It is a common trait of human beings to want control in their lives.  In schools, this is often carried to such an extent that discipline itself is often seen as synonymous with control.  In schools, the most widely practiced interpretation of the word discipline is control (Wlodkowski, 1982).

The question that remains: Is control the answer?  Within my classroom, the answer to this question would be no.  I have found that many of the ideas behind assertive discipline are more effective than if I, as the teacher, were to establish a dictatorship within my classroom.  Does this mean that I relinquish all authority?  No.  In fact, I find it much easier to manage classroom disruptions and inappropriate behavior and actions.

Assertive discipline teaches students to accept the consequences of their actions.  It has "as it's basic premise the reinforcement of appropriate behavior" (Render, Padilla, and Krank, 1989, pg 609).  "Responsibility is exactly what Assertive Discipline is all about" (Canter, 1988, pg 24).  With this plan, the teacher devises a system of rewards and punishments to let the students know when they have acted correctly or incorrectly.  Students who continue to make improper choices incur increasingly unpleasant penalties.  Canter expresses concern about teachers who "spend too much time punishing children…This is the key to Assertive Discipline, positives and lots of praise" (Canter, 1988, pg. 24).

Although I utilize the major ideas of assertive discipline within my classroom, I do agree with some of the criticisms of the plan.  According the assertive discipline plan, students are forced to accept the rule of the teacher or else.  Lines of control are strictly enforced with little or no democracy in the classroom.  It is up to the teacher to make and enforce classroom rules.  Hitz (1988) describes assertive discipline as "power assertion rather than developing responsible behavior" (pg. 25).  It is with these thoughts in mind that I veer from the proposed path of assertive discipline.

I take a democratic approach with my class which is lacking in the assertive discipline model.  At the beginning of the year, I sit down with my students and we discuss our expectations for each other and for the year.  As a class, we then begin discussing what guidelines would be necessary for the class to fulfill their expectations and feel safe and comfortable within the classroom.  It is in this discussion that I gain valuable insight into each of my students.  From here, we develop a short list of classroom rules and expectations that we all feel are reasonable and can be followed.  When the classroom rules are established, we then brainstorm consequences that would be utilized should the rules not be adhered to, making sure to refer to the school handbooks that outline general school guidelines and consequences.  Since we, as a class, developed the rules and the consequences together, there is a certain buy-in on the part of my students.  There is a level of ownership that they develop, and with this, a greater responsibility to follow the rules than if I, as the teacher, dictated them. The students are then given a copy of the rules and a copy is sent home to the parents

Does this mean that all my students always follow the rules?  Of course not.  Management, however, is much easier.  Informal reminders are given here and there.  For example, if we are, as a class, moving to a different classroom or going to the library, I might ask my students about appropriate hallway behavior.  This refreshes the expectations and curbs inappropriate behavior.  If a child misbehaves, I talk with them and ask about the choice they made.  We talk about that choice and about alternatives to their actions.  In these methods, I utilize aspects of control therapy and reality therapy.

William Glasser developed control theory in 1984.  In 1989, he developed the idea of Reality Therapy.  Glasser (1984) suggests that there are four basic human needs.  They are love, control, freedom and fun.  These four components are necessary for a healthy psychological balance.  Children need to be taught how to control their behavior. People have pictures in their head of their perceptions of their needs and how they can be satisfied.  "Most people, however, do not believe they have a choice" (Glasser 1989, pg 2).  It is the responsibility of the teacher to teach students that students choose how they act.  "The teacher's task is to help students make good choices by making clear the connection between student behavior and its consequences" (Emmer, 1986, pg. 7).

Reality Therapy is a series of steps to help children understand the choices they are making.  A teacher first tries to help the student identify the inappropriate behavior of the student.  Then the teacher helps the student identify the consequences of that behavior.  No attempt is made to come up with new or artificial consequences that the teacher might impose.  It is important that the students, not the teacher identify the consequences.  Then the student needs to create a plan to eliminate inappropriate behavior.  The teacher helps the student with successful implementation of the plan or allows the consequences to occur (Edwards, 1993).

The combination of approaches I have taken with my class has proven to be a fairly successful classroom management plan.  I rarely deal with excessive and/or repeat discipline problems which allows for more instructional time.  It also allows for the inclusion of less structured, 'fun' activities with my students.  Just this past week I was stopped by teachers, on three separate occasions, regarding the behavior of my students both in class and in the hallway.  They were amazed that they were so well behaved and asked what I bribed them with or threatened them with.  My response surprised them in that there are no 'bribes' or 'threats'.  My students simply know what is expected of them and their reward is a warm, productive, comfortable environment.
 

References

Canter, L. (1988).  Assertive discipline and the search for the perfect classroom.  Young Children, 43 (2), 24.

Charles, C.M. (1999).  Building Classroom Discipline.  New York: Longman.

Edwards, C. (1994).  Learning and control in the classroom.  Journal of Instructional Psychology. 21 (4), 340-346/

Edwards, D. (1993).  Making choices about discipline.  American Secondary Education, 22(2), 17-21.

Emmer, E.T. (1986).  Effects of teacher training in disciplinary approaches.  Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, office of Educational Research and Improvement.

Glasser, W. (1984). Control theory.  New York: Harper & Row.

Glasser, W. (1989).  Control theory in the practice of reality therapy.  New York: Harper & Row.

Hitz, R. (1988).  Assertive discipline:  A response to Lee Canter.  Young Children, 43(2), 25-26.

Render, G., Padilla, J., & Krank, H. (1989).  What research really shows about assertive discipline.  Educational Leadership, 46, (6), 72-75.

Taylor, B.W. (1987).  Classroom discipline: A system for getting the school administrator to see classroom discipline problems your way.  Dayton, OH: Souther Hills Press.

Wlodkowski, R.J. (1982).  Discipline: The great false hope.  Unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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I recently received this email requesting assistance about a punishment issue. Put yourself in my position, and prepare a considered, informative, sensitive reply to this parent. Be sure to make your reply convincing by including the sources of your references, especially those that this parent can easily access.

Dear Parents:

We appreciate your expressing some concerns and raising questions regarding 5th grade behavior and homework policies.  We have tried to address these issues and hopefully have clarified our position.

Elementary school is the base point and beginning of many years in the educational system.  It is very important to have effective discipline at the beginning stage to ensure a basic understanding and respect that is necessary for further growth and success in the upper levels.  As the teachers, we have the right to teach your students in a classroom free from disruptive behavior.  It is important that your students also have this right and that they are able to be in a classroom that both reflects behavioral expectations and creates an atmosphere in which your students are able to learn and have a level of self-confidence (Unell).  As teachers, we have the responsibility to make clear rules and expectations as well as what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior within the classroom.  The word "discipline" has many different meanings, but we use it to refer to the steps taken to cause students to behave acceptably in school, otherwise known as classroom management.

Discipline is intended to control and redirect misbehavior - behavior that is aggressive, immoral, or disruptive to learning.  The purpose of discipline in the classroom is to prevent conflict by encouraging students to develop self-control over their own behavior (Charles, 1999).  When we, as teachers, apply our discipline skills, it is our hope that students will acknowledge the need for self-discipline and later use it not only in the classroom, but also beyond the school boundaries.

