Module 2

Concept 1:  Learning Styles/Preferences

Summary: Woolfolk (pg. 139) defines learning styles as "the way a person approaches learning and studying" and "research describes preferences for particular learning environments". With a wide range of learning styles some "have little research support" where Woolfolk believes preferences "is a more accurate label". Different learning styles can show teachers if their students are more visual or verbal learners.
Reflection: I really feel teachers who get to understand their student's styles of learning can greatly increase classroom moral. Growing up I was a big-time visual learner (and still am today), but when teachers' would just stand and lecture I found my self looking out the windows of the classroom. The most effective teachers I had in school are the ones that would utilize both styles and would occasionally let us get up and move around. Now I understand teachers at certain points have to lecture or only give power points, but we as educators need to be mindful that not every student learns the same.

Concept 2: Second-Language Learning

Summary: What if you didn't learn two languages as you were growing up? When and how should you learn a second language? Woolfolk asks. She writes about the distinctions between critical periods and sensitive periods. CP is defined as "If learning  doesn’t happen during  these periods, it never will" and SP as "Times  when a person is especially  ready to learn certain things  or responsive to certain  experiences." (pg 187). She quotes another author in saying there is no critical period that limits the possibility of language learning by adults and older children go through the stages of language learning faster than young children.
Reflection: Woolfolk shows us the two periods in which we are able to comprehend/learn a second language. Growing up in Aurora we were not exposed to a second language until my freshman year of high school. Now that has changed and some elementary schools have dual-languages spoken. As Woolfolk states  "The earlier people learn  a second language, the more their pronunciation is near-native." I took 6 years of Spanish and was always told by my Spanish speaking friends that I say words like a "white boy". If we can get younger students emersed in a second language the better off we can help their pronunciation and then have them start to master the language as they grow older.

Concept 3: Social Class and Socioeconomic Status

Summary: "In modern societies, levels of wealth, power, prestige, and political power" Woolfolk explains are how individuals are classified. She then explains that most people are aware of their social class and how some are below. Some may also show "classism" ("better than members of a lower class"). "psychologists combine variations in  wealth, power, control over resources, and prestige into an index called socioeconomic  status (SES)." SES is usually ascribed to people by researchers. "Most researchers identify four  general levels of SES: upper, middle, working, and lower classes."

Reflection: Working inside a high school I see students clearly forming groups due to their "status", but I do believe it is visibly less from when I was in high school. Students today are way more open to acceptance, whereas students from 20 years ago were still stuck in some old ways. I remember we had an "elite" group of students whose parents were all lawyers and doctors and they were only allowed to hang with "their own". For me, it's important as educators we include everyone and not let factions break up the climate of the school.