"Cognitive Views of Learning"

1. Th teacher maintained the students' attention throughout the class period. When the students began talking or getting out of their seats, the teacher's signal for attention was standing up out of his seat and walking to the front of the class. He would then continue speaking or would ask the class a question regarding their work and the class would maintain attention. If the students seemed to lose interest in their work, the teacher would ask them personal questions about their previous writing experience. "Has anyone had any of their writings published?" "Have you ever submitted any of your work to your school newspaper or to a writing contest?" The class would have a brief discussion and then continue with their work.
2. The class would read science fiction stories together about dinosaurs, time travel, and space. The teacher would assign a specific topic for the students to write about. He focused on creativity and structure, not facts. He explained what a theme was and how to begin a paragraph. The teacher explained to the class that the goal of their stories should be to use unique creativity and to follow the structure that they had learned and not to worry about insignificant details and punctuation because those would be revised when the stories were completed.
3. The teacher helped the students make connections with information they had learned in school and at home with their creative writing stories. They were encouraged to write about their personal and home lives in their stories and to use any prior science fiction knowledge to build on their work. Students seemed confident in their writings because they had prior knowledge and experience in writing and science fiction.
4. The class began with a review of the stories they had read and the writing techniques that were learned. The teacher gave the class examples of different writing styles and techniques to stimulate their stories and to remind them of the writing structure they should follow. This made the students eager to start writing and to share their stories with the class.
5. The teacher gave hand outs and wrote notes on the board to outline previous information and the information necessary to complete the assignment at the beginning of the class. At the end of the class the teacher would re-cap what they had done during class and introduced the next topic and how it would tie into their work.
6. Due to the hands-on activities and class discussions, the class used different techniques to create their papers. They did not memorize structures and styles of writing.

- The teacher could have made actual outlines and goals for the students to work towards and hand it out to the students. If the students were able to choose the topics that they were to write about, they might have been more motivated to complete the task. Otherwise, I believe that the teacher's techniques were extremely successful in keeping the class motivated and holding their attention.

Option 2 Cognitive Views of Learning
1 Hour Observation
Gifted Youth Program Writing Class