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Final Paper Rough Draft

EDLF 5011 – Adolescent Development

Lisa Anderson

10/25/12

Final Paper Rough Draft

On a beautiful, + 70° F, cozy autumn afternoon on October 23, 2012, my 21-year old roommate, Katie*, and I enjoyed a relaxing, instructive biking lesson outdoors. As every good lesson should take into consideration, I assessed my student’s prior knowledge of the elements of biking beforehand. For the opener of my lesson, Katie did a written, mini pre-assessment in which I asked her to write down anything she already knew about biking, bike anatomy and bike safety, which were the main foci of the lesson. She also listed a few skills/knowledge she wanted to learn and gauged her biking skill and confidence levels on a 1-10 quantitative scale. I did not want simply to focus on the logistics of biking and related knowledge, but I wanted Katie to think metacognitively about what she knew at present, indicating her self-efficacy as well. Importantly, Willingham (2009) established that in order “to be metacognitive, students need to know the goals toward which they are working, and they must receive feedback on how they are progressing toward these goals” (as cited in Estes, 2011, p. 5). Both for better instruction and learning, in the opener I explained the learning objectives Katie would be expected to understand, know and be able to do as a result of this lesson so she would know specifically what goals we were working toward.

We started the body of the lesson with a brief bike anatomy activity. Using Katie’s bicycle to make the learning more relevant to her, I pointed out the main parts of the bike and their functions, making sure to ask Katie first if she knew the answer. This part of the lesson was a bit tedious, but necessary to establish basic fundamentals to be referred to later. Next, I knew bike safety would be useful information to cover since Katie was still somewhat hesitant and insecure about biking, especially on the road. I reiterated particular parts of the bike that would be crucial for safety reasons, such as which brake to pull and which way to push/pull the gearshifts depending on the surface incline. We skipped instruction on safety gear, because I observed that Katie was already conscientious of it, and jumped straight into an explanation of Virginia Department of Transportation bicycling laws, such as bicyclists must obey all traffic signs, signals, lights and markings like other vehicles. She was engaged, asking questions and staying focused. I demonstrated the hand signals for turns and stops, which she imitated on her own. The last bits of fundamental procedural information I taught while demonstrating.

Katie and I walked our bikes to the top level of the UVA Hospital parking garage which was the perfect place for bike practice: a large, open, flat space practically clear of moving cars and people. First, I briefly described the procedures for safe mounting and dismounting before showing her. When demonstrating on the bike, Katie walked alongside me and I verbalized exactly what I was doing every step of the way. Then Katie tried the task herself, going back and forth a couple times while I went alongside her pointing out instructions and tips in order to stimulate “Cognitive modeling. An adult model performs the desired task while verbalizing instructions that guide performance. Overt, external guidance. The [student] performs the task while listening to the adult verbalize the instructions” (McDevitt and Ormrod 221). She was quickly comfortable with mounting, biking in a straight line and stopping effectively, so we moved on to the next, slightly harder, task of changing gears. Again, I first explained the how-to, complete with reasons for why and when to change gears, and then I modeled the process. With assistance, Katie practiced the task until she could perform it without my assistance, thus following Vygotsky’s philosophy of scaffolding (quote?) . To put these newly learned skills into practice, we went on a 2-mile ride through the neighborhoods around grounds. I explained the route before starting and for the first mile I took the lead, pointing out cautionary, safety tips as well as practical maneuvering instructions. I made sure to exemplify safe, legal biking behavior and stopped occasionally to set Katie’s questions and concerns at ease. She did a fair job of keeping up, though some of the hills were a struggle.

As the beginning of the closer, to promote transfer Katie and I switched positions at the one-mile mark so that she was in the lead, although she doubted her nighttime biking abilities. I encouraged her to believe she was competent and to implement the new skills she had learned. Then, I refrained from providing instruction for this last part (except for giving route directions) and merely observed her strengths, weaknesses and application of the new knowledge. The final piece of the closer was a written/verbal evaluation to assess learning immediately after finishing the ride. I requested that Katie write a short, coherent paragraph reflecting on the learning experience, in which she mentioned that, “with practice on bikes and doing things that Lisa taught me, I was able to feel more confident in my biking skills.” Again, I asked Katie to rate her biking skill and confidence level. Her perceived skill level jumped from a 5 to an 8 and her confidence level doubled from a 3 to a 6 afterward. She told me verbally that she felt she had achieved every objective established at the start and that there wasn’t one she didn’t think had been reached.

