ETEC 512

Kylie Neiser

Learning Scenario Analysis

December 1st 2019

 I work in Victoria, BC at an inner-city elementary school, where the classes are filled

with twenty diverse and wonderful students. It is an ongoing struggle to get students designated

with the correlating designation as there are so many students on the list to get assessed, which as

a result, leaves teachers struggling to reach all the learners.

First, I will give you a bit of background on this scenario. For this analysis, I am mainly

focusing on one, grade five student, I have been teaching over the past three months. I have been

struggling as a teacher to reach the needs of this child behaviourally, emotionally, socially, and

academically. For the purpose of this paper and privacy, I am going to refer to this child as

Liam. Liam is undesignated, but if he was designated, I assume he would be an intensive

behavioural intervention designation (IBI). He is a child that is happy one moment, on task,

following instructions, and then the next moment he is upset, frustrated, angry, because he thinks

all the other children are out to get him and working against him.

Every morning when the students arrive, I have a “Zones of Regulation” chart up on the

board. It has four zones; blue, green, yellow, and red. The blue zone is for when you’re feeling

bored, lonely, sad, tired, therefore it may impact your readiness to learn. The green zone is when

you’re good to go and ready to learn. The yellow zone is for when you’re feeling excited, silly,

worried, or anything that might escalate your readiness to learn. Finally, red is for when you’re

feeling extremely angry, frustrated, and cannot be in the class because you are extremely

escalated. When students arrive in the morning, they quietly wander up and write their name on

the corresponding zone and then proceed with their morning activity. Liam does this, but I also

have an additional quiet one-to-one check in to make sure he has eaten breakfast, check if any

significant events happened at home that morning or the previous night, and see what zone he is

in and if he is ready to learn. Each day, week, hour is different with him, so you just need to be
ready at all times. Throughout the day, it is constantly filled with reminders for Liam to stay on

task or I often have him sitting working next to me because he likes that interaction and adult

connection piece. He has a tough time staying on task and is easily distracted or distracts others

next to him. Liam is often defiant, lacks self-confidence, sensitive, and needs strict choices and

boundaries (work in the classroom or office) to complete a given task. Liam has a huge heart and

cares for younger students by helping them out on the playground. He is a great big buddy and

big brother, but when it comes to his aged students, he has trouble maintaining friendships

because he manipulates and lies to them, which unfortunately he learns the hard way and as a

natural consequence he loses the friendships.

My goal this year is to reach this child and help him in three aspects of his life;

emotionally and socially, academically, and behaviourally based on the theories we have learned

in this course.

To start this analysis, I would first like to look at behaviourism. Although it is known to

be replaced by other cognitive theories, I still see it to be very prevalent in many aspects of the

classroom. Schrader (2015) references that “behaviorist learning theories emphasize changes in

behavior that result from stimulus-response associations made by the learner” (p. 271). With

Liam, the behaviourism theory has helped immensely with his behaviour because the outcomes

are a direct reflection of his choices. The first month of school was “honeymoon” stage, he was

fairly focused and minimal conflict in the class and on the playground, but suddenly that all

changed. Schrader (2015) states “simple contracts can be effective in helping children focus on

behavior change” (p. 273). Following the behaviourism theory, Liam, the principal, and I came

up with a plan. We created a three time a day check in as well as a daily and weekly check in. If

he succeeded throughout the day, he would receive the last ten minutes of the day to choose a
friend and play a game (non-technology) with a friend. If he was successful for the week, he

could use his most motivating positive reinforcement activity, Chromebooks. Although there

were three theorist who developed behaviourism, the one that most fits Liam, is B.F. Skinner. I

was conditioning Liam by immediately reinforcing him with a star (his choice) on his behaviour

chart. Although there was no negative reinforcement and something being removed from his

environment, there was positive reinforcement if he achieved two out of three stars daily.

Unfortunately, we hit a curb in the road and this behaviour chart worked for about a week. But it

was tough to keep up with the stars, the daily ten minutes of free time, and the weekly

technology piece. The challenges happened for a few different reasons. The immediacy deemed

to be very challenging. When he would go to music and P.E., he would come back saying he had

a great time, however when I touched base with those teachers, they would often say the

opposite. The tricky part was touching base with these teachers in a timely matter. Schrader

(2015) discusses “consequences occur immediately after a behavior” (p. 273). As immediacy is

vital for success, it was unmanageable and quite frankly this was too teacher orientated and with

so many needs in my classroom it was hard for me to be consistent with this. Also, I do not think

Liam bought into this behaviour chart, which made me reflect that there comes an age where

behaviourism theory does not work anymore.

