In this particular essay, the unit of work under consideration is a New South Wales, stage four, English Unit, written by the English head teacher at Fairfield High School, Lynne Marsh. The unit is entitled ?Indigenous and technology unit.? This essay will consider how three particular learning activities from this unit of work implement Cognitive Learning Theories such as Behavioural Laws Of Motivation, Operant And Classical Conditioning, Social Constructivist Theories and Information Processing Theories. This essay will also discuss the efficacy of this unit in terms of how it caters for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, representing an important focus of student diversity.
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Behavioural Laws Of Motivation are particularly relevant in a very broad sense when considering the chosen learning activities from this unit of work. Snowman and McCown (2013) describe the behavioural laws of motivation are based on the more specific concept of Operant Conditioning, where the desired behaviour of the student is shaped through the teacher?s use, choice, and/or removal, of certain stimuli. This is known as Positive and Negative Reinforcement.[1] This form of behavioural motivational theory is applied in a similar formula- the teacher of the unit of work scaffolds the desired humanistic responses to open ended research-based questions in the units of work, shaping the enquiry-based attitudes of the student through the use of both extrinsic and intrinsic forms of motivation.[2] Extrinsic forms of motivation refer to the reward that the student will receive if they undertake their research from a desired point of view- in this case, the reward is a higher mark, as described through the assessment evaluation sheet, and the humanistic desired point of view is described through the assessment criteria to engage the levels of student competency. Such an example of extrinsic motivation is presented in the teacher?s marking criteria, for the three learning activities. In the Learning activity ?Assessment Task? students are asked to provide an information package about the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park to an imaginary Country.[3] The teacher shapes the desired students behaviour through the use of extrinsic motivation, in terms of stipulating how the assignment is to be marked. Particularly, students will be marked higher for showing an ?excellent achievement? in their understanding of the development of Aboriginal culture, the elements of Aboriginal language, the role of signs, symbols and icons on a text, and their ability to identify and describe cultural expression in a text. The teacher also uses elements of intrinsic motivation through the way the assessment is framed. The teacher asks the students to prepare the work is if they were to be personally responsible for educating a foreign audience on the nature of a particular local Aboriginal culture. This gives students a sense of pride or personal achievement through the thought that the students could be rewarded personally, by being responsible cultural ambassadors for Australia. From a psychological point of view, it could be stated that the use of the Behavioural theory of Motivation, is a form of directed action, where the teacher shapes extrinsic and intrinsic motivation towards as-of-yet unrealised goals. The intelligent use of directed action by the teacher for defining the aspects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in this particular learning activity, make the use of behavioural motivation techniques very effective in terms of inspiring students towards the desired learning outcomes. The twin shaping activities of providing extrinsic motivation through the Assessment Evaluation Sheet and intrinsic motivation through the cross-cultural framing of this particular task shapes the students behaviour towards more effective learning as described by Gleitman (1991), and places the students within a ?controlled feedback? system, where the students research activities are shaped towards a more specified, limited point of view and thus are directed.[4] The intrinsic motivational aspect of the learning activity is effective in the sense that it encourages students? self-regulation. The cross-cultural nature of the task inserts a negative-reinforcement (a form of operant conditioning) through the deliberate removal a pathway towards personal and culturally opinionated responses that are considered irrelevant, as the student is not asked to provide arbitrary personal opinions regarding the nature of the local Aboriginal culture, but instead to act as imaginary cultural ambassadors representing Australia to a foreign audience, thus justifying the assessment criteria that imposes a level objectivity on the quality of feedback and reporting that the students produce on the local Aboriginal culture.
