Peer relations at an adolescent age are influenced by their parenting style. Kids begin to form cliques that result in loyalty and self-concept. As long as the cliques aren't surrounded by aggression or antisocial behavior they are a positive thing. They lead to relationships intimately as the first mixed sex cliques begin. This relates to my question because the students at my grade level in which I'm observing is starting to work in groups of mixed sex. This is a positive correlation for relationships and cognitively learning.

2. Cognitive

On pg 241. Table 9.1 Gardner's Multiple Intelligence reminded me of my inquiry question. My inquiry question is related to how being skillfully expressive with your body can help engage more active learning. For example in body-kinesthetic intelligence, the teacher I'm observing speaks with her hands and has a number of things in the classroom in which she actively engages with. She uses the Smart board to look at videos and websites while students participate by writing on the screen with the markers. This is a learning opportunity that will strengthen the students cognitive ability to learn with visual representations. Another thing I read in chapter 9 was how a teacher-student relationship and expectations affects a students achievement rate. This relationship is important because it helps foster each child's progress and engage in a learning environment more suitable to their needs. It helps create thought provoking questions and encourages in more cooperative leaning. The teacher I observe is very personable with the students and it shows because she can switch her teaching methods to cater any learning style.

3. Emotional

Part of being an adolescent is taking a path to identity. I think after reading chapter 12, identity moratorium reminded me most of my inquiry question in an emotional way. Identity moratorium is the exploration without having reached commitment (319). My observation site will be at a 5th grade recess provided by the school. This is an opportunity for the students to take part in multiple different activity's. The boys and girls can take part in sports, socializing, or being active on the playground. With these different opportunities the kids can explore where they fit in the best at. Recess can help them gather information and desires to find values and goals to lead their lives.

4. Social

In chapter 12 one thing that stood out socially, was how around the age of 11-14 peer groups begin to form (328). Being hands-on in the classroom and allowing the class to be interactive with each other helps kids peer groups form. By allowing the classroom to work together in groups or as stations it allows the students to be interactive with new people everyday. Resulting in students to cognitively work together towards problem solving while developing friendships. It also relates back to emotional because with peer groups and cliques, self-esteem rises with the adolescent. Close friendships help provide a foundation for future goals and values as well.

Observation Site Information

A. Site details Monfort Heights Elementary

I chose to observe in a 5th grade science class. I chose this site to do my research study because I remember as a 5th grader, being in this class doing many interactive science lessons. Monfort Heights is a school of 655 students and is apart of Northwest Local School District, located in Cincinnati Ohio. 85% of the students are White, 8% are Black and 7% other

Name of site: Monfort Heights Elementary
Link to site: http://mhes.nwlsd.org
Contact person: Robin Lyons

B. Describe your setting

I made all my observations from the back of the class. The smart board was in the front of the classroom and so was the teachers desk. She had a high top stool that she sat in regularly to teach. The desks in the classroom were all in semi circles facing the front of the classroom. The teacher often allows the 5th graders to work in their close groups. She also works well and often with the students.

C. Describe what you did at the site (free-write/journal formatting)

1st visit: 2 Hours
Throughout my observations I’ve already began to pick up on many findings related to my question. I'm interested in how being hands on, physical and interactive among the classroom can help keep students more attentive throughout the day and produce better cognitive learning. The first day I walked in, the teacher was actually using the smart board to play a video on the water cycle. She then referred back to the textback and explained what was going on in the video to match the text. She lectured and spoke with her hands. I realized that as she spoke with her hands the students did as well. This was so interesting to me and obvious to me, that she was a kinesthetic learner who must see what they’re learning in order to get a good representation. This was the perfect site for my observations

Throughout the day she kept on switching in between the text and the smartboard. She even drew additional things on internet web pages on the smartboard to reemphasize her main points. The students were well behaved and adhered to what she was telling them. They raised their hand and were very anxious to learn every minute. The students also cognitively learned because as Mrs. Lyons would go around the room and call on separate students she would bounce ideas off of every answer. If a student didn't know the answer to a question they could phone a friend to get help. She motivated the students with the behavioral system of card flipping. If a student was acting up or “Brain Robbing” from another student they could have had their card flipped. She actually said she’d take away recess if she could but the school handbook says teachers don’t have the power to do that.