In school, we as teachers are expected to enforce a set of school rules.  Rules must be applied consistently in all classes and areas of the building in order to make it easier for students to learn.  "General school policy and classroom policy varies from school to school.  Younger children are usually given rules because they need guidelines set up to follow" (LeBlanc).  Once the classroom rules are established, we teach the rules to the students.  Some methods utilized to accomplish this were demonstrations of appropriate behavior, rehearsal of the behavior and giving the students feedback.  When we described the rules, we were specific and offered examples.  We also demonstrated to them how procedures should be done.  Rehearsing the rules helped the children learn the appropriate behavior and gives us the opportunity to see if the children understand.  When we rehearsed a task, we were sure to inform them when they were doing a task properly and give them praise (Clements et al. 56-57).  Using these techniques, we can ensure that the students understand and can correctly carry out the behavior that is expected of them.

When looking at the forms of discipline that are directed towards elementary students, it has been constantly proven that related consequences seem to be the most effective method of discipline instead of conventional punishment or allowing natural consequences to occur.  Since we are not allowed to punish students anymore and natural consequences are unacceptable in many situations due to safety, it seems clear that the most effective method for discipline in elementary schools is that of related consequences.  Related consequences involve adult intervention without anger or recrimination (Fields and Boesser, 165).

Consistency is also a key to our discipline plan.  Consistency means retaining the same expectations for appropriate behavior in an activity at all times and for all students (Clements et al, 119).  We choose to praise children as a reward.  This allows the students to take credit for their personal accomplishments.  This also shows them they have power and can do tasks independently (Unell and Wyckoff, 15).  By using rewards consistently and offering praise to our students, they are motivated to act appropriately.

When we develop classroom procedures, we are aware of the six different areas in which they must be utilized: procedures for room areas, teacher instruction and seatwork activities, small-group work, transitions into and out of the room, keeping students accountable for work, and other general procedures.  In order for our students to understand each procedure, we demonstrated each one.  Time is taken out of the school day to walk them through each procedure, all the while allowing for questions.  We then question the children to make sure they understand every aspect.  When the student repeats the rule, we know the child knows the rule.  The child also knows we are aware of his knowledge of the rule.  Once they have told us the rules, all responsibility for obeying the rule is theirs.

Students also need a clear idea of what their assignments are and what is expected of them, especially at the elementary level.  This means that we explain all requirements and features of the assignments.  We make sure the students know that there are other standards for the assignments such as neatness, legibility, and form.  These might not be the most important aspects of the assignments, but they must be acknowledged.

Another important aspect of discipline is parent involvement.  Having open communication with the parents is important in all aspects of education, not just in discipline.  We make sure to keep the parents informed of how their child is performing both academically and behaviorally.  When there is home-school communication, it tells the children that their parents know what goes on at school and consequences will follow at home if things go wrong at school (Unell and Wyckoff, 94).  It is important for the parent to enforce consequences at home to go along with those enforced in the classroom (Unell and Wyckoff, 93).  When the parent enforces the consequences at home, the student is getting the most consistency possible.

Discipline at the elementary level is the foundation for a lifetime of learning.  When parents are involved, the discipline can be followed through at home.  Deciding on rules and making sure the children understand them ensures smooth sailing in the classroom.  Using rewards consistently with praise can help build a child's self-esteem.  All these aspects are important parts of discipline.  When they are put together, it makes for a more productive learning environment.

Again, thank-you for expressing your concerns and allowing us the opportunity to respond to them.  Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.  We enjoy working with your children and value your support in helping them experience a productive and fulfilling 5th grade year.

References:

Books:
Gordon, Thomas Dr. Discipline that Works. New York : Plume, 1989

Unell, Barbara C. and Jerry L Wyckoff, PHD. How to Discipline your Six to Twelve Year Old. New York : Double Day, 1991

Clements, Barbara S. ed al. Classroom Management for Elementary Teachers.  Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon, 1994

Charles, C.M. Building Classroom Discipline. Longman Publishing Group, 1999.
 

 Personal Interview:

LeBlac, Debbie.  October 1999.

Internet Sites:

Fred Jones Tools for Teaching
 

Discipline without Stress, Punishments, or Rewards - Raise Responsibility and Promote Learning
 

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To what extent does Kounin suggest that teacher discipline skills are learned, as distinct from inborn or derived from common sense? Support your conclusions with examples from withitness, overlapping, movement management, and group focus.

Is "discipline" concerned with preventing misbehavior or with punishing it?  The word, according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, refers to both prevention and remediation.  It can be "training that is expected to produce a specified character or pattern of behavior" or "controlled behavior resulting from such training"; but it can also be "punishment intended to correct or train."  Whatever the definition, according to research and writings, it is apparent that 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' when talking about young people in educational settings.

The facilitative teacher is one who understands and knows how to manage groups of students to produce high levels of involvement.  There is a wide body of research, and a number of "management" programs that indicate the importance of issues related to classroom management.  Upon sitting in workshops and talking to new teachers, a common theme arises: "How do I deal with discipline problems?"  No one can deny that discipline problems can create havoc for teachers, especially beginning teachers.  Instead of dealing with discipline problems as the problem, research suggests that being an effective manager of situations and facilitator of learning is the key.

To be an effective facilitator of learning requires an understanding of effective group management behaviors.  This understanding and implementation is a skill that is developed and improved upon over time.  A researcher, by the name of Jacob Kounin, identified a cluster of proactive teacher behaviors that distinguished effective classroom managers from ineffective ones.  He discovered, by studying video tapes of over eighty teachers, that there were group management strategies that teachers used which created a class environment characterized by high levels of student involvement.  These strategies were proactive behaviors on the part of the teacher and, taken as a whole, created a class climate that prevented or discouraged behavior problems before they began.  Kounin's key ideas include "with-it-ness," "overlapping," "smoothness," "momentum," and "group focus and accountability" (Charles, 1999)

With-it-ness

With-it-ness is the teacher's ability to communicate to students that they know what they are doing in the classroom at all times.  With-it-ness is a monitoring behavior, not only during small group work, but when the teacher is making a presentation or if the students are doing individual seatwork.

Teacher's who are successful in monitoring students appear to have "eyes in the back of their head" (Charles, 1999).  They are able to spot misbehavior via a sixth sense, almost as if able to see every student all of the time.  In order for teachers to communicate with-it-ness to the students, they must indicate this awareness through some action indicating an awareness of student behavior.  The easiest way to exhibit this is to stop misbehavior in a timely and appropriate manner.  This means "nipping the behavior problems in the bud" -- before they manifest themselves and spread to other students like a virus.

Eye-contact, asking questions, physically moving toward impending misbehaving students, and redirecting students to prevent misbehavior are some individual teacher behaviors that will convey to the students the teacher's sense of with-it-ness.

Overlapping

In the real world of the classroom, multiple events occur simultaneously, and the effective manager is able to deal with them.  In this management practice, the classroom teacher does not get totally immersed in one event at the expense of other pending situations.  Throughout the day, there is a high probability of interruptions from students entering class from the outside or announcements over the P.A. system.  The skilled manager is able to maintain the flow of instruction by holding the entire class accountable for continuing, while at the same time, dealing with the intrusion.

