Every day in every way ...

Hey! I told you no tongues

My mother, rest her soul, encouraged me to repeat to myself daily "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better". In today's PTLLS lesson, I learned what that phrase really means. It is a manifestation of psychologist Martin Seligman's teachings on optimism. Seligman's research showed that optimists are successful. We were informed that optimism is learned behaviour and that if we can encourage optimism in our students it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I thought today's image was distinctly appropriate. Today is of course Valentine's Day. It also seems appropriate if we consider that the male green parakeet is the eternal optimist.

We also discussed diversity and equality by enumerating words that might represent barriers to our students. Our group considered such barriers as age, race, language, sexuality, disability (physical and mental), beliefs, financial, background (social), prior education, health and peer pressure. Maslow's hierarchy of needs cropped up again, this time as a barrier to learning. For example, hunger prevents learning.

Marva Collins, as a successful and inspirational teacher of the under-privileged, was briefly examined. An overtly optimistic educator, Marva believes that "there is a brilliant child locked inside every student". Derek Paravicini was mentioned to illustrate the point that intelligence is not just measured by IQ tests. He is a severely disabled autistic savant who is an exceedingly gifted musician .

All in all a very interesting lesson.

Update: It appears that the auto-suggestive mantra "Every day, in every way, ..." was invented by Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie not my mother. It is now known as a Couéism. I so wanted to believe it was my mother.

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better

How to make a cup of tea ...

*Cup of tea anyone?

... erm! Seriously.

The class had been split into 5 groups last week. As I missed last weeks lesson, I made a fourth body on an already function group consisting of Jo, Linda, and Karen. As a group we were all asked to create a lesson plan for any activity we could think of. One group chose the topic writing a story, another making a cheesecake, a third chose baking a dozen buns, the fourth settled on email and we chose making a cuppa.

Our lesson outcomes were that the student would learn how to be able to list the equipment and incredients necessary to make a cuppa; be able to make a cuppa using a tea bag; and understand the risks involved. The differentiated outcomes we discussed included using leaf tea, the ability to make different strength teas and understand the health and safety legislation involved. Just to be clear, our target audience for this life-skills lesson was intended to be students with special needs. Have you stopped laughing at us yet?

We also (for me at least) revisited Bloom (1956) and Maslow (1943) and were told that we would get SMART next week; Simple, Manageable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely? Maslow in particular has cropped up throughout my life. I first came across the dude on a Grand Metropolitan managerial training course in the mid '70's; then University in at least one psychology module; then in business as part of staff motivation courses; in aviation as part of human factors and now in education whilst learning to teach. Still, I guess the dude meant well, even though he only studied the top 1% of a specific campus population.

Those of you who know me may not know I have difficulty with the names of new people I meet. This condition, which I have had all my life, came to a head during this evenings lesson when I kept calling Karen, Linda (or was it Linda, Karen?). I even thought Lewis was James! Thank you Jo for correcting me on at least three occasions! After the lesson, I looked the condition up and the nearest I can come to is a form of agnosia called prosopagnosia. They tell me that if you can name the disease, you can feel better about it. Hmmm. Perhaps I should try some self-help.

*Cup of Tea anyone © 2011 John McCulloug. For the observant amongst you, I take my tea black with one sugar! 
Edited once on 25-1-2011 at 15:120

Bloom's taxonomy

Bloom's taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist most known for his classification of educational objectives in his 1956 handbook (Bloom 1956). Bloom's taxonomy organises learning objectives for educators into three domains,  Affective (emotional), Psychomotor (physical), and Cognitive (knowledge and thinking). These domains can be remembered using such mnemonics as KAS for Knowledge-Attitude-Skills or Do-Think-Feel (Chapman 2006–2009).

Objectives for learning within each domain are organised hierarchically such that a higher level objective is not fulfilled until all lower level objectives have been attained. This constrained hierarchy is similar in structure to  Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1943), though of course for a different purpose.

One mnemonic that I recall, probably from University, is EDIT which I think stood for Explain, Demonstrate, Instruct, Test. It is also an acronym. On reflection, this is more of a skill mnemonic such as for driving instructing rather than an education one. Another mnemonic, probably from business presenting, is TTT—Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them. I have used T=V to remind myself that variety is important in presenting, training and from what I have read recently, education too.

Because not all students learn in the same way and at the same pace, we should plan for individual learners. Francis and Gould (2009 p. 75) consider Bloom's taxonomy in helping to identify multiple lesson objectives in order to provide learning suitable for the different abilities each student.

This post is work-in-progress. Below is a list of sources that I have determined contain one or more references to Bloom. They have been marked with an "*" if I have not yet used them in the above notes

Bloom B S (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain New York: McKay

*Calder, J. Ed., (1993) Disaffection and Diversity – overcoming barriers for adult learners. The Falmer Press

Chapman, Alan (2006-2009) Businessballs.com: Bloom's taxonomy – learning domains, accessed 18 January 2011

*Curzon, L.B. (2003) Teaching in Further Education - an outline of principles and practice. Continuum
Francis, M., Gould, J. (2009) Achieving your PTLLS Award – a practical guide to succesful teaching in the lifelong learning sector. SAGE

*Gravells, A. (2007) Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector – Level 3 coursebook. Learning Matters
Maslow, A.H. A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4) (1943):370–96.

*Petty, G. (2004) Teaching Today – a practical guide. Nelson Thornes
*Walkin, L. (2000) Teaching and Learning in Further and Adult Education. Nelson Thornes