Self Regulation

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

Lisa regularly acts as a class disturbance. 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. 

In Lisa's case, it seems to me that she is not necessarily experiencing low self-efficacy in relation to the art activities. Lisa is not showing effect self regulation while working with her peers. I'd address her behavior by pulling Lisa aside, as I discussed in an earlier post, and discussing her behavior with her. 

In my previous post I discussed the Restitution Model for classroom management. This involves setting "baseline rules" which have set consequences. If students violate these absolute rules, they are taken aside and explained to why these consequences are in place (again) and how their behavior affects the classroom. I got some wonderful feedback on this model suggesting I set more specific rules for Lisa. With that in mind, I think I would set the initial "baseline rules" with the entire class at the beginning of the year. As soon as I noticed Lisa's misbehavior I would make it a point to pull her aside and discuss with her the implications of her outbursts. I would discuss how working cohesively in a group can benefit not only her group members, but Lisa as well. I would outline my expectations for her behavior in very clear terms. 

If Lisa continued to act out, I would sit down with her again and work on a contingency plan with her. We'd discuss specific self regulating techniques Lisa might use when she becomes upset. For example, if Lisa doesn't feel she can control her outburst in a group, she might remove herself from the situation to the Distraction Free Zone and cool down as she works on her part of the project. Or she might ask the teacher for an individual assignment, accepting that working alone will most likely be a more difficult, less exciting endeavor. I would be sure to boost her self efficacy in relation to her ability to self regulate, as I imagine Lisa attributes her outbursts to external factors. I would be sure to reinforce the idea that Lisa is responsible for her own actions, and that she is wholly capable of working with her group in the role she's assigned. If Lisa proved able to exhibit self regulating tendencies, I would reward her for following her plan with extrinsic motivators to the whole group the first couple of times she showed self control. I'd gradually decrease the extrinsic rewards as she began working cohesively in her group, making sure to point out the benefits inherent in her self regulating strategies.   
 

Teacher as a facilitator video.

Self regulation in the classroom video.

Barb Rentenbach

Barb Rentenbach's presentation was certainly a very unique experience. It's something I think most people would benefit from, truth be told. Personally, I found it very eye opening. I've worked with peers and children who experience mild autistic tendencies, but I haven't really had any interactions with non-verbal individuals. I feel that I rely very heavily on communication in my own interpersonal relationships, I cannot imagine how frustrating and disheartening it must be to be unable to communicate. 

I generally think of myself as a fairly open-minded person, and I try to void stereotyping individuals who experience any form of disabilities, but this experience served as an indicator that I still have MANY misconceptions about severely disabled people. That is not to say I don’t, or didn’t feel that they deserve every opportunity individuals without disabilities encounter, nor have I operated under the assumption that they are less intelligent. I acknowledge that there are many intelligences. However, I did find myself surprised that Barb had such a beautiful handle on written language and could synthesize it so well. It’s hard to separate our conceptions about a person’s actions relate to their intelligence. Which is unfortunate, I think that colors many relationships between individuals with autism, or any disability, and their peers who don’t experience such struggles.

I find it disappointing that so many people are so skeptical of facilitated communication. We don’t look at a legless man and say, “You have no legs, you must not know how to walk, and you must not want to.” Why would we look at someone who cannot speak and assume they are incapable of forming conversation? It’s cruel, and bigoted of us. But I think most people, myself included, have some propensity toward that very tendency. I hope that as facilitated communication devices are more made more readily available, and as more people like Barb step forward as say, “We have a voice, we have thoughts, we can contribute!” that our prejudices will begin to dissolve and we’ll move toward a more inclusive society. It may be a ways off, but as educators, we can begin that trend.

Within the classroom, I think it is essential to give EVERYONE a voice, be they English language learners, an individual with autism, a child with an inhibiting physical disability, or a middleclass student. As I’ve discussed in my previous posts and essay responses, I am a fan of the constructivist community of learners. Engaging in an environment that gives everyone a voice and everyone equal respect can produce individuals who are ready to cooperate in the work force and social context outside school. We’ve discussed in my other classes how you can adapt your instructions to include children with autism in the art class. I feel that in many cases giving them the extra time and support they may require is really the most essential aspect of differentiation. However, in a case like Barbs, where the student needed assistance with initiation, I feel it would be good for a helper to be present. That is not to say I would want their helper to have any part in the creation of their art piece unless it was to help mix colors or cut paper with the individual’s direction. In some cases I’d probably prepare the materials or give the individual different materials to work with that they might find more appealing to work with. As far as class discussions, I might give the prompt to the child ahead of time so they could formulate a response to bring to class, or establish with the class that we needed to give them extra time to participate in the discussion. This would help develop patience and understanding in my other students, a worthwhile activity. Including that individual in the discussion would also probably help dismiss students’ misconceptions about their peers with autism. 

