PLE 9: Self-efficacy and Self-regulation

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

Elementary Education Case Study

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

 

Lisa refusing to participate in group work when she does not get the job she wants is an indicator of low self-efficacy.  Usually, people with high self-efficacy put forth more effort on new tasks to develop new skills and abilities.  However, Lisa only agrees to perform one role.  Perhaps Lisa's low self-efficacy is the product of previous successes or failures.  According to the case study, the teacher changes heterogeneous group members every four weeks.  If Lisa has been engaging in cooperative learning activities at least twice a day throughout the school year, it is highly likely that she has experienced success with a specific job or failure with another during previous group activities.  She has adapted a certain thinking of her ability to carry out certain behaviors in order to reach a goal. 

In order to help Lisa increase her self-efficacy, I would strategically place her in a cooperative learning group with students who often exhibited helpful and caring behavior towards their peers.  Additionally, I would have the students designate an encourager as one of the jobs for their cooperative learning group.  Lisa would highly benefit from hearing encouraging words and praise for her work.      

Typically, students experience an increase in self-regulation with age.  As a third grade student, Lisa should be able to easily make sure she is self-regulating, or at least be moving towards this goal.  However, she repeatedly causes conflict in her cooperative learning group.  As Lisa's teacher, I would set explicit goals, offer ways for her to monitor her behavior, and clearly state consequences for her successes and failures.  For instance, Lisa might set a goal of trying one new job a week.  This would be simple to monitor based on whether or not she accomplished this goal.  If she successfully completes this task, the teacher could allow her to choose her next cooperative learning group.  On the other hand, if she fails to perform this task, Lisa might lose free time or recess.  Self-regulation is an excellent tool for classroom management, and would work well in an intervention plan for Lisa.    

PLE 8

Elementary Education Case Study

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

Consider your CSEL intervention case study.  Are there tools from a behaviorist view for either encouraging productive behaviors or discouraging undesirable behaviors that you could apply to the case?  What are they?


In order to discourage getting angry with others when she does not get the job she wants perhaps you could implement delaying gratification.  For instance, Lisa is immediately gratified if her classmates respond to her angry outbursts and give her the job she wants.  Instead, offer Lisa a larger reinforcer such as selecting her group job first on the next group project if she does not interrupt the group, pays attention, and does not respond in anger.  Perhaps this might be hard to monitor; however, I think the concept of delaying gratification could be beneficial in this situation.

Additionally, the teacher should utilize positive reinforcement in order to increase positive behaviors.  Because it would be impossible to simultaneously monitor the rest of the class and reinforce every correct response Lisa exhibits, the teacher should consider an intermittent schedule to reinforce as many correct responses as possible, but not every correct response.

Now, compare the interventions that you have identified above with what you think might work from a cognitive or constructivist viewpoint.  How do they compare to behaviorist tools?  What are the benefits of each theory, and what are the deficits? Which theory might play a larger role in how you determine classroom management? 

From a cognitive learning viewpoint, the teacher should recognize that meanings and understandings are constructed by the learner rather than derived from the environment. Perhaps the teacher could help Lisa reach her Zone of Proximal development by scaffolding Lisa and modeling appropriate responses to adversity.  Furthermore, the teacher might adapt materials to guide Lisa in making correct decisions.  For instance, the teacher could place Lisa in a group with students who could model appropriate group behavior.

While a cognitive viewpoint involves the learner adjusting behavior, in behaviorism, the expected behavior is very clear and either reinforced or punished.  I think that in a classroom environment, cognitive theory should always be used.  The teacher should always model appropriate behavior and scaffold students.  However, I think behaviorism methods can be more effective in special circumstances of classroom management.   

 

PLE 7: Metacognition

In my cohort class, we discussed the significance of communication in helping students understand, value, and apply mathematics.  One strategy that our teacher introduced was Math Talk.  Essentially, this program helps students verbalize their thought process in order to reveal understanding and misunderstanding.  Additionally, it facilitates communication in the classroom as students are encouraged to agree and disagree with their peers.  This allows students to consider other processes of solving a problem, which can boost confidence and increase understanding in problem solving.  By having students verbally explain their thought process and ask questions, teachers avoid reinforcing misconceptions and tap into a student's metacognitive thinking.

This video, developed my Marilyn Burns, demonstrates how Math Talk can be implemented into a first grade math lesson on combining three numbers.  Given three numbers, each child solves the problem and explains her thought process to the class.  Then, the teacher selects another student to repeat how the first child solved the problem.  If the students does not understand how the student arrived at her answer, he or she may ask her to repeat her thought process.  I like this lesson because it encourages students to be aware of their thought process.  On thing that I noticed about this lesson was that it was not rushed.  Students were entitled to disagree or ask questions.  Clearly, the teacher's focus was on having each student fully understand the material.