Jonathan Loomis

February 28, 1999

Psychology of Education

Dr. Fox

Our group was charged with presenting "Teen Time, Crisis and Achievement" via the study guide medium. At the beginning of our discussion we chose to brainstorm as many possible crisis as we could so as to have an idea of what kind of a task we were facing. We accumulated a list of about fifteen or twenty crisis which teens might go through.

At this point in our group's efforts we took a brief amount of time to discuss what we might do as a presentation, i.e.: what exactly was a study guide and how would it apply to what we wanted to present. We concluded that the most educational way of presenting our information would be in a format that teachers in the workplace would be likely to see. For this reason we chose to make an information packet rather than a study guide, the understanding being that an information packet would be for teachers, whereas a study guide is aimed at students. Although our audience was made up of current students they will all soon become teachers, and my own experience with tutoring has shown me that teachers have precious little time for study guides. A fast and clear information packet is by far the best method of passing along important information.

Because we wanted to make the packet as realistic as possible, we decided that instead of trying to include all fifteen or twenty crisis we had brainstormed, we would each take one and make a packet with only four crisis, but four well written sections. In many ways I think that we were successful in this regard. There were a few things about our "study guide" that I thought could have been better. None of us thought of the fact that school districts would have preset guidelines for what to do. This is something we should have thought of beforehand and noted in our own guide. I also think that this particular information could have been better presented in a web page. Web pages are harder for teachers to lose and take up much less space. If I were in charge of educating a district of teachers in the procedures for such cases I would do it with a web site.

Our actual presentation was successful I believe, although my group members were perhaps not as direct as they could have been in guiding the discussions and making them a bit shorter. Although I don't think that any of the class will ever use our particular study guide, I do think it was important because it was at the least an introduction to some of the non-teaching aspects of being a teacher.

Our group worked very well together. One of us would introduce an idea, another would pull out paper and pencil to record, and the rest would join in the brainstorm. There was never any of that discomfort when you know that no one wants to participate or when you have to convince someone to be the recorder. We each took our turn as the initiator when we personally had something to add. Generally we brainstormed: each throwing out ideas and building on each other's until we arrived at one that everyone liked. On a few occasions one of us would raise a concern about a previously arrived at decision and we then looked back over what we had done in light of the particular concern in order to determine what we might do differently. Even at our group meetings when not all of us were fully prepared, the others ignored this fact and simply added their own work to the work of the others. The result was that the final product was really a culmination of the work of all of us and not any particular individual.

I think that the major difference between us doing this particular project as university level students and it hypothetically being done by K-12 students was that we were very professional about our work. Each of us wanted the result to be our best even though we were all constrained by other obligations and responsibilities. Although it is not always the case, the fact that we were paying for our education showed in the way we worked. A K-12 student would not have this attitude. Although the result might have turned out just the same, the focus on the effect of the presentation on the audience as opposed to the grade would not have been there.

On the day the H1 group gave their presentation I was at Mount Vernon on a field trip with the students I tutor so unfortunately I missed what they had to offer. I was in class for the remainder of the presentations, however.

The H2 group who gave their presentation on behaviorism was somewhat unimpressive to me. I do not say this to be mean but simply because I can not remember what I learned from their presentation. I recall that they presented a variety of material with some handouts and overheads, but they did not do any hands on activities and I can't remember anything about behaviorism from their presentation. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, but I recall that only one or two members of their group even spoke.

The H3, which gave its presentation on memory, was in fact, much more memorable. I was impressed with fact that they chose to illustrate only one specific point, that being the effectiveness certain memorization strategies over others. I think that the H2 group might have been fundamentally flawed by the fact that they tried to press too much material on the class in too short a period of time. The H3 group did not. Their demonstration, accompanied with some insightful, albeit less impressionable, research made the clear point that rote strict memorization is highly ineffective when compared to other memorization "tricks."

Likewise the P1 group was highly effective because, although they presented a variety of scenarios in a very entertaining manner, their only real message was that they transition to college is difficult. It seems to be a somewhat silly topic to choose simply for the reason that almost the entire class has recently made this transition and certainly understands its problems but their presentation was still very effective.

The P2 group that focused on the transition to high school was very similar in that their only real message, buried within a fair amount of exaggeration, humor, and action, was that this transition is difficult. This was a very manageable amount of material for the period of time allotted. In many ways I think that these two groups gave the most effective presentations simply because many weeks from now I will be able to think back on their presentations and remember what they said and did and will be able to connect that with their single, unifying thesis.

The P3 group was less memorable. They focused on the differences between good and poor teachers, I believe. Their video was not so memorable as the previous and their presentation excessively stereotypical. Most of us understand what a good teacher and a poor teacher look like from the observer's position. What would have been helpful, I think, would have been to view the two positions from the perspective of the teacher. This is a view that most of us have never been graced with and it is important since many "bad" teachers fall in to fundamentally flawed routines without realizing them.

Unfortunately the web site group designed their page to be easily read from a personal computer and not from a classroom. This was the most important thing that I learned from their presentation: when using the computer in the classroom, keep in mind the presentation methods. I do hope that my classes will have web pages when I'm a teacher, but it will be important to keep this lesson in mind when my students and I design the sites. What is visible from two feet is indecipherable from twenty. Their actual subject, early childhood development, was lost on me because I spent their entire presentation mulling over the possibilities for computer integration into my future teaching.

Just as a note, while I have been following the order of the questions you handed out concerning this reaction paper, I have made a deviation here because I believe that I sufficiently covered your fourth question in my previous discussions of our presentation.