Hannah Eudy

Teaching and Learning 301

Section 6
Assessment 2

1. Describe the main legal requirements that pertain to students with disabilities. Also

explain what IDEA and IEP mean and give me examples of how this can assist in your

teaching. (Ch. 4)

Before delving into what the IDEA and IEP mean there are a few main legal requirements

that pertain to students with disabilities. Part of the reason this is true is because not every kid

with a disability is covered by IDEA. The federal government in 1973 passed the Vocational

Rehabilitation Act which basically says is that discrimination is prohibited against people with

disabilities in any place that receives federal money which includes public schools (Woolfolk,

2016). Under 504, the school must develop a plan for the student. Americans with Disabilities

Act was passed in 1990 which also prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities but it

includes more places.

IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, by law, requires states to provide

education that is free and appropriate for all students with disabilities, this is also known as

FAPE. The three major points of IDEA are least restrictive environment which is closest to a

general education setting, the next is mainstreaming which has these kids in some of the general

education settings. Lastly is integration which is fitting the child into the existing structures

(Woolfolk, 2016). IEP is the Individualized Education Program which is an agreement that takes

place between parents and the school for the student. The IEP must state the student’s academic

ability and functionality, annual goals, services provided, how much they are in general
education classrooms, how they will partake in districtwide assessments, and from ages 14-16 if

they need more education or will work in future life (Woolfolk, 2016).

How this will assist me in future teaching is just knowing what these laws are so that

children with disabilities get all they are supposed to get education wise. Knowing what these

laws are, are helpful so if a kid with a disability walks into the classroom, I will already know

what to expect on the lawful side. If a teacher does not know a law pertaining to their students,

legal aspects can be brought in, so learning about this early ensures that I will understand the

necessary steps involved in having a kid with a disability.

2. Describe the Autism Spectrum Disorders and Asperger Syndrome and explain what

interventions are and give examples of how this might assist in your teaching. (Ch. 4)

Autism Spectrum disorder is a disability in which the developmental process of verbal and

nonverbal communication and social interaction is affected (Woolfolk, 2016). It can be mild or

severe depending on the child. Children with autism are dependent on routine so when they go to

a new place like what Janelle was saying about her children, the unknown is daunting. The kid

may have a meltdown at any given time because they do not understand the new environment.

Asperger Syndrome is a part of the Autism spectrum. The children may have any of the

characteristics of autism, but their hardest obstacle is social interactions and relationships.

Asperger Syndrome is not as severe as Autism and children with this usually can speak fluently

without a problem while sometimes mixing up words.

Since one of my good friends has Asperger Syndrome I am well aware of the impacts it

has, as well as I knew many people with autism, and taught them as well. The interventions that
are important is praising good social interaction early, and if not behaviors of poor social

interaction increase with age. There must be good communication between teachers, parents, and

peers. This also includes having a buddy in class to provide support as well. This will assist me

in teaching since I will be most likely teaching Kindergarten it will be a crucial time for a child

who has a disability because they will need me to help them learn how to react and respond and

promote good social interactions. Knowing this has already helped me realize that I could make a

difference because of the interventions and helping them every day learn more and more.

Knowing the intervention skills will also help because I can try to make the class understand and

assign a safe, friendly buddy to the child with a disability to help make them feel at home.

3. How do cultural differences affect bilingual students and give examples of how this may

be a negative experience for both student and teacher? (Ch. 5)

Cultural Differences affect bilingual students because cultures can be very different. A

student may be offended by what a teacher teaches but the teacher did not know because of

cultural differences. Or perhaps a bilingual student is celebrating a holiday from their culture but

the class does not understand because it is not from their culture. Cultural differences can

definitely be good as well so the student, teacher, and class can all learn from each other because

of their differences and they can make their classroom very diverse and understanding. Such as

learning each other’s languages, bringing in show and tell items from their cultures, or food from

their culture, and celebrate each other’s holidays.

The reasons why it can be negative for the student is that they may lose some of their

native language; they may feel upset with how the teacher is teaching if it is not like their home.
The student may feel like an outcast because they are different and the classroom continually

does not want to learn about their culture. People get hurt when others are not understanding.

The reasons why it can be negative for the teacher is that they have to make sure they

teach very broadly culturally and they do not step over a person’s culture. It is a touchy subject

because the teacher does not always know if they are offending someone so it is good to teach all

cultures if possible and be accepting to the students and accommodate if they do not speak as

much English.

