Two Learning Techniques

The Norton Field Guide to Writing covers topics about writing and composing. Several of which I was already familiar with. In chapter 2, Bullock and Weinberg express how “Many readers find it helps to annotate as they read…” (16). I have become very familiar with annotating over the years. I often use this writing method to help me understand and summarize text I come across.

During this educational psychology class I have learned how to become a stronger thinker and learner. It took a little while to become a stronger thinker and I am still working on it to this day. Learning strategies can be a very effective way of becoming a more improved thinker and learner. Two learning strategies that I have used throughout the semester are minimizing distractions and doing the learning exercises in the readings. I believe that these two strategies are central to effective learning for myself and I have made much use of these strategies throughout this semester.

Shanahan identifies that general reading skills can only take a student so far. A student can comprehend and read a text well, however the disciplinary approach could allow them to take that even further. The example given has to deal with general summaries and how they often look similar throughout

When people read they often just skim through, “Although there are virtues to skimming, the vast majority of writing tasks you will encounter in college and in the workplace require your conversancy with material you have read.” (David Rosenwasser, of Home from Nowhere:Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-first Century, as Rosenwasser defines, become conversant 107).

A very common type of writing you will produce in your academic career involves carefully reading and developing a summary of a given text. The ability to engage in close reading— to identify salient (key) arguments and represent them fairly—is foundational to entering academic conversations as a competent and articulate participant. Summaries also serve an important role in helping other readers make sense of a difficult text.

While deciphering text can be mundane, studies have shown that “reading has cognitive consequences that extend beyond its immediate task of lifting meaning from a particular passage” (Cunningham 137). Reading not only makes you smarter, but makes you rhetorically analyze things better. The skills that you gain through reading last a lifetime, not just for reading the latest Twilight book. In The Lonely, Good Company of Books, Richard Rodriguez describes himself as a small child looking at reading posters on the wall of his school.

Current political discourse promotes the concept that all students when leaving school will have achieved an acceptable level of education in order that these students will survive and prosper in society. Subsequently their life choices and career directions will be determined by their ability to gather and interpret relevant information. To achieve this educators are required to teach the appropriate cognitive and metacognitive skills, so that individuals can extract and understand the information they require from any text, (Rowe, 2005).

Using this strategy allowed me to not get distracted and just focus on the importance of the paragraphs. Using these strategies helped me as a reader overcome the areas of difficulty in the

To draw attention to a specific topic in the texts emphasis is created through other methods.

In the past I had merely used summaries to help myself recall ideas and events in literature assigned for classes. I had also never thought that there could be types of summaries. I enjoyed writing in different styles when summarizing the TED Talk Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality, which was written as an explanatory summary which, according to the Blugold Guide, is a summary where “you repeatedly refer to the author of the work and indicate how the piece was organized through your choice of verbs and transition words” (Blugold Guide 55). Here is an example of my work: “In his 2017 TED talk, your brain hallucinates your conscious reality, Anil Seth opens his speech by examining what consciousness truly is. Seth starts by explaining the impact anesthetic has on your mind before and after surgery” (Rohloff 1). This clearly shows my ability to summarize using transitions and proper verbiage. This contrasts with my informative summary from Beware of the Leopard which was used to “capture in your own words the important ideas found in the source text” as shown here: “While the appeal of a website is vital to attracting users it often forces the benefit of user-friendliness to an inferior position. Many websites focus so much on glamor that the website fails to enhance the user’s experience rather than attract them to delve further” (Rohloff 1). These summarizing skills helped me move forward to write more complex pieces this

In a sense human beings can actually be programmed to react a certain way, we call this learning. In actuality we learn by experiencing certain events which brings forth a permanent behavior. Our learned behaviors may come from nature or nurture. Furthermore we have to keep in mind that not all types of changes in behaviors are due to learning. As previously mentioned, nature contributes to behavior. We are raised to learn as soon as we were babies it starts with the simply and then evolves into more complex processes such as observational, classical and operant learning.

The read/write learner is advised to: develop lists, make outlines, obtain study guides, take notes, and write words to the notes several times. It is also recommended to read notes silently, rewrite and paraphrase ideas into other words. Converting graphs, charts, and diagrams into worded statements help the student with a strong read/write preference to understand the meanings contained in the visual material. Meaning is found in words; therefore the student with a read/write learning preference should search for words that describe the meaning of a concept by breaking the concept into textual points. (Fleming, n.d.).

In Mrs. Haigh’s English class, Jacey received a short story to read and write a paper summarizing it. The short story was called “Regret”. ¬¬¬¬ Jacey reads for meaning which allowed her to comprehend the content of the story better. When someone reads for meaning, the characters stand out since so much emphasis is placed upon them; this made the story able to be grasped better and also quicker. It was evident that the material was understood better since an outline was done and the entire story was summarized. Both of those strategies are done by readers who read for meaning since they make the material even easier to comprehend. Reading for meaning improves how the reader comprehends and how the reader reacts to the

One of the simplest and most commonly-used methods of conceptualizing learning is that of reinforcement theory (Noe 2010: 142). Every time a parent promises a child a toy for being good during a grocery store trip or threatens a teen with being grounded for bad grades, he or she is using reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theory is based upon the assumption that people want to experience as much pleasure as possible and avoid pain. Thus, businesses offer workers bonuses for good work, and issue reprimands (such as docking pay or denying a promotion) for poor behavior.

This essay will compare and contrast three key theories of learning; Behaviourism, Cognitive Learning Theory and Constructivism.