Smoothness

This management practice refers to the teacher's ability to manage smooth transitions between learning activities.  Kounin identified a number of classroom behaviors that tended to impede smoothness.  The following behaviors, commonly found in unskilled teachers, impede smoothness within the classroom environment.

1. Bursting in on a group or the entire class with new information or instructions when the students are not ready interferes with the flow of the lesson.  For example, suppose the teacher instructed the class that each group had ten minutes to complete their classifications of shapes.  With only a few minutes remaining, the teacher interrupts and adds instructions to write explanations to accompany and support their classifications.  A more effective approach would entail including this aspect as part of the original instructions or waiting until the initial time period was up before announcing new instructions, making sure to give time to complete this part of the assignment.

2. Starting an activity and leaving it dangling by starting another activity also impedes the smoothness of the lesson.  For example, in math class, the class begins by discussing the homework and the teacher directs a few students to go to the board to complete the problems.  While the students are on their way to the board, the teacher begins reviewing yesterday's class discussion.  Students raise their hands and the discussion is underway.  One of the students at the board experiences difficulty with the problem, but the teacher's attention is focused on the class discussion.
 

3. There are times that activities might never be completed.  The activity becomes truncated.  By looking at the previous example, the teacher might not finish discussing the homework because the class discussion became rather involved.
 

4. There are often times a teacher might call attentions to a problem in the middle of an activity that could have been dealt with later.  Interruptions stop the flow of instruction.  These are minor misbehaviors, such as a student reading a book instead of correcting their homework.  This can be handled by simply walking over to the student and pointing to or touching their paper.  The book is put away without incident.  The problem would develop when the teacher verbally addresses the situation and engages in a discussion.  At this point, the entire class has been interrupted.

Momentum

Effective managers move lessons at a brisk pace and have few slowdowns in the flow of activities.  Maintaining momentum or a steady sense of movement throughout the lesson helps engage the learners in activities.  Poorly utilized time between activities causes students to lose interest.

Slowdowns are generally caused by a teacher's over-dwelling on a task or fragmenting activities into trivial steps as opposed to formalizing it as a single activity.  Over-dwelling can kill a good activity.  Teachers who spend too much time giving detailed instructions on an activity can reduce a student's initial interest.  Writing out instructions or reconceptualizing the activity can eliminate over-dwelling.  Another practice of which to be cognizant is lecturing for too lengthy a period.  Without brisk-movement through the lecture, student interest can easily be lost.  Lecturing about misbehavior can also impede the flow of instruction.

Group Focus and Accountability

A teacher is always involved with a large group of students, but at the same time, must hold each student accountable for learning.  Maintaining group focus as well as holding each student responsible for learning are key management practices.  Altering the structure of lessons and methods of delivery have proven to be effective within my classroom.  Class discussions and small group work have been more effective in promoting focus and involvement as compared to individual seatwork.

Group focus is also dependent on conveying to students that each is accountable for their academic and social behavior.  Expecting each student to be ready to respond or to complete assignments is an effective management technique.  Some methods to maintain accountability might include:

1. The teacher checks student's answers or performance by asking them to hold up answers or some prop indicating an answer.
 

2. The teacher requires the group to recite answers in unison while actively listening for individual responses.
 

3. The teacher asks for understanding of a larger number of students by asking some students to comment on whether another student's answer was correct or incorrect.
 

4. The teacher circulates around the group and checks answers or performance of students at their seats while another student is asked to answer aloud or at the board.
 

5. The teacher asks for raised hands of students prepared to demonstrate a skill or problem on the board and then requires some to demonstrate.
 

The management practices discussed can be seen in classrooms of teachers with high rates of student engagement and low numbers of misbehaviors.  These skills should be apparent in the variety of tasks in which teachers involve students.  It is important to note that these are skills, not innate, but rather acquired, developed and fine-tuned with use and over time.
 
 

References

Jacob S. Kounin - Discipline and Group Management by Ale Favela

Websites:

Fred Jones Web Page
Learning Environment Article - "Are You With It?" by Deb Wuest
School Improvement Research Series - "School Wide and Classroom Discipline" by Kathleen Cotton
Classroom Management Paper by Brian Lantow, Becky Narus, Nancy Simerly, Joseph Williams

Books:
Charles, C.M. Building Classroom Discipline, Sixth Edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. New York.  1999. Pg. 56-76.
 

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In some ways Kounin’s model casts the teacher into an orchestra conductor’s role. Discuss how this can be a
reasonable metaphor, and some places where the metaphor breaks down. Does this metaphor work well to explain
your teaching techniques? Design one that might work better.

Jacob Kounin researched classroom management and identified techniques for class control.  These techniques are intended to create and maintain a classroom atmosphere conducive to learning.  By keeping students engaged, behavior problems are reduced to a minimum.  Kounin suggests that teachers must be able to deal with the entire class, various subgroups, and individual students, often at the same time.  Can Kounin's model compare a teacher to that of an orchestra conductor?

According to Webster's Dictionary, a conductor is one that acts as a guide, shows the way, leads, or directs the course.  An orchestra conductor must guide and direct each individual player while at that same time maintaining control and directing the group as an entire entity.  This is what we, as teachers, do within our classrooms.

In reflecting on this metaphor, my mind drifts back to my high school days where I, for two years, served as a student conductor for our school bands.  A myriad of thoughts, feelings, and experiences came flooding back.  I recall being summoned to my band director's office and being told that I would be acting as the drum major for marching band season and a student conductor for the remainder of the year.  One responsibility required me to "work-up" a piece of music.  Not having formal training, other than being a band member for six years, initially made this a difficult and trying experience.  I had no idea where to begin or how to attack the situation.  This parallels experiences colleagues have shared with me as they recall their first years teaching.  We receive training, but walking in and implementing a curriculum, setting up a classroom, and designing a discipline plan for the first time can be overwhelming.

Jumping into my new role was not easy and it was a rather bumpy road.  Playing as a member of a band is a disciplined activity, but acting as the director required that this skill be brought to new levels.  The conductor of an orchestra must manage many things at once.  The variety of instruments playing different parts of the music, timing, the different movements of the piece, the volume and style for each part, and maintaining a balance of sound are only a few aspects of "conducting" which continuously and simultaneously must be addressed.  This multi-tasking parallels the idea of overlapping in Kounin's model.  The conductor must be able to attend to two or more things at the same time. In fact, there are many more than two elements that parallel one another in an "orchestrated" setting.

Kounin's ripple effect manifested, not only when I served as the conductor, but I experienced it as a playing member as well.  Kounin's ripple effect occurs when the teacher corrects a misbehavior in one student which in turn positively influences the behavior of nearby students.  As a member of the band, I was very uncomfortable playing "solos" for the director in front of the entire band.  This would be done either by instrument section, or by each individual if there was a problem with that particular part of the music.  Once one person was called on to play a solo, the entire section of instruments started working through their parts to make sure they were playing it correctly.  When I served as the conductor, I, too, resorted to using this strategy knowing full well what it was like to sit on the other side.