4. Negative reinforcement is often confused with punishment. How are they different and

give examples what a teacher and student might experience? (Ch. 7)

Negative reinforcement is when a there is a removal of an unpleasant stimulus after the

response so that in the future the person remembers the unpleasant stimulus. An example is when

a person is not wearing their seatbelt and the buzzing sound is going off, when they put their

seatbelt on the annoying noise goes off. Therefore in the future they will remember to put their

seatbelt on right away (Woolfolk, 2016).

What to remember on how negative reinforcement and punishment is, is that negative

reinforcement is strengthening a behavior. Punishment is when one tries to decrease another’s

behavior, not strengthen it.

In the classroom a teacher may punish a student, or negatively reinforce them. An

example of negative reinforcement is that when a student does not turn their homework in for a

long time the teacher constantly nags them, so the student finally turns in their homework to stop

hearing the teacher nag at them. An example of punishment in the classroom is when a kid keeps
talking in class the teacher immediately sends the kid outside so that they learn not to talk while

the teacher is talking.

5. In regards to motivation explain how Maslow’s hierarchy could be used to assist a

teacher in their classroom and give examples. (Ch. 12)

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is important to know as a teacher because if a student’s needs

are not met they may not work as hard as other kids. If their needs are met the motivation for

satisfying those needs decrease. When the lower needs are met their motivation does not

decrease it increases to meet needs that are higher on the pyramid (Woolfolk, 2016). This would

help a teacher in the classroom because students are not as motivated when their needs are not

met but when they are they are striving and looking forward.

A teacher could utilize this by putting it on the wall and explaining it to kids that they

need their basic needs met and if they cannot be met the teacher could try to bring in snacks or

whatever else they could do. Sometimes the teacher does not have much control to help the

needs being met, but the teacher can teach the importance of it and maybe the students will

understand and tell their parents more of what they need. If the kids’ needs are met it will make

the teacher’s life easier because in the past I have not come to school with a full night of sleep

and that alone makes it hard to learn. If the teacher teaches these ideals at a young age the

children might be inclined to try and satisfy their needs.

 References

Woolfolk, A. (2016). Educational psychology. Pearson.

 Hannah Eudy
Teaching and Learning 301
Section 6
Assessment 3

1. How does knowledge affect learning and give examples of that? (Ch. 8)

Knowledge is the outcome of learning (Woolfolk, 2016). That being said people go to school

to learn to create knowledge that they can keep and remember when needed. Individuals in a

classroom are at a wide spectrum of knowledge, each kid brings their own amount of knowledge,

and no one is on the same exact page for what they know. Knowing when a kid learns is a

foundation for future learning, and it determines how well a kid will pay attention, perceive,

remember, learn and forget (Woolfolk, 2016). If a kid knows a lot about a certain subject

chances are they will be able to reason what upcoming information is and how it fits into the big

picture which is called domain specific knowledge.

Learning depends on domain specific knowledge as well as general knowledge. In my

past I know that when I have been savvy on certain subjects the information usually comes easier

to me because I already understand the basis of the ideas. That is why in math when students do

not particularly understand the simple math equations, when they try to do the harder math

equations it is quite a struggle.

2. What is critical thinking and give examples of how teachers could use this in their

teaching? (Ch. 9)
 Critical thinking, generally speaking is a form of abstract thinking. It is thinking about the

situation at hand in many different ways, not just the example of only 2 + 2 = 4, because 1 + 3

also equals 4. That is an easy example but a first grader may not realize this, and teaching them

to think about subjects in different ways is crucial to their abilities in later life.

There are more ideas about how and what critical thinking is, and it is this way to analyze

information gathered from observations, reflections, reasoning and communication (Woolfolk,

2016). This way of thinking can definitely be used in classrooms by teachers, to expand the

student’s creativity in their own thinking. It can be used by the teacher if the teacher knows that

it is important and knows how to teach it. Like the example used in the previous paragraph about

the math problems, the starting use of multiple way of looking at problems, and using knowledge

to solve it in other ways. Simply getting a first grader to understand this concept will help them

further their ability to critically think in other subjects. Forcing the brain to think like this will

eventually get kids to think like this all the time. In my English class last year we used a lot of

critical thinking skills as well as analyzing skills of so many books, poems, pictures, and music

and so much more. It really expanded people’s horizons because it forced everyone to think in

other perspectives. If annotating a poem was not obvious, it soon would have so many

perspectives based on the teacher’s ability to make everyone truly think what was in front of us.

