1. EDT 608 Unit 3 Educational Theorists Copyright: Dr. Katie Klinger, 1999 All rights reserved. We will pretend in this lecture that we have a digital aquarium on our computer in our classroom. The children are encouraged to choose the fish they want in their own aquariums. A review of such a software program is at this web site: http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue43/chum.html http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue43/chum.html Scroll down to the last article at this web site to read about Something Fishy: Aquazone, available for under thirty dollars. As I explain Skinner, Kohler, Gagne, Miller, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bandura, and Gardner, I will be giving examples of how each theory would apply to my digital aquarium. As a point of reference, I will begin with Papert first as the foundation for the other theorists.

2. EDT 608 Unit 3 Seymour Papert I have always been intrigued with Papert and his theory of Constructivism. Reality, to Papert, is based solely on each student’s individual experience with the digital aquarium. Emphasis is on the fact that there is no right or wrong way for a fish to look, for students to interact with the aquarium, or for preset answers. The students will adjust their mental models to include new experiences with their fish: learning occurs through building and exploring the digital aquarium alone and with peers.

3. EDT 608 Unit 3 B.F. Skinner Skinner felt that in operant conditioning, learning is based on a stimulus response condition. Give a stimulus like an electrical shock, and the subject receiving the shock will modify their behavior in order not to receive that particular stimulus again. Therefore, the environment of stimuli directly influences the response and its frequency or tendency to change. In a classroom situation, it is obvious that a teacher will not use a Skinner box or a maze to lead the children in learning. However, reinforcing stimulus such as bribery or gold stars for exceptional performance is behavior shaping activities directly controlled by the teacher.

4. EDT 608 Unit 3 B.F. Skinner The embarrassment of not having a gold star can serve that same purpose as an electrical shock, causing discomfort and a desire to avoid this particular type of pain. For Skinner, reinforcement came in two flavors: positive or negative. Positive reinforcement can be the self-fulfilling prophecy with the teacher giving one student more attention than the others can. Negative reinforcement can be the withdrawing of attention or help by the teacher or peers.

5. EDT 608 Unit 3 B.F. Skinner Emphasis should be on positive reinforcement from the teacher. I will create a positive climate with social reinforces in my classroom as the students interact with each other in the digital aquarium. Each student then becomes either a positive or a negative social reinforcer to their peers as their fish swim, live, and die in this artificial environment. Behavior modification occurs as peer pressure makes them redesign their fish to survive.

6. EDT 608 Unit 3 Kohler Kohler added to the base of Gestalt Psychology by contributing the theory of Insight. This differed drastically from the Skinner approach because insight did not depend directly on conditioning or a stimulus-response situation. Instead, insight came into being when problem solving, almost as an "ah-ha" exclamation inside the brain. Learning certain behaviors was not dependent on control by the environment or an external person.

7. EDT 608 Unit 3 Kohler Solutions to problems were the result of a different pattern of organizational skills and processes. The example given in the text is of the apes learning to use tools to use food, even to the point of assembling sticks to reach a longer distance to the food. Insight stands alone as a mind process that does not rely on any other variable.

8. EDT 608 Unit 3 Kohler Prior experience may facilitate the insightful process, but it will not define it. Insight is the elusive butterfly of psychology, and may be referenced as divine inspiration in animals higher than the apes.

9. EDT 608 Unit 3 Kohler In applying Kohler to my classroom, I will give the students clues in a puzzle format about all of the fish in their digital aquarium. From the clues, the students will develop the "ah-ha" of connecting the facts together to reach new dimensions of thought. An assignment in the food chain of big versus little fish, and what kinds of food they all eat, will be the first setting for their "ah-ha" insight in problem solving.

10. EDT 608 Unit 3 Gagne- Conditions of Learning One of the main points of these five conditions of learning is that they exist to actually support learning rather than analyze or redefine it. Gagne described them as "capabilities" because educators love to be able to predict the outcome of how much the learner has absorbed. However, one of the questions then becomes: can the learner use the new knowledge in more than just the one mode?

11. EDT 608 Unit 3 Gagne Cognitive structures of preexisting knowledge, strategies for encoding information for other uses, and general strategies for problem solving are covered in Gagne’s work. Each of the conditions of learning listed below require different teaching methods since each of the skills are also different in origin, use, analysis and synthesis.

12. EDT 608 Unit 3 Gagne Gagne’s studies must have heavily influenced Gardner’s multiple intelligences, or at least supported the results of his studies. I believe this to be true since each student has their own strength in learning, and this strength must have its own unique source (multiple intelligence theory, Gardner, 1992).

13. EDT 608 Unit 3 Gagne The digital aquarium in the classroom will apply to all five varieties of learning: Verbal information: students describe their fish using cues from teacher Intellectual skills: students understand how colors are used as camouflage on fish. Cognitive strategies: students develop x, y coordinates as a design chart for a fish. Motor skills: students manually trace the fish onto graph paper for design Attitudes: students are motivated to watch a film on fish for new ideas

14. EDT 608 Unit 3 Miller- Information Processing Theory Chunking theory is integral in teaching computer concepts. Miller felt that we easily remember symbols, number, letters in groups of 7, plus or minus two. Our entire social system is now based on this theory: our zip codes were 5 (7 -2) and are now 9 (7+2). Our social security numbers are within the range of 7 +2, being 3+2+4, which adds up to 9. Our telephone systems are still locally within the parameters of this theory with the numbers being 3 + 4 (7).

15. EDT 608 Unit 3 Miller Of course, our expansion into a national and then further into a global society is messing up the number system of 5, 7, 9, but the original premise we use every day is still valid. Chunking is an excellent way to learn chess, checkers, road maps, recipes, computer programming, and songs.

16. EDT 608 Unit 3 Miller The difficulty is that this chunking starts in short term memory, and unless additional and immediate reinforcement takes place, it is volatile. That is where the rest of the information processing theory come into play: getting the chunks into long term memory through encoding strategies of maintenance (drill and practice) or elaborate (developing links to prior information) rehearsal.

17. EDT 608 Unit 3 Applications The digital aquarium and its components will provide opportunities for all students to excel in their own style of learning in my classroom. The students who are linguistic will provide excellent verbal descriptions of the fish. The logical-mathematical ones will enjoy the x,y graphing exercise. The spatial students will shine when the fish are all put up on the wall: they can now see the whole picture before them, and they will use their imaginations for fish interaction. The bodily kinesthetic will do well at the tracing and hands on placement of fish onto the paper; they can also move around, pretending that they are fish swimming and fleeing from other fish.

18. EDT 608 Unit 3 Applications The musical learner can create songs that fish might sing to each other, just like we sing to each other. The interpersonal students can organize the entire class project, interviewing students as fish for a "fish" newspaper. This would encourage the linguistic students to work with the interpersonal students on the fish newspaper; it would also provide an opportunity for the intrapersonal learner, who prefers to work alone, to provide original articles for the newspaper. The integration of all the multiple intelligences into a fish program will provide success for all students at their own levels

19. EDT 608 Unit 3 Copyright © Dr. Katie Klinger, 1999 All rights reserved. Email kklinger@nu.edu for permission to reproduce this presentation.