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More specific Operant Conditioning is used in most learning activities of this particular work, through the use of simple mechanisms such as Positive and Negative reinforcement, where positive stimuli are provided and negative stimuli are removed by the teacher at certain instances in order to shape the students desired learning behaviours, as according to Snowman and McCown (2013).[5] The most obvious example of this is Negative Reinforcement, which is established through the teaching providing explicit internet links on assessment tasks on the nature of seriousness and nature of plagiarism, so that the desire to commit plagiarism is averted because it?s ?policing? is made an explicit reality. The teacher also uses positive reinforcement in these particular activities in a cultural sense too. The teacher actively seeks to challenge undesired behaviour, in this case, anti-Aboriginal bias of the students, through rewarding student?s work that is culturally progressive and depicts Aboriginal cultures on a positive light. In the paired activities 3 and 4, Students are asked to explore the traditional oral, dance and art of the Aboriginal people and the importance of the Dreamtime stories for their cultural heritage and historical background.[6] In particular, students are asked to explore a creation story of the formation of the Australian landscape as told through the Dreamtime, and to prepare a short presentation to be given in class recounting the story, as told from the Aboriginal point of view. Asking the students to recount the story from an Aboriginal point of view provides both negative and positive reinforcement- as it forces the students? to consider how their own opinions are culturally relative, as opposed to the opinions of the group represented, Aboriginal Australians. They are asked to consider retelling the creation story in a similar light to how Aboriginal people would- providing positive reinforcement through giving the opportunity to retell the creation story in a creative manner, such as oral or dance. This rewards the students? research and cultural investigations by giving them an outlet to express their research in a highly personal and creative manner that for example, is not dry or technical, like asking the students to write a 500-word essay about Aboriginal culture. Furthermore, asking the students to retell the story from an Aboriginal point of view provides negative reinforcement as the desire for students to present their own arbitrary opinions on the nature of Aboriginal creation stories is removed. This particular activity also has elements of classical conditioning- a form of learning in which an individual learns to produce an involuntary emotional of physiological response that is similar to an instinctive or reflexive response, as according to Eggen and Kauchak (2004).[7] The entertaining nature of the task helps to establish a positive link between culturally progressive research on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues, participation in and explicit presence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in school, and personal feelings of reward, satisfaction and enjoyment. Some researchers, in fact, suggest that the emotional reactions learners associate with the topics they study are most important experiences they take away from schools (Eggen and Kauchak 2004, citing Gentile, 1996).[8] In this light, the creative activities for this particular learning task show that if the teacher treats the students with encouragement and respect, the students will begin to associate studying and school with the teachers efforts to develop the students? appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander culture and issues. This particular learning activity also uses elements of Skinner?s Operant Conditioning Theory, in as much as it represents the directing of students voluntary behaviour as well, and where the desired behaviour precedes the stimulus or consequences, and where students attempts to answer questions and conduct research are praised, so their class participation and attempts at completing set work successfully increase. The learning activities from this unit of work make particular use of reinforcement schedules, as described by Eggen and Kauchak (2004) that describe the patterns in the frequency and predictability of reinforcers.[9] In Particular, the learning activities demonstrate elements of a schedule of reinforcers where only some behaviours are reinforced intermittently, and the main function of this is a variable-interval schedule, where the teacher reinforces students behaviour periodically through the logical and chronological planning of the content of the student activity. For example, students are asked to investigate and explore an Aboriginal dreamtime story and to provide an account of this to the class in either oral or dance form. Once they have done this, their behaviour is reinforced through reading the prescribed Aboriginal Creation Myth Text. Their behaviour is reinforced a third time, by completing logical thought-experiments regarding cultural issues of censorship, by writing a mock edict banning all cultural creation myths, followed by a counter-juxtaposed response as a ?letter to the editor? expressing concern on the potential consequences of such an edict. These exercises clearly create a schedule of reinforcement, according to a variable-interval schedule, where student?s investigative behaviour is promoted and then reinforced with further directly relevant cultural knowledge, and this knowledge is reinforced a third time through the use of an exercise which asks students to think about the role of public media and the opinions of the powerful, in terms of determining patterns of cultural responses to the topic studied. In the sense that the variable-interval schedule for this particular activity is connected together in a highly intelligent logical function, where students competencies are scaffolded from simple investigation, to understanding, to more complex abstract reasoning skills and independent reflection on the issue, it becomes apparent that the specific use of operant conditioning is highly effective in this particular learning activity.
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The apparent explicit use of classical conditioning, operant conditioning and behavioural motivation techniques in the design and application of the learning activities for this particular unit of work demonstrate how Social Cognitive Theory is consistently used and applied throughout this unit of work, in how the design of the unit helps aid the students become self-regulated learners, particularly in the implicit understanding of personal agency, or how the students can be the cause of their own behaviour and also through triadic reciprocal causation, where the students? learned capabilities are seen as the product of interactions amongst the students? characteristics, behaviours, and social environment, as according to Snowman and McCown (2013).[10] The previous example of the variable-interval schedule for activity 3/4 shows how the phases and categories very similar to Zimmerman?s Self-regulation cycle as described by Snowman and McCown (2013)[11] are put to use. Student?s start with a Performance Phase where they research and present an aboriginal creation myth. At this stage the students are self-instructing, trying out different forms of behaviours, using tactics and their attention is focused. They then enter the forethought phase, where they complete a set task analysis of reading through the subsequent prescribed local Aboriginal creation myth. This task has relevant outcome expectations, mostly to do with comprehension and epistemological beliefs. Finally, the students enter a self-reflection phase, that involves self-judgement and self-reactions? and the evaluation of their own thoughts and behaviours regarding the topic studied. All of these activities encourage self-regulation and metacognitive development. The implementation of activity 3 in such an obvious fashion clearly demonstrates elements of social cognitive theory as opposed simply to behaviourist theory- the teacher seems to have explicitly designed this particular activity with the view in mind that changes in mental structures will create the capacity for students to demonstrate different behaviours. Instead, Behaviourism suggests a ?One-way relationship between environment and behaviour?- that is, environment directly causes behaviour. However, this unit of work also clearly suggests a usage of triadic reciprocal causation, where the teacher has clearly thought about how the influences of the student?s own characteristics and behaviours, as well as the social environment, need to be shaped in order to reach desired outcomes more effectively. The compact manner in which all of these aspects have been synthesized into student activity directives implies that this is implemented a highly intelligent form of Social Constructivism in planning this particular learning activity.
