Learners in Context Reflection 2

Over the past 4 weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to comprehend, discuss and elaborate with fellow classmates on the nature vs nurture debate, the basics of biological development, and the different perspectives of cognitive development. Which has helped me better understand students’ learning processes and my role as an educator.

Nature Vs Nurture – Today, the debate has neutralized and most theories combine nature (human’s innate biological qualities) and nurture (human’s experiences with the world around them). As an educator, I think it is important to take into consideration a student’s biological make-up and their experiences in order to understand what’s impacting their behavior. However, I don’t believe that students should be limited or restricted in education because of their biology or experiences. "Humans do not inherit genes that result in a specific level of intelligence. Rather, they inherit the potential for a range of possibilities" (Pressley and McCormick, 2007, p. 4). Through discussion, I learned that, “Whether children are influenced more by nature or nurture, our role as educators remains the same: providing consistent high quality experiences and expectation of success” (Allison Koehl, Module 2).

Biological Development – Pressley and McCormick (2007) explain that, “Students can only perform tasks that do not require more executive processing space than they have available for use” (p. 54). A fellow classmate suggested that, “Because of this limitation, as teachers we need to implement some strategies to help students cope with the demands that school learning has” (Eryn Pate, Module 2). In order to help students cope with short-term capacity demands, Pressley & McCormick (2007) recommend that as educators we analyze, simplify, coach and prompt (p. 55).

Cognitive Development – There are three alternative approaches to constructivism: Endogenous, dialectical and exogenous. Considering these approaches from a personal standpoint, I gravitated towards the exogenous approach. In this approach, a teacher provides students with explanations and models of solving prior to them working on the problem alone (Pressley and McCormick, 2007, p. 88). After discussing the three approaches with fellow classmates, as an educator, I believe that it is important that I incorporate all three approaches into my teaching style. As a classmate expressed, “I really do feel that an effective, well rounded teacher will use all three approaches. All three approaches cater to different ways that students learn and discover” (Chelsey Baldwin, Module 3).