Classical Conditioning in Domestic Violence

What is domestic violence to do with learning right?

For one, this is domestic violence month. Secondly the survivors of domestic violence have a long road ahead of them to heal and be normal again. When I say domestic violence I am talking about domestic violence in the context of changing the behavior of the survivors. If there is a way to undo the damage of abuse by applying the learning theory, may be the survivors can escape the trauma of their experiences easily.

It is said that abused people develop PTSD, which is at a higher rate compared to military personal developing PTSD after the war.

So for an abused person their fear, their reactions to environments, their anger in situations consumes them. Most of the time facing the day today is a nightmare.

Why is that?

It is said that classical conditioning involves a response over which the learners have no control. When a person is abused their emotions, logical mind, and body start responding to certain events are involuntary. They lose control over everything. They are always responding and reacting because the conditional response makes them to anticipate and prepare for the worst. Their attitude also changes, All these happen because of association with fear.

So if we agree that classical conditioning plays a role why is it hard for the survivors be normal once they leave the abuser or the situation.

I think that is where the spontaneous recovery happens. Spontaneous recovery is recurrence of the conditioned response after a rest period. Though the response is weaker it still happens. That is why it is hard for the survivors to move forward.

When the abuser cannot leave the abuser or the situation their conditional response may develop into generalization. Generalization happens when the conditional response happens to other stimuli the same way,

When the response of the abused person is generalized can they be called as victims even though they are alive?

What learning theory can one apply to make these victims a survivor again?

Oops, We're Doing It Again

"How Amanda's Brain Works" could probably be a grad class unto itself.  I have a lot of random things jumbling around in my head and sometimes they link up in odd ways.  (The theorists and psychologists would have a field day…)  Here are two examples.  Both came to mind as I was reading the chapter in our text on Social Cognitive Theory, I was particularly intrigued by the section on Modeling, specifically symbolic models ("a person or character portrayed in a book, film, television show, video game, or other medium.") and Bandura's four characteristics of effective models:

1. The model is competent
2. The model has prestige and power
3. The model behaves in stereotypical "gender-appropriate" ways
4. The model's behavior is relevant to the observer's situation

Reflection 1:  for some reason as I read through the above list of "characteristics of effective models," point #4 got lodged in my head.  What does "relevant to the observer's situation" mean?  I suddenly remembered an episode of the TV show "Will and Grace" where, for some reason, this happened:

















Obviously there is learning taking place as a result of modeled behavior.  The model in question is competent (or at least was perceived as such in 2000, when the video originally came out; more recent events could call Ms. Spears' competency into question); has prestige and power due to her celebrity status; and is certainly behaving in gender-stereotypical ways. But how about point #4?  I cannot remember the episode of Will & Grace fully, so I'm not sure if the behavior was relevant or was presented as a non sequitur simply for laughs…

… but that got me thinking, in turn, of "what other resources exist on YouTube if one wanted to learn this routine?"  A quick search turned up this:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dance+routine+compilation+oops+I+did+it+again 

So… a LOT of people apparently thought that this dance routine was relevant enough to learn, record, and share.  (I wonder how many of them can still do the routine on demand?)  I missed the "Britney boat" -- I was in college by the time that she was taking the teens-and-tweens world by storm, so I never thought that learning to dance like Britney was particularly relevant enough to spend the time on.

~~~~~~

Example 2:  Similar to example 1, except surrounding the idea of Comic-Con (the New York Comic-Con just finished), cosplay, and this article (http://theweek.com/article/index/269570/why-the-rise-of-cosplay-is-a-bad-sign-for-the-us-economy), which a friend of my posted on Facebook earlier this week.  Again, if one's reality is one of boredom, relative powerlessness, and feeling adrift… then emulating (or modeling your behavior after) a character that, even if fictional, is powerful and competent probably feels pretty good.  But is it relevant?  How would one even DEFINE relevance in this case?