An orchestra conductor must also exhibit what Kounin called with-it-ness.  He used this term to describe the teacher's awareness of what is going on in all parts of the classroom at all times.  The conductor must always know when sections of instruments are playing and when they are at rest besides the different parts that each instrument is playing.  The director must tune-in to those students who might have rests in one part of the piece and cannot temporarily forget them because they are not playing.  It is at those breaks in the music that the players take a break and have the opportunity to misbehave just as when we take breaks and move from activity to activity within the classroom.  Exhibiting with-it-ness deters the players from distracting others and misbehaving.

Transitions and group focus must also be considered.  The conductor must be able to maintain and hold the interest of the members to ensure the proper functioning of the group.  The different parts played fit together to create a piece of music.  If the conductor does not loses the interest of the players either during transitions or during the various parts, the beauty of the piece of music is lost and the group loses its cohesiveness.
It is reasonable to say that Kounin's model casts a teacher into the role of an orchestra conductor.  In my own classroom and within my discipline practices, I do try to implement the ideas presented by Kounin.  These of course are modified and altered to work best within the classroom environment.

Although I think the metaphor of the teacher as an orchestra conductor applies to me, one might also create a metaphor utilizing a warship or army battalion in training for war.  This is not to say that a teacher should be militant.  In a warship or army battalion, each individual knows their role and all roles are important.  There cannot be a warship or battalion of all captains.  They would not survive or succeed.  When each of these members are confronting an enemy, they complete their assignments and fulfill their tasks to the best of their ability.  There must be a sense of "disciplined activity".  Each individual has been assigned a role which must be assumed to assure the success of the mission.  It is our job as educators to teach that every job is important and must be completed to insure the class as a whole functions successfully and productively.
 

References

Websites:

Fred Jones Web Page
School Improvement Research Series - "School Wide and Classroom Discipline" by Kathleen Cotton
The Kounin Model(Withitness, Alerting, and Group Management)
Learning Environment Article - "Are You With It?" by Deb Wuest

Books:
Charles, C.M. Building Classroom Discipline, Sixth Edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. New York.  1999. Pg. 56-76.
 

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The use of mnemonics has had a varied history. Currently, their use is in vogue, thus a section in the textbook is devoted to a discussion of various types. Not long ago, mnemonics were thought to be a waste of time and that only "meaningful" learning should be attempted in classroom teaching. Designing and learning a mnemonic was thought to be meaningless learning. What is your disposition on their usefulness, and what do they contribute to classroom learning? Contribute some mnemonics that you teach, have learned and/or have heard of.

Working memory, the number of things one can keep in mind at a given time, is limited.  For young children, the limit may be one; for adults, it is typically somewhere around seven.  When it is exhausted, no new information can enter working memory without 'bumping' something out.  This does not handicap us as thinkers, but rather requires the development of increasingly more sophisticated thinking and learning strategies.

One practical method for expanding the capacity of working memory involves the use of mnemonics.  They have proven helpful in associative learning tasks such as matching capital cities with states, regions, or countries and in serial learning tasks such as the various stages of the digestive process.

Learners remember new information best when it can be related to, and incorporated with, existing material already learned.  Unfortunately, students are frequently called upon to remember large amounts of disparate and unfamiliar information for which existing memory structures are not readily available.  At these times a mnemonic device is a learning aid which can be employed to facilitate memory.  The mnemonic aid provides a cueing structure to trigger recall.  These structures take the form of words in sentences or rhymes, or of visual images.

In working with my students, the visual aspect of memory is apparent in making information memorable and easily recalled.  This is not to say that it is an actual picture that is looked at, but a picture that can easily be visualized -- one that bears some meaning or familiarity that will make recall easier.

Throughout the year, I have been conducting a few small experiments with my fifth grade class.  The middle school I work in runs a program called 'Word Power' which has the students learning fifty new vocabulary words throughout the year.  This is difficult for my students, so I have employed a few mnemonic strategies to try and help them.  One of the most effective devices has been the 'method of loci'.  A larger number of students have recalled the information with ease utilizing this memory device.  By using the method of loci, my students attached a familiar, visual context to the word which facilitated their recall.

Another mnemonic device utilized within my classroom is the story method.  This is where we take information and create a story.  We often create silly or bizarre stories to recall information.  It is always interesting to see how much fun they have remembering this information.  To my students, it's a game rather than memorizing facts or information.  Therefore, they are more willing to do it and retain the information longer.  A story we created earlier this year helped my students remember the thirteen colonies in the order they joined the union.  Our story went something like this: A lady from Delaware bought a ticket on the Pennsylvania Railroad.  She packed a New, Jersey sweater in her suitcase and went to visit her friend Georgia in Connecticut.  The next morning she and her friend attended Mass in a church on Mary's land.  Then they took the South car line home and dined on a New ham which had been roasted by Virginia, the cook from New York.  After dinner, they took the North car line home and Rode to the island.

Singing information is another mnemonic device used with my fifth graders.  At this age, they still like to sing in class, and it has helped them learn information that is difficult to relate or tie to previous knowledge.  In the beginning of the year, we learn about prepositions in language arts.  My students are required to learn the more frequently used prepositions so they are able to identify prepositional phrases for the diagramming of sentences.  Since this information does not highly interest them, the prepositions are sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle".  This is a tune they have all heard and they enjoy.  Our song is as follows:
 About, above, across, against
 Among, around, at, before,
 Behind, beside, below, between,
 Except, by, during, down, from.

 Over, under, of, off, on,
 Through, in, beneath, toward, after,
 Toward, up, until, unto, with,
 Are preposition words.

We also study the fifty states as part of our curriculum.  We sing about the fifty states in alphabetical order.  These are actually great fun for my students.  I've even had some former students come back from high school and still be able to sing our fifty states and preposition songs perfectly.

With many of the units in the fifth grade curriculum, I use many of the 'classic' mnemonics as well.  Some of these are:

Science

Planets: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas
  Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto

Math

Orders of Operations: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction

Spelling

I before E except after C
You're a friend 'till the end.
The principal is always your pal.
The first vowel does the talking the second does the walking
Never believe a lie.

Social Studies

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Information can be memorable upon first glance in situations where there is a context; context meaning a place, person, or image which can act as a cue to recall the information.  Learning by rote is not usually the best form of committing information to memory although it works for short-term storage.  As said by Alexander Craig Aitken, information is memorable if it is learned by heart meaning that it must be important to the person remembering it.  What is important or memorable can be what is familiar.  George Miller and Bartlett also state similar ideas in that we remember things based on what we already know by creating a context for new information.  Bartlett also states that what we do remember can never be exact recall of the information because everyone interprets what they learn in a different way.  This is because people have different experiences in life and create different contexts for what they know.

Memory works in many different ways.  Some people remember better through visual stimulation and others through auditory.  Some can remember a face and others a name.  Recall is dependent on how the information is presented and the importance given to the information.  Mnemonic devices can be beneficial tools for storing large amounts of knowledge.  Memory is unique to each individual because the information presented and taught is still dependent on what importance it has and on previous experiences and interpretations.
 

References:

Bellezza, Francis S. Updating memory using mnemonic devices. Cognitive Psychology. Ohio U., 1982, Jul Vol 14(3) 301-327

Bruning, R.H. et all.  Cognitive Psychology and Instruction. Prentice Hall: New Jersey, 1999. Chapters 4 and 5.

