1. Functional fixedness fits in with what we have learned about consciousness. Consciousness is the awareness we have of the things around us, the images, thoughts, memories, etc. Being about to be aware of things around you can make it easier to avoid getting stuck in a rut as in mental set of functional fixedness. The hill-climbing heuristic and creative cognitive maps seem to go together because we can create a mental map to lead us to the best path to reach our goal. Finally, I felt like the means-end heuristic and a script are similar because we use subproblems to create doable tasks and scripts are set tasks that we do in an appropriate order.
2. I am unsure on how to help the problem of situated cognition. I understand that it happens all the time, but what can we do to help these students? Although I understand extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, I would have liked to learn more about that topic and what ways to help students find internal motivation.
3. I would use this information when helping students to problem solve and in understanding how they solve problems currently. Means-end heuristic is very helpful with students who have trouble organizing their work or who need to have it broken down in order to be less anxious and more productive. In the alternative school I work in, most of our students will not dive into something on their own. By breaking it down in class, we are teaching them a beneficial ways to problem solve (and hopefully someday they will realize it). I will use the information in the book about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, examples I have thought of, and examples that others in this class that given to help the students I work with. Again, since I work in the alternative school, many students are not motivated. I need to be able to use this information to help them to be motivated.
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Carlie, I agree with you about internal motivation. How do we get students to draw upon that more often, especially in a world where extrinsic motivation is so prevalent? People go to work to get a check. Children do chores at the house to get an allowance. If you are on a winning team you get all kinds of awards and accolades. etc...
ReplyDeleteMost of the ways that I have found to build intrinsic motivation involve a great deal of work on my part. I am willing to do this some of the time, but it is impossible to do this for all subjects for all kids. Or is there an easier way?
Carlie,
ReplyDeleteIt must be hard to motivate students in an alternative school. There are workshops now that focus on student motivation. I have run across some of these workshops but our district is not paying for us to go to them now. Maybe this would be a possibility for you also. I am not sure if they are subject specific or motivation in general. I was also thinking that teaching problem solving would greatly help your kids if you related it to their life. Sometimes students in an alternative school district do not always make the right decisions so taking the time to analyze problems would be very beneficial to them.
I agree with your thoughts on situated cognition (or the lack of solutions to it). Do we take our students on more field trips or what? I think that what you do with your students in terms of motivation is correct. Most students are more likely to be intimdated by large requirements at one time. By breaking it down you simplify it, making it less intimidating to them.
ReplyDeleteI also found the information on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to be intersting and wish that more information would have been provided. On your concern of situated cognition, I understand the concept as a "learning by doing" approach. In order for students to learn, they must be provided with different types of experiences to enrich their understanding. Any way that we can teach a concept and then have them practice in a more real life scenario would be beneficial to their learning. The more variety of experiences we provide for them to use their knowledge, the better they will learn the skill and be able to transfer problem solving strategies into future situations. This may be easier said than done though depending on the subject area you are working with. It is difficult to find real life circumstances to test student's knowledge in all areas of education.
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