~~~~~~

I guess of Bandura's 4 characteristics of effective models, point #4 (relevance to observer's situation) is the most subjective and hardest to quantify.  A particular observer/learner's situation can be extremely nuanced and can involve a lot of invisible elements; what's relevant to me and what's relevant to you could be completely different, even if we are placed into the same situation.  That is why it's so important for a teacher to try to know his/her students to the greatest extent possible -- to find that "relevant" aspect.

Cognitive View, Tolman-Cognitive Map

I would like to start this blog with the definition of cognitivism, which is a learning theory that focuses on "how information is received, organized, stored, and retrieved by the mind."  Per Tolman, a cognitive map, which is an internal representation (or image) of external environmental feature or landmark.
My assumptions are based on personal experiences and job experiences.  I work in a class setting everyday as a TSS, Therapeutic Staff Support with children that have mental and behavioral disabilities.  I use rewards as reinforcements for my client to stay focused, complete assignments, and maintain good behavior.  Often I find that the client is capable of doing the work but they get dependent on the rewards and will start asking for the reward before they complete the work.  However, there are students that come to class daily and complete their assignments without any reinforcements.  Those students are motivated to learn and complete assignments. 
The cognitive map is something we use constantly without awareness.  I will give an example, I got a phone call to meet a friend at Pizza Hut.  Here are the questions that entered my mind:

• Which Pizza Hut?
• Where are the Pizza Hut restaurants in the area?

My mind began mapping out routes to the Pizza Hut before she told me which one.  When she responded my mind started mapping out directions from previous memories.

My Views on Andragogy and Pedagogy

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Andragogy- A Process
My view is based on Malcom Knowles, who described the theory of adult learning with six assumptions.  He believes these are the key assumptions to learning.  Here is a list of the assumptions:

1. Need to know-Why?
2. Self Concept-Who's responsibility?
3. Experience-Does it lead to being bias or single mindedness? Is the key adding knowledge?
4. Readiness to Learn-Do you need direction? Do you need support or encouragement?
5. Orientation to Learning-Is learning based on task and problems? Do we generalize from experience to develop concepts and theories?
6. Motivation to Learn-Do we need rewards and grades? Do we need self satisfaction?

My personal opinion based on my knowledge and experiences is that we would like all of the six assumptions.  It would be great to have all six but most of us do it everyday with maybe one out of the six assumptions. He also believed that children could not learn from experience. I totally disagree with that. I have three children and when they were toddlers they learned valuable lessons.  One example is not to touch the iron. She touched it after many warnings but she never did it again.

Pedagogy-Content Teachers Decide
Malcom Knowles belief is that teachers lead the knowledge because most students go into class unaware of subject so whatever information the teacher feeds the student will then gain knowledge that the teacher presents.  Here are some assumptions Knowles made:

1. Dependency-Is it learned dependency?
2. Importance-Is learners knowledge and experience not important?
3. Subject-Is it centered (what teacher would like you to know)?

I agree with him stating learned dependency because my experiences working in many schools have me to believe the children gain a dependency and most forget responsibility of learning on their own. Most teachers do not pay attention to students personal experiences or knowledge.  The subjects are centered by what the teachers or school requires.

"Observation Tool Based on Learning Theory." Which one?

I just got back from a national annual conference in Washington, DC, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.  The attendees are all staff and evaluators, either at the state or local level, for research projects funded by USDoE's Math-Science Partnership grant program.  As most conferences do, this one included large plenary sessions on such topics as educational policy and research initiatives, advocacy, and the ever-changing definition of "STEM education."  It also featured many breakout sessions on evaluation techniques, data-management, project implementation, and more.

The overly-simplified crux of all projects funded by the MSP program is that by conducting professional development for teachers (using specific guidelines), positive impacts can be seen on student achievement in math and science.  Lots of data is collected, and classroom observations of teaching practice is a major component; thus, observation protocols are a big deal for this type of project.