Carruthers, M. The Book of Memory, Cambridge University Press: New York, Chapter 4

Higbee, Kenneth L. Your memory: How it works and How To Improve It. Prentice-Hall Inc. (1977)

Luria, A. The Mind of a Mnemonist. Harvard:Cambridge, MA (1968)
 

Websites:

Academic Support Center - Memory Techniques

Miller, G.A. The Magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacit for processing information.

What Makes Information Memorable?

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Do you think the phonics vs. whole language debate in the learning to read process, is relevant when thinking about students reading from the computer screen?

The phonics versus whole language debate has been an on-going, heated debate in the field of education.  It is a classic example of the swinging pendulum syndrome which has typified education in recent years.  As new theories, strategies, or research appear, the pendulum swings to the right and it becomes the new, hot topic that must be implemented within classrooms.  It swings back to the left when educators panic about "the basics" being slighted.  The pattern continues with the pendulum eventually coming to rest in the middle--a compromise of the new theories, strategies, and research with those that have been implemented in the classrooms for years.  Such is the phonics and whole language debate.  I grew up learning phonics.  For the past five years, students in my classroom have been those who learned to read through whole language.  My students and I are reflective of the two "ends" of the continuum -- tradition versus innovation.  The best practices I have seen, and have implemented in my classroom, utilize a combination of both phonics and whole language instruction whether reading from a page or a computer screen.

Phonics is a way of teaching reading and spelling that stresses symbol-sound relationships, used especially in the beginning instruction (Harris & Hodges).  The need for phonics instruction is based on the fairly well accepted idea that phonemic awareness is a necessary pre-reading skill for literacy.  The writing system of English, however, is neither phonetically nor phonemically so clear-cut.  This is where phonics instruction proves useful.  The ability to break down words into their syllables is a fairly natural process.  However, the skill of analyzing language into distinct units of sound (phonemes) is one that must be taught.  The goal of phonics instruction is to clarify and reinforce phonemic awareness and then relate it to spelling conventions of written English.  This would act as a cognitive bridge from phonemic awareness to decoding fluency of the writing system and the beginning of literacy.

Whole language, on the other hand, is a more wide-ranging concept than phonics.  It rejects deductive and analytic methodologies and favors individualized, student-centered activities in beginning literacy instruction.  Considering whole language's depth, it is easy to see how some of its advocates reject the idea of phonics instruction.  According to Strickland, the crux of the disagreement is this:

Issues surrounding phonics and the teaching of discrete skills evoke the most heated discussions about whole language.  Because whole language teachers believe that all language systems are interwoven, they avoid the segmentation of language into component parts for specific skill instruction (Harris and Hodges).

Regardless of popular misconceptions, a whole language approach does not require the total rejection of phonics.  Rather, "the use of strategies taught in meaningful contexts is emphasized.  Phonics is taught through writing by focusing on the patterns of language in reading" (Harris & Hodges).  Perfetti, Beck, and Hughes found that phonemic knowledge and learning to read are mutually supportive.  The development of phonemic awareness leads to more successful reading; and engaging in reading activities leads to greater phonemic awareness.  They caution against describing the relationship in simple terms, which suggest that one must necessarily precede the other (Moustafa).

Phonics instruction should never sacrifice comprehension nor should it replace independent reading activities.  Extensive exposure to print that is meaningful and functional appears to be the key to the development of a sense of the match between the spoken and written correspondences of words.  By contrast, phonemic awareness appears to be less easy for some children to acquire (Cullihan, Strickland)

While many people argue strongly for one side or the other of the phonics, whole language approach, the best approach is a combination of both.  Excerpts from an article in the News and Observer on March 19, 1998 entitled, "Blending Reading Methods Endorsed" sums up the argument.

The Committee on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children was charged with sifting the available reading research and translating the findings into advice for parents, educators, and the general public.  They found that neither phonics nor whole language is sufficient alone.  Teaching programs should use elements of both and most importantly, should begin when children are in pre-school.  The report emphasized that pre-school is the time to identify children with speech, hearing, and language processing problems and intervene to help.  These experts agreed on three main achievements necessary for learning to read well:
1. Understanding the alphabetic principle--the relationship between written letters and speech sounds
2. Developing strategies for comprehension
3. Fluency--being able to read so that you're not thinking about the words and can concentrate on the meaning
The report talks liberally from both schools of thought, but it strongly supports many phonics principles.  It says children should be encouraged to sound out unfamiliar words instead of guessing at them from their context.  The report also recommended a fundamental rethinking of the years before kindergarten.  Children's ability to talk to each other and tell stories at the age of three or four was deemed relevant to their later reading success.

Evidence shows that if we are not using a combination of both whole language and phonics approaches to teach reading, we are doing a disservice to our children.  This is why in my classroom both approaches are utilized throughout the curriculum.  Literacy is one area that the increasing use of technology throughout the curriculum doesn't greatly affect.  Whether the print be in a book or on the computer screen, an approach that uses the combination of phonics and whole language will provide the best literacy instruction.
 

References:

Bruning, R.H. et all.  Cognitive Psychology and Instruction. Prentice Hall: New Jersey, 1999. Chapters 4 and 5.

Cullihan, Strickland, 1997.  Language, Literacy, and the Child.

Harris, T.L. & Hodges, R.E/ (Eds.) (1995). The Literacy Dictionary: The vocabulary of reading and writing.  Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Moustafa. Margaret.  Beyond Traditional Phonics.  1997. Heinemenn, Portsmouth, NH.

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Why are math story problems so difficult for so many students?

Poor performance in math courses is perhaps the most accepted form of failing schoolwork in the American educational system.  "Math anxiety" is cited as a source of students' difficulty with the subject.  Because math has only one "right" answer, it appears more intimidating.  Most students forget that although math problems do only have one answer, there are many ways to arrive at the end result.  Often both parents and students write off bad grades in these classes saying, "I was never good at math either" or "the teacher did not explain the process well."

A major difficulty that less-adept math students have with the subject is solving story problems.  Many students complain that they can solve math problems if the numbers are presented to them without the need to translate them into terms that the relevant formula can utilize.  In other words, students are happiest when they can just "plug and chug" to get the answer.

This difficulty with problem solving is not a recent development; it has been a topic since 1980.  The first recommendation in the Agenda for Action states: "Problem solving must be the focus of school mathematics" (NCTM, 1980).  Since then, mathematics educators have performed a number of research studies in this area and new curricula have been developed.  In the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, problem solving is still viewed as one of the most important areas in math education (NCTM, 1989).  "Becoming a mathematical problem solver" is the third goal for students (Standards, 1989).  The new standards not only endorse the first recommendation in the Agenda for Action, but also state that the "development of each student's ability to solve problems is essential if he or she is to be a productive citizen" (Standards, 1989).

Results from several student performance programs like the second NAEP, fourth NAEP, or the Second International Mathematics Study indicate that students across America continue to have difficulty with problem solving, especially on multi-step problems (Carpenter et al, 1981; Kouba et al., 1988; and Crosswhite et al, 9185).  It seems that the dilemma that confronts students with word problems is not unique to America; other countries have also reported that students face similar difficulties when solving word problems (See Li, 1991).  How to improve students' problem solving competence appears to be a universal issue.

