Content – Page 2 – KVCC Docs

What is Constructionism

Constructionism is a problem-based instructional theory that holds that knowledge is best built through shared, tangible experiences. In the process of learning, Constructionism holds that people learn most effectively by making things. Constructionism connects closely with experiential learning. In Constructivism, children build their cognitive tools in interaction with external reality.

Effective Strategies

All learning activities should relate to a more comprehensive assignment. This is key, as it shows students that the activities apply to more aspects of life. Consequently, they will probably find the activities useful.

On-Course-Success-Principles

On-Course-Success-Principles synthesize the experiences and wisdom of education innovators, psychologists, business and sports professionals to support and develop the personal effectiveness of students.

On-Course-Success-Principles comprise eight essential elements that successful learners demonstrate and practice. Sure, gender, income, and ethnicity contribute to college students’ success or failure, but, though highly relevant factors, we did not weigh these aspects. This is about personal development and self-refection.

How People Learn According To Science

Mark H. Kavanaugh (Ph.D. Psychology Professor) wrote the educational Text The Learning Theory, based on Science.

So how do people really learn? We have several ways to think about how people learn. It is important to think about how YOU perceive people learn because it will impact the way you design your instruction, the expectations you have of your students, and the ways in which you will evaluate if learning has really happened.

The LEARNING THEORY describes the assumptions we make about how experiences translate into relatively permanent behavior change. A full exploration of the various theories of learning is beyond this particular course, but brief descriptions might serve to help you identify which ones relate best to you. For each of these, I’ll also identify ways in which these theories may be applied in
class.

Learning Styles and Teaching Styles

There is a lot of hype about “Learning Styles” in the media, and much of it is not as useful as it may seem. You have likely heard of “auditory”, “visual”, and “tactile” learners…identifying those who learn best by “listening”, “seeing”, and “doing”.

Learning styles have arisen from efforts to help students identify the best ways they learn… to identify their own best skills and assets and apply them to learning. For the instructor, this has a seductive quality…it would seem that if we understood the individual learning styles of each of our students, we could teach them better.

The problem with this approach is that as each of our students has their own learning style, so do we each have our own teaching style (and our own learning style).

Listen To Me Part Four: Self Help Tips

This is a summary of Listen To Me Part Four: Self-Help Tips
This document covers self-help strategies for anxiety, trauma, flashbacks, and PTSD. It’s aimed at survivors of abuse and other traumatic events.

Read the original version

Here’s what it covers.

Anxiety

The guide lists 12 tips for anxiety. Control your thoughts before they control you. Notice good things in your day, both at night and in the morning. Start each day with positive affirmations. Stay busy. Idle time lets worry take over. Set daily goals to redirect your focus. Talk to someone you trust. Exercise regularly. Laugh often. Use positive language, both out loud and in your head. Visualize good outcomes. Turn off the news if it triggers you.

A Constructionism Framework for Designing Game-Like Learning Systems: Its Effect on Different Learners

This is a summary of A Constructionism Framework for Designing Game-Like Learning Systems: Its Effect on Different Learners

Authors: Zhong-Zheng Li, Yuan-Bang Cheng, and Chen-Chung Liu.
Publisher: British Journal of Educational Technology, published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Click here to check the original version.

This paper tackles a known problem with game-like learning systems: students often get absorbed in the fantasy interface and story, but not the actual learning content. The authors propose a design framework grounded in constructionism to fix this and then test it with real students.

Sleep Loss, Learning Capacity and Academic Performance

This is a summary of Sleep Loss, Learning Capacity, and Academic Performance
Authors: Giuseppe Curcio, Michele Ferrara, Luigi De Gennaro
Affiliations: Department of Psychology, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’; Department of Internal Medicine and Public Health, University of L’Aquila
Publication: Sleep Medicine Reviews, Vol. 10, Publisher: Elsevier Ltd.

Click here to check the original version.

This is a clinical review examining how sleep loss affects students’ ability to learn and perform academically, drawing on both naturalistic studies that correlate sleep habits with school outcomes and experimental studies that directly manipulate how much sleep students get.

Sleep deprivation

The paper opens by establishing that sleep serves multiple functions, including learning and memory consolidation, and that these functions get disrupted when sleep is lost. Sleep deprivation produces measurable declines in neurocognitive and psychomotor performance.

Nun’s Killer Out of Riverview: Survivor of 1996 Waterville Attack: Psychological Impact Is Still With Us

This is a summary of Nun’s Killer Out of Riverview: Survivor of 1996 Waterville Attack: Psychological Impact Is Still With Us
Author: Betty Adams, Staff Writer, Publication: Kennebec Journal

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This article covers a 2010 court hearing in Kennebec County Superior Court over a modified treatment plan for Mark Bechard, the man who killed two nuns and injured two others during a psychotic episode at a Waterville convent chapel in 1996.

On the night of January 27, 1996, Bechard entered the chapel and attacked four elderly nuns. He killed Mother Superior Edna Mary Cardozo, 68, and Sister Marie Julien Fortin, 67. A third victim, Sister Patricia Ann Keane, survived the initial attack but later died from her injuries. The fourth victim, Sister Mary Anna DiGiacomo, was left paralyzed on her right side and died in 2006. Bechard was found not criminally responsible and committed to state psychiatric custody, where he has remained on antipsychotic medication ever since.

Multiple Intelligences After Twenty Years

This is a summary of Multiple Intelligences After Twenty Years
Howard Gardner, Invited Address, American Educational Research Association, April 2003

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Gardner uses this address to trace where the theory of multiple intelligences came from and where it stood twenty years after “Frames of Mind”.

The theory’s roots

He starts with the theory’s roots. As a young pianist deeply involved in the arts, Gardner noticed that academic psychology largely ignored artistic ability. Finding a place for the arts in psychology became an early professional goal, which led him to co-found Project Zero at Harvard in 1967, an organization he ran for 28 years.

A second influence came from studying neurologist Norman Geschwind’s research on stroke and brain-damaged patients. Gardner was struck by cases where damage produced counterintuitive symptom patterns, such as patients who lost the ability to read words but kept the ability to read numbers.

Infants and Toddlers Exploring Mathematics

This is a summary of Infants and Toddlers Exploring Mathematics
Eugene Geist, Young Children

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This article makes a case that math learning starts well before preschool. Geist argues that everyday infant and toddler behaviors, such as dumping blocks, banging drums, and filling cups, are early forms of mathematical thinking. He structures the piece around specific behaviors, explains the underlying math concept for each, and gives teachers concrete ways to build on them.

Exact matches

Sorting blue blocks into a pile shows classification, but at this age, children can only make exact matches. They can’t yet hold two attributes at once, like round and blue versus square and blue. This early classification skill eventually feeds into measurement, patterning, algebra, and geometry. Teachers can support it by offering blocks and toys in varied shapes, colors, and sizes, observing what children do, and naming attributes out loud: “You made a big pile of blue blocks.”