Week 2. Reflection

If the educator assigns materials prior to the class session that are relevant to the student in some way shape or form then those materials previously presented will enable to the student to key into the main concepts of the lesson because it was meaningful to them.

Today in class, we touched upon a variety of different subjects. I was provided with the opportunity to review the similarities and differences between Vygotsky and Piaget's stages of cognitive development. After class discussion and chatting with my colleagues, I realized that Piaget has four stages of cognitive development which occur in a systematic, observable order throughout the child's lifetime. Whereas Vygotsky believed that children's growth occurred within a space he called the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Basically, ZPD is the distance between what a child can do with assistance and what the child can do without assistance. Vygotsky believed that children's development was developed much like building blocks by adding on to what they know which can also be summed up as scaffolding. Vygotsky was also a strong believer that the child's community, culture and family placed an enormous part in their cognitive development. I also have to agree with Vygotsky here and say that those aspects have a large affect on children's development.

As a class, this topic has surfaced many times within the past week. I believe that community/environment, culture and family do play an important role in a child's development and I plan on bringing my views on this into the classroom with me. It is extremely important for educators to realize that the environment that learners are raised in strongly influences how they learn and the amount success they will achieve. I vow to stay true to my roots as the years pass and always be sure to look at my student's experiences and lives outside of the classroom before jumping to any conclusions.

This brings me to another important part of today's discussion. Today we also discussed how the educators beliefs, discipline and visions are the most important variables in the learning environment. Here we were given the opportunity to examine the case about Erik. I found this to be tremendously interesting because Erik had such wonderful ideas and beliefs however, he seemed unable to transport them into the classroom setting. As a group we discussed the segregation that was occurring in Erik's classroom and formed ideas as to why it was happening. It was interesting for me to hear one of my fellow classmates state that the girl may have been being ignored by the Spanish group due to the fact that a boy may have had a crush on her. I also was intrigued when another classmate mentioned that the Spanish group could be only speaking in Spanish due to the fact that they do not feel comfortable with their English language skills. My group and I had decided that Erik seemed to have a misalignment of his beliefs and actions and we worked together to try to find a solution for Erik's "problema." This activity most certainly stuck out in my mind because I find that when I read about actual classroom conflicts or situations it becomes much more relevant to me. I am able to actually see how the lessons we are learning in the classroom may or may not transfer into our future classrooms.