Some researchers have examined the textbooks on this issue (See Zweng, 1979; Riedesel, 1980).  In elementary schools, problem solving is treated either at the introductory and developmental period, at a later phase of topic development, or throughout both phases.  Yet, some of the programs treat problem solving only after a topic has been fully developed (Riedesel, 1980).  Riedesel states that the "majority of textbook problems are simply practice-related to the computational topic of the chapter.  If the children simply do what they were last taught, they will be able to correctly answer 60 to 80 percent of their textbook problems without even reading them" (1980, pg. 126).  This from outward appearances deems this method successful.  However, when taken out of the context of a chapter, students cannot transfer these problem solving strategies.

Moreover, the fact that students do not do well at solving story problems contradicts Riedesel's observation.  The reason for this contradiction seems to be complex.  Two rather overly simplified answers typically are "they can't compute" and "they can't read" (Zweng, 1979).  According to Knifong and Holtan, the majority of students who solved problems incorrectly could read the problems orally and could retell the story of the problems in their own words.  Thus, lacking in reading comprehension is not a significant factor in the lack of success experienced by many students in problem solving.  The NAEP results have shown that, overall, students did their best on items that involved familiar, but simple, everyday settings.  These problems are mostly one-step problems (Kouba et al., 1988).  Kouba et al. (1988) also conclude that "students may have trouble with two-step problems for many reasons.  First, performance on items involving logical reasoning indicates that many students either have difficulty reasoning well when they must attend to several pieces of information or have not had much experience with these types of problems.  Second, many students either are careless in their reading or are unable to comprehend a non-routine situation.  It seems that these students treat complicated, non-routine situations as if they are familiar ones.

Furthermore, the NAEP results seem to indicate rather clearly that deciding on an operation to perform (addition, subtraction, etc.) is the major stumbling block to successful problem solving.  However, "textbooks give children little guidance on how to select the appropriate operation for solving a problem" (Zweng, 1979).

Mathematics educators and curricular developers have noticed the importance of problem solving ability and have given considerable attention to it.  One central theme is that textbooks in the 80's provide a four-step problem solving strategy: (1) understanding, (2) planning, (3) proceeding, and (4) evaluating.  In fact, most of the problem solving steps given by different textbook series were just variations of these four steps.  Back in the 50's, studies such as the one reported by Burch (1954) had already indicated that formal analysis is not of great value, since pupils do not normally make use of the four or six-step procedure.  In the actual classroom, instruction on problem solving was not very productive.  Many proposals have waned quickly after teacher tryout or after knowing that the program failed to produce significant evidence of their value.  So, during instruction on story problems, the major portion of instructional time is devoted to finding the answers of the same type of story problems.  Procedures were also poorly defined (Riedesel, 1980).

It seems as though no one "best" method of improving story problem solving ability has been developed.  There is, however, good evidence to suggest that the more problems children solve, the more proficient they become at problem solving.  Zweng suggests that although there is probably no ideal number of story problems to include in a textbook, fewer than six simple problems per week certainly do not seem to be enough (1979).

The program must first provide students with appropriate guidelines for choice of operation.  It must also provide ample opportunity to gain proficiency in solving one-step problems before asking students to solve complex, multi-step problems.  Problems from a variety of sources must also be provided.  The curriculum should therefore provide and stress several approaches.

Basically, the way math is taught in the American school system fosters a mentality that rote memorization of formulas is the best way to learn the material.  This way of thinking is especially prevalent among the lower-skilled math students who can least afford to suffer under this delusion.  Most problems in math are not a simple application of a formula (plug and chug); rather, they require the translation of information in the question and convert the relative formula into the appropriate forms.  This mentality has been a problem within my upper-level math class in that the students expect me to simply whip out the proper formula from my bag of mathematical tricks and apply it to the problem at hand without any concern about its origin.  It is really important to dispel this notion as early as possible by demonstrating how the formula was derived from simpler principles and procedures.  In addition, it is like pulling teeth to get my students to show their work on quizzes and homework assignments.  This is detrimental to any math student because it deters students from understanding how they arrived at their answers.  I hold my students to the "no work, no credit" principle to discourage this self-destructive behavior.  Breaking students of these bad habits is an important, though difficult, step in improving the quality of their math learning because only when they consider the origins of all parts of their answer can they truly understand the principles involved in solving the problem.  One must take the approach to math, especially story problems, as a compilation of baby steps that will help one achieve the end result.

References:

Bruning, R.H. et all. (1999). Cognitive Psychology and Instruction. Prentice Hall: New Jersey.

Burch, B.L. (1953). "Formal Analysis as a Problem Solving Procedure." Journal of Education (New England) 136: 44-47.

Carpenter, T., Corbitt, M., Kepner, H., Lindquist, M., & Reys, R. (1981). Results from the second mathematics assessment of the national assessment of education progress. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Crosswhite, J., Dossey, J., Swafford, J., McKnight, C., & Cooney, T. (1985). Second international mathematics study summary report for the United States. Champaign, IL: Stripes Publishing.

Curriculum and evaluation standards for school mathematics. (1989). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Knifong, Dan J., & Boyd D. Holtan. (1977). "A Search for Reading Difficulties among Erred Word Problems." Journal for research in Mathematics Education 83: 227-230.

Kouba, V., Brown, C., Carpenter, T., Lindquist, M., Silver, E., & Swafford, J. (1988). "Results of the fourth NAEP assessment of mathematics: number, operations, and word problems." Arithmetic Teacher, April 1988.

Li, J. (1991). "Improving student's simple story problem by incorporating theory of mathematics learning and teaching". Curriculum, Teaching Materials and Teaching Method, Vol. 7-8. pp. 15-20. Beijing, China.

Riedesel, Alan C. (1980). Teaching elementary school mathematics, third edition. Enflewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Chapter 5.

Sower, Judith. (1989). "Story Problems and Students' Strategies". Arithmetic Teacher, May 1989. pp. 25-26.

Zweng, Marilyn J. (1979). "The Problem of Solving Story Problems." Arithmetic Teacher, Sept, 1979.
 

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Compare the ways that a teacher with a behaviorist leaning and one with a cognitive leaning view errors that
students make during learning and testing? Make your discussion relevant to psychological theory and your content
area.

Frank Clark once said, "Most of us must learn a great deal every day in order to keep ahead of what we forget" (Corey, 212).  Nothing is more frustrating or embarrassing than to forget something, especially if the subject is somewhat familiar.  However, unless the teacher understands the learning process, the student is often doomed to forget much of the material that is presented in school.  Taking this thought into consideration, a reform movement in the areas of math and science instruction has developed.  Mathematicians and mathematics educators, working through the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, have constructed coherent plans for implementing change in both the mathematics curriculum (NCTM, 1989) and teaching of mathematics (NCTM, 1991).  Although no such document exists in science, the National Academy of Sciences is beginning a process by which similar blueprints will be constructed by scientists and science educators.

This reform movement benefits from the large body of research findings on learning and problem solving available in the areas of mathematics and science.  This body of research has important ramifications for learning and instruction.  It has resulted in the current movement in restructuring the design of strategies which includes moving from a behaviorist approach to a cognitive approach to learning.