3. What are some key characteristics of service learning and how could this be an effective

strategy for teachers and give examples? (Ch. 10)

Key characteristics of service learning is that it teaches high schoolers and college students

the importance of community. It strengthens skills and learning about the importance of other

people and how to make the community stronger through the help of these volunteers. It helps

students connect what they are learning and add to their experiences to compare with other
experiences and their textbook. It is important to understand definitions of the psychology in the

textbook but to see it play out is especially different. It is interesting in service learning with kids

and understanding why they do or act the way they do and seeing it happen is even more

interesting. In service learning the volunteer meets community needs, integrates the knowledge

from their curriculum, provides reflections, opportunities to new knowledge, and enhances the

student’s academics and their empathy (Woolfolk, 2016).

Service learning is a very effective strategy for teachers because the students get to see

why they are learning about what they are learning and they get to apply their learning and

knowledge to real life experiences. That is what is important in life, to experience, so saying that,

experiences are crucial to a student’s learning. If all they do is read their textbook it probably

will not stick with them and it will not matter, but if they go out of their way, or if the service is

part of the class they will understand and learn to care for their community. It will broaden the

person’s ability to help and be competent outside of the classroom. If a person volunteers in a

soup kitchen, they may realize that these people truly need the help of the volunteer and they can

feel as if they achieved helping others for the greater good. If a person partakes in child services

like teaching and learning 301 classes do, they would realize what it is like working with kids

and how difficult it can be sometimes but they can learn to better their patience and apply what

they have learned in class to real life. It is a valuable experience to help the community that

everyone should do, because it makes people feel good knowing that someone is helping them.

On top of that it crystalizes their knowledge.

4. What is Modeling and give examples of how this might assist teachers? (Ch. 11)

Modeling is when a person learns by observing other people. This is a main element of

Bandura’s social cognitive theory; Bandura displays what he believes will happen in the Bobo
doll experiment, that the child will beat up the doll if they see the adult beating up the doll. This

is modeling, learning by observing the actions of others and mimicking them. There are factors

involved though, with the age of the observer, status of the model, and if the observer believes it

is an appropriate setting for the behavior. For example a student’s parents may swear, and then

the student mimics this behavior by saying it in the classroom. This is an example in which it is

an inappropriate setting for this behavior. The student will most likely be scolded by the teacher

and whoever the student is more inclined to follow, that is who they will model after.

Modeling will help teachers in classrooms because teachers are models every day. There

are so many levels on which a teacher could be for modeling, because for that year they are a

huge influence on the students and if the teacher displays awful behavior the students may

follow. So there is behavioral modeling the teacher will use so the students will become kind and

courteous. The teacher will use modeling by the way they show a certain subject for example

math. The teacher will model how to solve a math equation, and the students will follow along

and do it as well. Modeling is huge aspect of teaching and it can be very useful. It was very

useful to me when I taught Taekwondo, because I would show them how to do a certain move or

sequence of movements and then they would do it. A lot of time when they were first learning

these new skills I would follow along with them while they were doing it so they would get a

direct model. So modeling is quite important for a teacher in a classroom let alone if people have

their own children in their own home.

5. From the group presentations completed in class, give a brief description of an

alternative education and its philosopher that was not the one your group presented on.

Explain how that particular educational philosophy may or may not work for you as a

future teacher.
 One alternative education that was presented on in class was democratic schools. It was one

where the people presenting on had quite a bit to say about it in a negative fashion. Basically a

democratic school is what it sounds like, it is a school where everyone gets to decide what

happens. The students, faculty and parents. The students could vote to have the teacher fired,

because they have the same status the teacher has. If a teacher wanted to go out on a sunny day it

would not be allowed unless it was pre-approved by the mandatory meetings everyone has to

show up for. So since the students have a huge influence on what they want their curriculum to

be and their teachers and what they want, it sounds like a risky school to teach at. The group did

not mention a philosopher involved in this alternative education and after researching who the

philosopher is I cannot find it.

Well Democratic Schools would definitely not work for me as a future teacher because I

first of all do not agree with how the students have an equal say on if they can get me fired, as

well as their curriculum. The students should not be allowed to choose that much, sometimes it is

good to do what the students want but not all the time because they need to learn what the

requirements are or they may be behind when the time comes for college. As a future teacher I

need to freedom to do what I think will work for the kids and if all I want to do for the children

needs to get approved that will get in the way and lose time when they could be learning and

applying.
 References

Woolfolk, A. (2016). Educational psychology. Pearson.