2nd visit: 2 Hours
On my second visit I was still figuring out a way to research my inquiry question and this is when I figured out what I was going to do. When I walked in they were reviewing their definitions and going over last nights homework from the book. They were in groups of 5, basically their surrounding partners. When going over the assignment and definitions from the book, the teacher was actively conveying around the room helping students who had questions. When reviewing the material just covered, in front of the class students did not raise their hands very fast and very hands went up. When the first student answered, he was wrong. We continued to review from the assignment and the book for minutes to come. Few hands and participation is occurring throughout this time.

An activity later on in the classroom was a game called Sparkle. It's when they spell words letter by letter standing in a straight line. If a person guesses the letter wrong they're out for the round. The person next to the last letter in the word is eliminated from the round too. All the kids stood in the back up against the cubbies and began to play the game. The kids were so excited and eager to play. The participation and competition was great. This made me think of my inquiry question. I wanted to focus my research from now on, to be about hands-on interactive learning.

3rd visit: 2 Hours
On my third visit the teacher and I had an organized unit to cover. We were going to cover a lesson on thermal energy in the text book and on the Smart Board. I was going to record my observations in my notebook. The first 15 minutes of the class were spent by the teacher and students reading from the text followed by questions from the teacher. The students hands following a question showed me that they were actively participating. I counted every hand following a question. There was about 7 hands raised following a question about the reading from the textbook

The 15 minutes following the text, there was another lesson on energy as well. This lesson was produced from the smart board solely. In this lesson there was energy contractions on the smart board, thermometers and even fire. The kids were very anxious to raise their hands to participate on the smart board. The smart board and the teacher both asked questions to students. In total there was about 14 hands a question, that's nearly double. I asked the students at the end of class several questions about the textbook vs. the smart board. They simply said the textbook was boring compared to the textbook.

D. Summarize and describe your experience in relation to the concepts in our textbook

Physical

226 Obesity, 229 Fine Motor Development, 228 Motor Development
229 Sex Differences, 230-231 Physical Education

Many school-aged children are not physically fit. With schools cutting back on recess kids are more dependent to exercise on their own. Teachers are also developing more active learning environments for the kids. This involves more competition in the classroom and different medias such as the Smart Board. Fine Motor development continuously develops with age, around the age of 10, students can write more legible, and make representation of data more easily. At this age students organize shapes, numbers and objects to help their memory and association skills. Sex differences I over head in the classroom was how the girls had better handwriting than guys. Girls have better fine motor skills leading to better handwriting and drawing. Guys at this age have the edge in Motor development, outperforming girls in throwing and kicking. The average American school aged child only gets 20 minutes of physical education a week. Many experts think that schools should offer more frequent physical education. Physical education helps develop self-worth, cognitive, and social skills necessary for getting along with each other.

Cognitive

231 Concrete Operational, 237 Cognitive Self Regulation
241 Gardner Multiple Intelligence, 249 Social Constructivist Classroom

Concrete Operational is when these 5th grade students look at the smart board and are able to give a logical answer to why the thermometer goes up when the smart board is rubbed. At this age kids are able to put themselves in others shoes and demonstrate reversability. Cognitive self regulation is when a learner has the ability to check their progress towards a goal. A teacher-student interaction is the most beneficial for both the teacher and the student. Multiple Intelligence's is the operation taken for a student to learn. There is multiple ways to learn such as auditory, musical, linguistic and kinesthetic. The smart board is an example of how a learner uses their body to handle objects skillfully. They're using their skill set to work towards their goal faster. A social constructivist classroom is one that involves the benefit of working in groups in meaningful activities. The teacher knows the students well enough to adapt to their Zone of Proximal Development. In this case the teacher creates different lesson plans to accommodate different learning abilities. Example would be a lesson through the text compared to through the smart board.