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Activity 9, which is centrered around a module of Work, Employment and Enterprise, clearly contains elements of Information Processing Theory. ?Information Processing Theory is concerned with how humans attend to, recognize, transform, store, and retrieve information. Particularly, Psychologists consider information as being held and transferred among three memory stores- a sensory register, a short-term store, and a long-term store, as described by Snowman and McCown (2013).[12] Particularly, the teacher makes use of attention, by choosing a selective focus of the material that the students should focus on in their sensory register. This is achieved by short and sharp directives that focus the student?s attention on what they should be looking for, when encoding information. The teacher asks students entirely specific questions, such as ?How many Tjapukai are employed at the Cultural Park? How many different languages are included in the information brochure? What is the highest selling piece of Aboriginal artwork worldwide? The clever use of direct, highly focussed questions provide a narrower framework for the student?s when learning to absorb information, and this aids with their long-term memory storage and their retrieval capacities, and in this sense, is effective.
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?Working with Aboriginal People and Communities- A Practice Resource?, published by the New South Wales department of community services, is a very practical and relevant guide for establishing the efficacy of this particular unit in terms of its relevance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Particularly, the guide notes that Aboriginal people continue to be over-represented in Australian welfare systems, child protection systems, homelessness, health systems, juvenile and criminal justice systems and unemployment.[13] While the scope of these various serious social problems might be too advanced for a Stage 4 English class to evaluate and analyse, a unit of work that emphasizes a positive apprehension of Aboriginal Cultural history is more likely in the spirit of reconciliation and therefore represents an important approach towards respecting Aboriginal people and Aboriginal interests in the classroom. The Guide also notes, that due to the nature of colonisation, that grief and loss continue to be very prevalent issues for many Aboriginal families and communities and this continues to adversely impact the lives of many people. This creates cultural problems for how this work is created, as Aboriginal people take issues of cultural appropriation and loss of identity extremely seriously, and the scope for communication problems triggering traumatic emotions is very real, and very serious. In this sense, the unit could have been improved if it made issues of the effects of colonisation and cultural appropriation more explicit. Furthermore, this unit makes no reference to the distinction between Torres Strait Islanders and Aboriginal Australians, as separate and distinct indigenous cultures of Australia. This could be sign as a covert attempt at silencing Torres Strait Islander identity, if there were any students who were Torres Strait Islanders, or descendants from, in the classroom. The importance of respecting the naming of the Tjapukai is important, however the assignment to culturally study an Aboriginal Dreamtime Myth generalizes the link between the Tjapukai people and an anglicised conception of Aboriginal culture that sees Aboriginal culture as being vague, indistinct and univocal. The Tjapukai People might be theoretically offended by such an approach. Furthermore, Family and Kinship structures are a hugely integral part of Cultural Life for many Aboriginal Nations and Peoples, and this unit could have explicitly interwoven this form of cultural knowledge and understanding into the unit. Unfortunately, whilst this unit of work seeks to encourage a more open dialogue with Aboriginal Australia, it does seem to implicitly reinforce concepts of cultural bias, and could have included a more detailed and appropriate approach to effective consultation with Aboriginal organizations and communities, including explicit consultation at all levels of the decision making processes.
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REFERENCES
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- Snowman, J. & McCown, R. (2013) Ed Psych (Student Edition),Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, USA.
- Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (2004) Educational Psychology- Windows on Classrooms (6th Ed.) Pearson Prentice Hall, Pearson Education, USA.
- Gleitman, H. (1991) Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Norton and Company, USA.
- New South Wales Department of Community Services (2009). Working with Aboriginal People and Communities- A Practice Resource. Published by the New South Wales Department of Community Services.
[7] Windows on educational psychology pg.197
[13] Working with Aboriginal People.
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