Jen's Journal Blog Post #1

Determining when learning has actually taken place is something I have struggle with through out my teaching career. I always debate if simple memorization is learning. As Merrill stated when you simply memorize something your likely hood of forgetting is increased. The biggest culprit of the memorization versus learning for me is spelling. Every year I have students that score 100% on their spelling test but spell those exact words incorrectly in their everyday writing. The very same student can repeat the given rule for week but does not apply that rule to their own writing. In Bloom's taxonomy knowledge is one of the steps. The student applying the information would be higher up on the level. In my opinion simple memorization is not learning. Students have to own the skill or concept and apply it to new situations or explain their thinking. In my class I try to make students "prove it" or tell "how do you". I tend to agree with the book in that a mixture of learning approaches is important. I think that for various situations that behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism has its place. In science I tend to have a more constructivist approach where I do not in reading. I think that as the teacher you need to know the content and the students your working with and choose the approach that works best for the situation.