The behaviorist approach to teaching the individual some complex process is to break up the process into component parts, teach the individual each component, then teach the individual how to string together the various components until ultimately the desired behavior is obtained.  Note the phrase "desired behavior".  From the behaviorist perspective, the process is learned once the individual exhibits behavior that displays competence.

Absent from the behaviorist approach are two things.  The first is an interest in the cognitive mechanism used by the individual to learn the complex process. This would seem to be an important consideration since knowledge about learning might provide insights into how to shape instruction to make learning more efficient.  Recent cognitive research, in fact, suggests that a complex process cannot be learned by decomposing and teaching individuals sub-processes without regard to the context within which the complex process will be performed.  Knowing how the sub-processes interact within the context of performing the entire process is as important as knowing how to perform the individual sub-processes.  In short, knowing the individual sub-processes does not "add up to" knowing the entire complex process (Resnick & Resnick, 1992).  Also absent from the behaviorist approach is an interest in whether or not the process learned conflicted with knowledge already possessed by the individual.  This also would seem to be an important consideration because if the process learned conflicts with knowledge already possessed by the individual, then the individual either will not be able to accommodate in memory the process learned in any meaningful sense or will construct parallel, conflicting knowledge structures.

The focus of the behaviorist approach is the final manifestation of the "competence" by the subject, not whether the knowledge learned made any sense to the subject, or whether the subject will be able to use the knowledge learned in novel contexts.  Perhaps the behaviorist approach might be better described as training rather than educating.

Constructivism, which has its roots in the ideas of Jean Piaget, takes the point of view that individuals actively construct the knowledge they possess.  This construction of knowledge is a life-long, effortful process requiring significant mental engagement by the learner.  Further, the knowledge that we already possess affects our ability to learn new knowledge.  If new knowledge that we are trying to learn conflicts with previously constructed knowledge, the new knowledge will not make sense to us and may be constructed in a way that is not useful for long-term recall or for application in a variety of situations (Anderson, 1987; Resnick, 1983, 1987; Schauble, 1990; Glasersfeld 1989, 1992).

Constructivism has important ramifications for learning and instruction.  In the constructivist view, the learner's mind is not a blank slate upon which new knowledge can be inscribed.  Knowledge previously constructed by the learner will affect how he or she interprets the knowledge that the teacher is attempting to impart.  Learners are not sponges ready to absorb the knowledge transmitted by the teacher in ready-to-use form.  From the perspective of instruction, a construtivist teacher needs to probe the knowledge that learners have previously constructed and evaluate whether this knowledge conflicts with the knowledge being taught.  If it does, the teacher must take care to guide learners in reconstructing knowledge; otherwise, there is no guarantee that learners will accommodate the new knowledge in a way that is compatible with current scientific thought.  To ignore learners' pre-knowledge makes it highly probable that the message intended by the teacher will not be the message received by the student.

By the time students enter the classroom, they have been constructing knowledge for many years.  The knowledge constructed is an attempt to organize experiences and observations so they make sense and can be used to make predictions.  For example, if I ask my middle school students to predict what will happen when a ball is thrown vertically up in the air, they would probably state that the ball will go up to some height, turn around, and return to the place from which it was thrown.  If they were asked to predict what would happen if the ball were to be thrown harder, they would probably say that it would go higher before turning around and returning.  These types of correct predictions from our constructed knowledge let us function quite adequately on a day-to-day basis.

Along with the constructed knowledge about a ball thrown up in the air, students  have also, during the course of their lives, constructed their own private understanding of concepts--such as speed, acceleration, and force--concepts that have very specific meanings to scientists but often have different meanings in daily life.  The evidence of "private understanding" that students possess prior to receiving formal scientific instruction is usually fragmented, incomplete, and fraught with preconceptions, which are beliefs about the meaning and application of concepts within scientific settings (DiSessa, 1988; Driver 1990; Driver, Guesne, & Tiberghien, 1985; West & Pines, 1985).  When preconceptions are in conflict with scientific concepts, which is a very common occurrence for students who have not received prior instruction in science, they are called misconceptions.

Research findings consistently show that misconceptions are deeply seated and likely to remain after instruction or even to resurface some weeks after students have displayed some initial understanding immediately following instruction (Clement, 1982; Halloun & Hestenes, 1985).  Because students have spent considerable time and energy constructing their naïve theories, they have an emotional and intellectual attachment to them.  Students cling to their erroneous beliefs tenaciously, often explaining away conflicts between concepts and their naïve theories by reinterpreting the lessons taught by teachers or by making inconsequential modifications to their theories.

What is deceptive is that students often display "understanding" in standardized science tests, in the tests constructed by teachers, or in text-embedded tests provided by textbook publishers, thereby giving teachers a false sense of their students' true understanding.  Tests that probe for factual knowledge or that do not force students to apply the concepts covered in class in a wide range of situations will continue to show that students "understand" the material covered in class.  What is clear is that without some catalyst, such as tests that probe for deep conceptual understanding or classroom discussions where misconceptions are addressed, the mental engagement necessary for students to reconstruct their knowledge will remain absent.

Teaching students to become proficient problem solvers is one of the most challenging tasks in science courses, especially in disciplines that are highly analytical.  To understand why it is so difficult for students to develop problem-solving skills in the sciences, we need only examine the ingredients to be "proficient" at solving problems: 1) an understanding of principles and concepts, 2) ability to recognize which principles and concepts apply to problems varying widely in context, 3) knowledge of procedures for applying the principles and concepts, 4) knowledge of mathematical form (equations) for the principals and concepts, and 5) proficiency in the mathematics necessary to execute solutions.  Clearly, being a proficient problem solve requires not only mental management scheme for deciding which among several possible courses of action might prove fruitful, as well as how to piece together the many steps necessary for arriving at a solution once a course of action is selected.

Unfortunately, problem solving instruction in our schools generally does not emphasize techniques used by skillful problem solvers.  In school science courses, the emphasis is usually on problem-specific procedures and mathematical manipulations to help students  get answers, rather than the application of powerful ideas and generalizable procedures that could be applied across a wide arrange of contexts (Mestre, 1991).  The lack of emphasis on qualitative reasoning and on integrating conceptual knowledge within problem solving instruction encourages rote memorization of procedures and formulaic approaches that do little to foster conceptual understanding.  The problems that students solve often illustrate a single path to a single answer; the notion that a problem may have multiple solutions or multiple paths to a solution is not stressed.

In order to teach in a way that reflects constructivism and that incorporates the implications of cognitive research on problem solving and conceptual development, teachers must possess a mental framework consistent with these views that guide their instruction.  The mental framework that teacher possess, however, is one that is incompatible with current views of learning and instruction.  Classroom observations at all levels indicate that teachers seldom take into account the conceptual knowledge previously constructed by students (Arons, 1990; Anderson & Roth, 1989; Anderson & Smith, 1987; Smith & Neale, 1989; McDermott, 1990).  During the course of instruction, students' ideas, predictions, and explanations of science phenomena are not probed to monitor whether the concepts being taught are in conflict with students' prior notions.