I attended a session sponsored by Horizon Research on a new classroom-observation protocol/tool they are developing.  It's not yet published, the draft we got had "DO NOT Copy, Cite, or Distribute" all over it, so I won't name it or provide a lot of detail on what it actually involved.  Overall I liked to tool, it's better than the one we are using for the project that I manage, so I'm interested to see what the final version looks like when it becomes available.  But there was one statement that the presenters made, out-loud and in their slides, that really made me scratch my head in light of the reading and discussion we've had in LTMS525 thus far, and that statement was:

"[name of tool] is the only classroom observation protocol that is explicitly aligned with learning theory."

And I said to myself… "Um.. WHICH learning theory? because I KNOW from my reading that there is more than theory, and they are very different! If we were observing a classroom where learning was being measured through the lens of behaviorism, it might look a LOT different from a classroom where learning is being viewed through cognitivism." And the more I thought about that, the more it started to get under my skin.  Here we are, at a conference of educational researchers, in a presentation conducted BY educational researchers, and we're in a session using the term "learning theory" as if it is ONE theory?  What's wrong with this picture?  You couldn't tell us which theory? Not even a hint? Because I'm sure we would have understood, at least vaguely, if you had tried -- we're all educated in education.

Naturally, I didn't synthesize these questions until after the session had ended, so I didn't get a chance to ask the presenters.  So when I got home, I even tried googling "learning theory," "learning theory as jargon," and a few other phrases to see if there was another, more generic use of the phrase "learning theory" that is used euphemistically or as shorthand or something like that.  Nothing turned up.  Even Wikipedia's entry for "learning theory" goes to "learning theories" and a page that summarizes them in a manner not unlike Chapter 1 of our text.

That, in turn, made me wonder if this particular usage of "learning theory" was meant as a hook for marketing purposes.  "Hey, check this new thing out, it's aligned to learning theory!" and everyone goes "ooooh, ahhhh, niiiiiice."  (Kind of like the phrase "gluten free" is showing up on so many consumer products now, and there have been no real changes/removal of gluten from those products, we're just highlighting the fact that there isn't gluten.  If you know about gluten, you KNOW that yogurt, water, and corn chex cereal is and always was gluten free.  Sorry, different soapbox, it just amuses/annoys me.) 

So anyway, I do have a draft of the observation tool, and although it says "DO NOT copy, cite, or distribute" it doesn't say ANYthing about "do not pick apart to try to find the alignment to whatever learning theory you can find" so I plan to do that at some point, just to satisfy my own curiosity.  I don't mean to call Horizon Research out on this, but I AM curious (and a little suspicious, as you may have gathered) about this point.  If I can figure anything out, I'll post a followup to this post.

Reading and brain

The blog is the reflection of something I read in the our Group in dingo

The Link is below. It is written by Kathleen Lees

I read this article because I am interested in biomedical engineering, specifically for the brain. I heard recently that they discovered a dish shaped equipment that is small enough to hold the baby's head. It will measure every single brain cell's activity monitoring for any kind of abnormalities. Looking at the pictures I though it is an article about that kind of invention. But not so.

The study was done by umiko Hoeft, MD, PhD, senior author and an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at UCSF, and member of the UCSF Dyslexia Center, The researchers examined the brain scans of the kindergarten students. The study found that the volume of brain's white matter is related to reading. They believe this discovery will help one understand the nurocognitive behavior of students who have reading disabilities.

It may be expensive to use in schools at the early stage of using these neurocognitive profiles,If the study is conclusive about the relationship between white matter and reading,it will be a great tool for teachers as well as students. Looking at education from the point of n physical health is unique.yet this is not a conclusive test.

Chapter 2 of the textbook says that if a child is exposed to stimulating environments along with proper nutrition is inevitable.

IF there is a study that observe a child from birth at regular intervals up to kindergarten, looking at the white matter of children, the study may be conclusive.

Doing brain scans for babies may not be healthy in the long run.

So as much as the nurocognitive profiles may help a teacher identify the struggling readers, it will not help them develop their reading skill. So providing a stumulating envioremnt through out the growing years are very important for developing their learning skills of the children