Behaviorism Vs. Constructivism

My case study Involves Lisa, a little girl who has problem working cooperatively in groups and becomes irate when she is not assigned the job she desires.
 
My primary behaviorist goal for Lisa would be to observe her working cooperatively with her peers in a cooperative learning group. My secondary goal would be to observe Lisa accepting and actively engaging in the job she was assigned, whether or not it was the one she desired.


Some Behaviorist techniques I might apply to change/condition Lisa's behaviors are as follows:



First approach: Positive reinforcement- every time I observe Lisa acting appropriately and cooperating in her group, reward her by presenting her with a reward or Negatively reinforce her behavior by taking away a regular assignment she finds unpleasant (ex. reward everyone in her group for working so well together by taking away their journal entry for the night.I'd be sure to notify Lisa that I appreciated her behavior, positively reinforce her specifically with a sticker or positive comment.)

Second approach: If reinforcing good behavior does not prove useful I would introduce removal punishment (I don't think presentation punishment would be, or ever is, appropriate of a useful tool for decreasing behavior). I would need to identify an external stimuli that served little to no educational purpose that Lisa was fond of and use its removal as an incentive to decrease her negative behaviors.

 

 I'm not very attracted to the Behaviorist viewpoint at all, in fact I find myself leaning toward a Constructivist teaching philosophy. I found this web page with some good suggestions about a constructivist approach to classroom management.

The model discussed by David Wees is the Restitution model of classroom management. In this model the teacher acts as a monitor of student behavior. The teacher establishes shared goals with the students, and serves as a source of feedback to help students build understandings of way certain behaviors are inappropriate. 

For this model, it is important to establish "base-line" rules, i.e. rules that are unacceptable for the student to break, which you must always respond to and apply appropriate consequences. This model allows students to make construct meaning from mistakes. 

To apply this to Lisa's in class behavior, I might sit down with Lisa at the beginning of the class to establish her "base-line" behavioral rules. I would continue to reinforce her good behavior, but when she broke one of the "base-line" rules, I would take her aside, discuss the situation with her. I think its important to try to identify what stimuli had influenced her actions and go over those factors with her. I would then try to help her understand why her behavior was unacceptable and negatively influenced both the classroom and Lisa herself. 

Reading Rainbow: Using Art to Help Metacognitive Reading Strategies

Consider a lesson plan you might use.  Which metacognitive skills/abilities are involved as students gain facility/knowledge in this domain?

I just completed an enlarged book designed to facilitate a read aloud in the classroom (this was for reading education, not art education.) However, the process of making this book gave me some ideas to facilitate art processes, as well as reading comprehension in the classroom. A large part of reading comprehension is using visual cues to help you figure out what it is you're reading about. 

The lesson I am proposing would follow this sequence: First grade students would participate in several read-alouds during class time. The teacher would walk them through the book step-by-step, asking them to look at the pictures and describe whats going on, and to relate it to the text. The students would then be placed in groups of three. Each group would be asked to collaborate on a story. As students were working on their story, the teacher would work with each group individually asking them to explain how their stories work. Students would need to relate the mechanics of their piece to the piece we'd read in class. Does it have a beginning? Is there a pattern the text follows? Is there a middle? An end? Is it a fantasy or adventure? Why? Who are your characters? How do we know what their personalities are like?

After students had completed their stories, the teacher would ask them to take a moment and visualize the events in their story. Students would then need to plan the illustrations. When the time came to draw the actual illustrations for each page, the teacher would ask them to think about the steps they took to make each rough draft. Students would then present their pieces to the class. They would be asked to explain how the text and vocabulary on a page related to the illustrations.  They would also need to explain what prior knowledge of story mechanics they drew on to make their books.

Using metacognition reading strategies.

The second section of this article I found particularly useful.

Art and Music of WWI: A Constructivist Approach

Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919

The lesson involves a collaboration on the parts of the music and art teacher. It is designed to cover the art and music of WWI and tie these in with social studies discussions. 

For this lesson, the teacher will lead students in a discussion of WWI events, show students examples of DaDa art, play recordings from WWI, and lead a discussion on how the war influenced and affected art and music during the time. Teachers might also need to scaffold students in terms of creating a collage, and interpreting a musical piece.