Basically, children need to participate in their own learning experience if true education occurs.  "Children co-create their…expectations about…cognitive capabilities" (Saarni, 15).  Learning is a dynamic process that involves both teacher and student in a united effort that leads to "emerging cognitive skills [that] facilitate the child's development" (Saarni, 16).  The teacher who recognizes the role that memory plays in cognitive learning will be more effective in the classroom and, more important, more effective with each student.  M.J. Berrill said, "A great teacher is not simply one who imports knowledge to his students, but one who awakens their interest in it and makes them eager to pursue it for themselves.  He is spark plug, not a fuel pipe" (Cory, 212).  While teacher's roles are varied, one thing remains clear.  It is the teacher's ability to empower the student and enhance the student's skill to remember that will ultimately shape tomorrow because today's students are the leaders of tomorrow.
 

References:

Anderson, C.W. (1987). Strategic teaching in science.  In B.F. Jones, A.S. Palincsar, D.S. Ogle & E.G. Carr (Eds.)

Anderson, C.W. & Roth, K.J. (1989).  Teaching for meaningful and self-regulated learning of science. In Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol I (pp. 265-309). JAI Press.

Anderson, C.W. & Smith, E.L. (1987). Teaching science.  In V. Richardson-Koehler (Ed.), Educators's Handbook:  A Research Perspective (pp. 84-111). White Plains, N.Y: Longman.

Arons, A.B. (1990). A Guide to Introductory Physics Teaching. New York: Wiley.

Bruning, R.H. et all. (1999). Cognitive Psychology and Instruction. Prentice Hall: New Jersey.

Clement, J.J. (1982). Students' preconceptions in introductory mechanics. American Journal of Physics, 50, 66-71.

Cory, Lloyd, ed. Quotable Quotations. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1985.

DiSessa, A. (1988). Knowledge in pieces. In G. Forman & Pufall (Eds.), (pp. 49-70). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Driver, R. (1990). Students' conceptions and the learning of science.  International Journal of Science Education.

Driver, R., Guresne, E., & Tiberghien, A. (1985). Children's Ideas in Science. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

Glasersfeld, E. von (1992). A constructivist's view of learning and teaching. In R. Duit, F. Goldberg, & H.

Glasersfeld, E. von (1989). Congnition, Construction of Knowledge, and Teaching. Synteses, 80, 121-140.

Halloun, I.A., & Hestenes, D. (1985). The initial knowledge state of college physics students.  American Journal of Physics, 53, 1043-1055.

McDermott, L.C. (1990). A perspective on teacher preparation in physics and other sciences The need for special science courses for teachers. American Journal of Physics, 58, 734-742.

Mestre, J.P. (1991). Learning and instruction in pre-college physical science. Physics Today, 44, #9 (Sept.), 56-62.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (1989). Curriculum and Evaluation standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (1991). Profession Standards for Teaching Mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.

Resnick, L.B. (1983). Mathematics and science learning: A new conception. Science, 220, 477-478.

Resnick, L.B. (1987). Education and Learning to Think. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Resnick, L.B. & Resnick, D.P. (1992). Assessing the thinking curriculum: New tools for educational reform. In B.R.

Saarni, Carolyn. "Cognitive Capabilities Involved in the Socialization of Emotion: Development in Middle Childhood."  Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Kansas City: April 27-30, 1989.

Schable, L. (1990). Belief revision in children: The role of prior knowledge and strategies for generating evidence. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 49, 31-57.

Smilth, D.C. & Neale, D.C. (1989). The construction of subject matter knowledge in primary science teaching.  Teaching and Teacher Education 5, 1-20.

West, L.H.T., & Pines, A.L. (1985). Cognitive Structure and Conceptual Change. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
 

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A water hose and the accompanying system of taps, flow meters and pumps are often used to explain electricity,
especially an electric circuit. Using this instructional analogy or another from your field of expertise, explain how
the use of analogies can be helpful and detrimental to students' understanding of the primary concept(s). For
example, in the above analogy, an electrical circuit is the primary concept.

The use of analogies is commonly used in the teaching of science subjects by teachers and are found in science textbooks as well.  In the past, there were no formal methods for teaching or presenting these analogies.  Recently, use of analogy in science education has received considerable attention in the science research community.

When an analogy is drawn between and within a concept, a powerful relationship is constructed that leads to meaningful learning.  This power comes from the full set of associative relationships between features of the concepts being compared (Glynn, 1991).  Analogies can be of the verbal sort, or involve diagrams, actual physical experience, simulations in which students act out the roles of the theoretical entities, or they may even involve computer-assisted activities (Lawson, 1993).  Wong explained that human ability to perceive and understand is based on a dynamic balance between recognition and differentiation (1993).  To be able to perceive the familiar in new situations is natural and unavoidable, else all experience would seem strange and novel.  Analogical reasoning is one means by which experience is related to, and differentiated from, what is already known.  Through analogies, an understanding of novel situations may be constructed by comparison to more familiar domains of knowledge.

In science texts, analogies are used to transfer ideas from a familiar concept to an unfamiliar one.  The familiar concept is frequently referred to as the analog, while the unfamiliar one is known as the target.  If the analog possesses features that are also common to the target, an analogy can be drawn between them (Glynn, 1991).

Analogical reasoning can play an important role in scientific discovery, insight, and explanation (Glynn, 1991; Harrison & Treagust, 1993; Lawson, 1993; Glynn 1995; Glynn & Takahashi, 1998).  Famous scientists such as Kepler, Priestly, Campbell, and Oppenheimer had commented on the important role of analogies in the aid of scientific understanding.  Analogical reasoning appears to be the source of scientists' theoretical entities and processes (Lawson, 1993).

Harrison and Treagust (1993) suggested that analogies were often used because they have the power to evoke rich, instantaneous, mental pictures that serve to challenge the hearer to transfer knowledge from a familiar to an unfamiliar domain.  Further, analogies ensure that a person's mental imagery is concrete.  When students need examples in order to acquire understanding, it is believed that analogies can play a role in helping them get an initial sense of the concepts (Lawson, 1993).

Analogies in text can help to build meaningful relations between what they already know and what they are setting out to learn (Glynn & Takahashi, 1998).  The activity of building relations between present knowledge and new knowledge is important in the students' learning process of conceptual change.  The students see this change as progressively learning more sophisticated mental models of fundamentally important science concepts.  Usually these concepts involve systems and interacting components.  Familiar analogies can serve as early mental models in which students can form limited but meaningful understanding of these complex concepts.  As the students progress cognitively and learn more science, they will evolve beyond these simple analogies and adopt a more sophisticated and powerful explanatory model.

There are advantages for using analogies in science teaching (Boo and Toh, 1997) while others suggested cautions to be taken when using them (Glynn, 1991).  The advantages of analogies as listed by Boo and Toh (1997) are:

1. They are valuable tools in conceptual change learning.
2. They provide visualization and understanding of the abstract by pointing to similarities in the real world.
3. They may incite pupil's interest and hence have a motivational effect.
4. They force the teacher to take into consideration pupil's prior knowledge and may reveal misconception in previously taught topics.

Some analogies may be suitable for the target problem, but "How good are they?" is the question that prompts many researchers in this area.  Glynn (1991) suggested that it depends upon how well the analogies achieve the purpose.  If the analogies serve an explanatory purpose, the following three criteria can be used to judge their appropriateness:

1. The number of features compared.
2. The similarity of the features compared.
3. The conceptual significance of the features compared.

As the number of similar