Emotional

257 Self-Understanding, 261 Self-Conscious Emotions, 261 Emotional Understanding
262 Perspective Taking, 262 Moral Development

In middle childhood, children become able to describe themselves in terms of traits and characteristics. They often compare themselves to their peers and speculate about their strengths and weaknesses. In the classroom, when deciding who was going to share their homework from the night before, they compared each others work and had to decide on the best example. The teacher told me the most popular kid in the group was the one to share almost every time even if it wasn't always the best. Pride motivates children to take on further challenges. There doesn't have to be an adult present to have a sense of accomplishment either. Often Mrs. Lyons, or the smart board listed websites to go home and research on their own. Kids showed a strong sense of pride, and were excited to share with everyone that they did their own research when they went home. A kid even came up to me when lining up and said they researched plant photosynthesis for 2 hours the night before! Middle childhood brings major advances in perspective taking. They're able to see a situation from a third party by putting themselves in the other persons shoes. For example when 2 girls were having a disagreement at the computers, Mrs. "Lyons" said she didn't want to have to come over there and settle the "cat-fight". The girls immediately understood and cut it out. Moral development is sculpted at a young age from modeling and reinforcement. At the age of a fifth grader the children also develop wrong morality to go along with the good. Different types of media are beginning to appear in their life with the ever expanding social world.

Social

264 Peer Groups, 265 Peer Acceptance, 266 Gender Typing
258 Culture on Self Esteem, 258 Social Comparison

In middle childhood, peer interaction becomes more pro-social and by the end of school years kids have organized themselves into peer groups. Peer groups are based on friendships with mutual trust. Kids tend to select friends with similarity's. When selecting group members, peer groups are formed. It's important to be conscious of this as a teacher. Select groups based on what you know about your students. Peer acceptance refers to likeability. Two-thirds of students in a typical elementary fit into the category of popular, rejected, controversial and or neglected children. The teacher made sure that everyone in the room felt equal. She made sure that there was no peer rejection in the classroom. Around the middle childhood age boys and girls begin to extend their awareness to gender stereotyping. Children can take a harsh view of certain stereotypes, such as if a girl is showing masculine traits. She may be stereotyped as a Tom boy. Culture has a strong emphasis on Self esteem. A student in Mrs. Lyons class was from Africa where women weren't aloud to talk much. She's extremely shy in the class but performs well because her parents are Authoritative. A concept of ones image, abilities and behavior in relation to others is called social comparison. At this age kids internalize others expectations and form an ideal self and a real self. In the classroom as a teacher, it's important to know the students zone of proximal development so they feel comfortable in the classroom at all times and want to participate.

Revisiting Your Curiosities

W: What you want to know (curiosities)

1. How does variations in media affect learning?

Variations in media affect all learners differently. Students at this age are still figuring out what the best order of operations is to learn. Every student is different, that's why it is important to have multiple teaching styles. These multiple teaching styles need to convey all the same information in a different way. It's important to understand the background and what the students ZPD is like. Interactive learning is the process of cognitively reaching a goal together in a teacher-student relationship. There is not a wrong or right way to teach material, as long as the material is covered cognitively in a way that everyone wants to participate. There are many factors as to why a student wants to or doesn't want to learn, but as long as the material is conveyed in an interesting manor, the students will be just as eager to learn as you are to teach it.

What new questions emerge for you as a future teacher?

It's difficult to pay attention in a classroom nowadays. I'd like to know which media to use for every lesson, so that I can keep my classroom active, and eager to learn. It is possible to do it I think if the teacher wants to take the time to collectively learn about the students ZPD.

Peer Review

The four things that you learned are really good. I would not change anything for that. Also, your observation is very good. I assume that you went once for 5 hours because you don't have any others written down-just make sure you delete the unused titles for observations (the 2nd-6th visit). Don't forget to look in the book connecting your inquiry question physically, socially, emotionally, and cognitively. Also, when revisiting your curiosity, make sure to incorporate the book because we need to use at least four references. After you complete all of this, the only thing you need to do is write your articles. I know you had awesome ones in class so all you need to do is summarize four of them and put them on here. Other than the few things you need to add, your wikki looks great. Keep up the good work!
--Kristin Gantz

Jason

Table of Contents

W: What you want to know (curiosities)

L: What you learned

1. Physical