Throughout the lesson, in order to engage Katie in the material, I made it as relevant as possible to instances in which this information would transfer to a real-life situation, especially tailoring this transfer to what interested her based on the skills and knowledge she specified wanting to learn.  (quote intro?) “Transfer of new learning must occur at a deep level of knowledge–beyond recall” (Estes, p.5). Students must apply new knowledge to previous information and other contexts to solidify it in their long-term memory, but relevancy is key to what input activates the Reticular Activating System in the brain and catches the student’s attention (Lecture, September 6, 2012). For example, I focused on the state rules about biking on the sidewalk, road and highway, since that is exactly what she wrote she wanted to learn, and I suggested ways she might use the new information from the lesson in her desire to know more about biking around grounds to go to classes. Yielding to pedestrians on the lawn walkways is comparable to the law of yielding on sidewalks, for instance.

This lesson, based on the feedback gathered what I had observed and assessed, seemed to be quite successful. The National Research Council (2000) expressed that through awareness of goals/objectives and effective feedback, “students can become aware, through reflection, of which behaviors lead to success” (as cited in Estes, 2011, p.5). It was beneficial to have structured goals for the lesson and Katie testified to the fact that my incremental integration of constructive feedback facilitated evaluation of her growing proficiency. Although it lasted an hour and a half, Katie reflected that “Lisa explained skills and anatomy of bikes and rules at a decent speed so I was able to follow along easily.” It was helpful that I checked with Katie along the way to make sure the explanations were clear and asked if she had any questions for me about what we were discussing. Then, when she asked me a question, I immediately addressed it and responded to it right away. In the practical part of the lesson, the hands-on experience effectively provided the practice Katie needed to truly master the knowledge, both mentally and physically. People at any age “are likely to have different zones of proximal development and so may need different tasks and assignments. In other words, instruction is most effective when it is individually tailored” (McDevitt and Ormrod 221). For Katie, that meant building on known knowledge and scaffolding tasks to realize skills that she could not previously perform on her own. For example, before the lesson Katie could not shift gears to adjust the ease of pedaling for going uphill or downhill, but by the closer I observed her shifting gears quite naturally to make it up a hill. That type of qualitative improvement resulted in true gains in her biking skills as well as the emotional/psychological confidence in herself.

On the other hand, some elements of the lesson in particular did not go too smoothly. The assessment of prior knowledge, perhaps the prompt was too broad to ask her to write what she knows about bikes, bike safety and biking because the knowledge jotted down was not very relevant to the material learned in the lesson contributing to better biking performance. It dealt with the commercial side of biking, mostly. Most of what I gathered about her prior knowledge was what I already knew from going on a few bike rides with Katie before and by observing her throughout the lesson. The intent was correct, but like many trials in education, it didn’t transpire how I’d planned. Perhaps if I had allotted more time to the activity she eventually would have listed more items significant for this lesson or I should have specified more clearly what kind of previous knowledge I was curious to know (this could have been in the form of additional verbal questioning after reading her response). Another unsettling factor I hadn’t expected was that it became dark in the middle of the bike ride and I did not actually have a light on my bike for use between dusk until dawn as the law requires. Nor do I own a helmet, which makes a couple of infractions I should have modeled better in a lesson involving biking safety, at least for my student’s sake. My original idea I had in mind for a flat, open space free of moving cars did not turn out to be a usable space, but, thankfully, this was easily solved by going to the top level of the nearby parking garage.

References

Estes, T. H., Mintz, S. L., & Gunter, M. A. (2011). Instruction: A Model's Approach. (6th

ed.) . Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Ferree, Ruth. “Brain Development and Learning Processes.” University of Virginia. Ruffner

Hall, Charlottesville, VA. September 6, 2012. Lecture.

McDevitt, T. M., & Ormrod, J. E. (2010).Child development and education.(4th ed.) .Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

DMU Timestamp: October 23, 2012 19:35





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