Students will be expected to achieve the following based on teacher presentations and prior knowledge from the social studies classroom:

Using information presented by the teacher, and their prior knowledge and experience from social studies, art, and music classes:

- Describe a musical piece after listening to a recording
- research and discuss how the war and propaganda were related to the DaDa movement
- Create their own DaDa collage, relate it to contemporary social events.
- Discuss pieces of music and art from WWI and relate them to the war and other social contexts of the period being discussed.

This is a good website with many links to articles on connecting art to other disciplines. 

Chapter 6 (PLE 4&5) : Cognitive Learning and Memory

PLE #4: What are the essential skills and/or learning outcomes you want your students to know and be able to do that relate to cognitive learning? 

I want students to be able to relate the information presented in a lesson to previous knowledge, to identify key points in the topic, and to be able to discuss these ideas at a later date. I also feel like it is important for students to generalize knowledge and skills, and to be able to apply prior knowledge to new concepts and procedures. All of this relies on students' ability to identify and store main ideas. Students need to be able to organize and filter main ideas from the large amount of visual, audio, and textual information they encounter at any given time. From there they must categorize and relate this information to something meaningful, in order to move it past their working memory into their long term memory, where it must be logged for retrieval in order for students to generalize their knowledge and apply it to new concepts. 


 PLE #5: How might your knowledge of the memory processes guide your instructional decisions?


I personally really wish I had been taught better memorization strategies early on in school. I never truly learned how to study and store information until my later years in college. In order to better help students with the instructional goals listed above, I would practice several strategies with them for encoding information and accessing previously learned info to build on. Before starting an activity I would work with students on identifying the main ideas took look out for in a lesson. If my subject was expressionist art I would question the students on their predictions for the lesson. Based on the last art movement we studied, what do you think might have been some key motivators for the expressionist movement? Do you know any expressionist artists? Lets look at the root word in expressionist: expression. What clues does that word give us about the art from this movement?

I would ask students to log their responses in their portfolio as prior knowledge and predictions. I would give them guided handouts to take notes on during the presentation, with organizational charts if the amount of information needed to be broken down into groups for better comprehension. At the end of each class I would go over what the students felt they had learned for the day, and ask them to relate it to previous knowledge we had gone over. 

10 helpful strategies for helping students' memorization.

Assessing without tests.

I would like my art classroom to be a cultural experience for my students, as well as a spark for their own investigation into diverse peoples and cultures. I believe that learning about diversity at an early age can help foster respect for "outsider" peers the students may encounter. For this particular lesson in an elementary class room, the students would be looking at Australian Aboriginal paintings. The focus would be on shape and pattern in conjunction with a discussion of The Dreaming and Aboriginal culture. Students would be asked to select an animal from the out back, break its body down into shapes (ex. circle for its head, triangle body, rectangle body etc.). After drawing these shapes on different colored sheets of construction paper, the students would cut them out, and assemble the bodies on a larger sheet of paper. A discussion of Aboriginal use of patterning would follow and students would be asked to embellish each part of their animal using simple markings (dots, circles, lines, etc.). Finally, students would work in groups to create a story about their animals' experiences in the dreaming. This lesson includes some geography, "Where is Australia? Northern or Southern hemisphere?" As well and some geometry in dealing with shapes. And of course some social studies (as any art lesson should).
(PowerPoint presentation for this project can be viewed here.)
I'm a big fan of pre-assessments. I think its good to have some understanding of your students' knowledge base before you begin a unit or project. For this lesson, I would do a verbal assessment of my students' knowledge about Australia and Aboriginal art at the end of the class period before I began the project. Older students might write what they know on exit passes. These would help me plan my presentation on Australia and give me some idea of what I needed to cover.

After the presentation, I'd go over daily goals the students should try to meet. This will help me assess their progress and investment in the task, as well as their on task behavior as the project progresses. Students would begin their projects.

The final project serves as its own summative assessment. I would develop two rubrics, one that sums up their on task behavior (non graded, this would be just to help me get an idea of who needs more help in the classroom and how I need to tailor my instruction for them) and a final project rubric.



  http://rubistar.4teachers.org/    is a good resource for creating rubrics. You can select categories in different subjects or create your own. Even if it doesn't have the specifics you're thinking of, it gives you a good idea of what to look for and how to break evaluation up.

Finally, I would ask students to keep a working/developmental portfolio in their sketchbook. This would include their notes, sketches, project plans, graded rubrics, feedback, and worksheets. This serves as another formative assessment that will help me see which students are progressing and which students need differentiated instruction. Separately, students would keep a best of work portfolio to document their final, graded projects (no self respecting art teacher lets her students store their masterpieces haphazardly).