Week 2: Learning Theories in the Classroom.

Which learning theory does the teacher in your service-learning placement seem to use the most? Provide examples from your observations to support your claim. 

There are a lot of different ways teachers help children learn in their classroom. They provide rewards, consequences, they provide criticism or videos. They even play games or make projects based on the material taught. The teacher that I am observing does reading/english when I am there. This can be a very boring subject to children. They are learning about compound words, and commas, and reading out loud. 

This teacher makes if fun and interactive with the students. I would say she uses behaviorism and constructiveness as a background on how she helps students learn. 

Some of the examples that I noticed this week that encompassed construstivism learning was she split the classroom of 6th graders in 3 groups and passed them all a children's national geographic. This magazine was full of cool articles of different animals, and space, and the ocean. She had each group look through the magazine and then they could pick whatever article they wanted. This engaged the students as they were allowed to read an article that interested them. After they read, they then could present, act, or draw a picture based on what was read. This was an interactive lesson as they read and then learned how to apply it to their project.

Another example this week was using behaviorism is she offers consequences and rewards quite frequently through her classroom. She has a board of all the groups of tables in the front of the classroom. At the end of day tables that helped in class, did there work, turned in their homework, and were not disruptive get a sticker on the chart. At the end of the week the table with the most stickers get a key that opens a box, were they can pick out a treat. The kids really want a treat so they when they don't get a sticker at the end of the day they get sad, and do better the next day so they can win the treat. It is funny how a lock box full of candy can cause such a huge impact on how the students behave and act in the classroom.