My teaching pedagogy reflects aspects of the behaviourism theory. Students stay in at

recess of they do not finish their homework and if they are not utilizing learning time effectively,

this is a direct reflection of negative reinforcement. Liam is very responsive to this time and

values his social interactions of school.

 In addition to the behaviour chart, we tried one more aspect of behaviourism the day he

showed up extremely cheerful at the morning check in. I asked him why he is was so cheerful, he

reached in his pocket and pulled out a mobile device. My initial thought was “oh, boy, another

battle, here we go”. I asked him to leave it in my desk for safe keeping if he brought it to school

because school policy was no phones on school grounds. He willingly put it in my desk for the

day, but kept asking to see it, of course I said “no”. After talking with the principal, counsellor,

and mom, we came up with a plan. I wrote a cell phone contract and stated that it must stay in his

backpack and if it was seen by anyone, it would automatically be in my desk for the day. So, in

this aspect of the behaviourism theory, the positive reinforcement was that he got to keep his

phone in his backpack, and the negative reinforcement was that the phone would be removed

from his backpack and it would be in my desk for the day. Needless to say, I have never seen the

phone and he has been very successful.

Reflecting back upon the two contracts I made, it seems to be that if negative

reinforcement is incorporated, Liam is more successful. This could be for several reasons.

Perhaps at home, his parents use negative reinforcement more frequently. Or perhaps he did not

feel motivated by the incentives that were being used for positive reinforcement. Each child is

drastically different and response to reinforcement differently.

The brain is a complex organ in our body and due to our life experiences, they develop

and create neural pathways that are original and unique. Even though neuroscientific theories are

controversial, I believe it is an important aspect to take into consideration when working with

children. When you only have a child for ten months of the year, six hours a day time is of an

essence. However, Lee and Juan (2013) have encouraging words by stating “the reassuring fact

about neuroplasticity is that the brain can be changed” (p. 394). Having the ability to teach and
create pathways to alter Liam’s mindset from fixed to growth mindset is promising. Through

Carol Dweck's Mindset Theory came the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset. With a fixed

mindset, individuals have a tendency to give up easily when things become challenging, avoid

new challenges and keep doing things that are within their realm of safe. With a growth mindset,

individuals preserve and are resilient to tougher tasks, try the unknown and use feedback to

improve. When Liam is in the growth mindset, he has the ability to realize he can achieve things

he never thought he could.

Constructivism has large impacts on the learning of children. Liam enjoys constructing

his own creations, having hands on experiences to let his digital creativity shine. As soon as

technology is incorporated into a lesson, he instantly becomes engaged. He is very digital

literate. Constructivism is “The process of construction of meaning, of learning, and of

knowledge development involves active engagement with the objects and people in the

environment, a sense-making reminiscent of the child as a philosopher of a scientist” (Dewey

1933; Papert 1999; Kohlberg 1968) (p. 23). Engaging Liam is a challenge, but when I create

lessons that incorporate evolving media, technological tools, and outdoor education, I can

usually reach him. When there is a pen to paper activities he usually checks out and distracts

himself and others.

Socially, Liam struggles with relationships at school. His interaction at the school has

been that he retaliates to others quite easily and partakes in manipulative, lying behaviour, which

often ends in a loss of a friendship. Schrader (2015) emphasizes Vygotsky’s sociocultural

constructivism as “culture is the prime determinant of individual learning and development” (p.

24). The environments we surround ourselves in are a pure reflection of who we are. As a

teacher, we only see the students for six hours a day, so yes, we can help them by creating a
positive and encouraging learning environment, however the rest of the hours are up to the

parents and guardians. I speculate that his environment is much different at home than at school

because of the way he interacts with his peers and teachers. Liam tends to float in and out of the

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) based on what Zone of Regulation he is in and this can

change instantaneously. When Liam is ready to apply his learning, construct knowledge, and

engage, this is a reflection of being in the ZPD due to readiness. I believe this to be because he

has had a good start to the day as opposed to being distracted from other contributing factors.

“Students learn to both think and explore within and outside of their own perspective or mindset”

(Schrader 2015) (p. 28). I always challenge my students to teach me something about the

platform I’ve just introduced them to and Liam is usually the first to find not one, but two or

three things new. This is Liam’s successful outlet and I need to ensure I am providing these

opportunities for him.

After learning about the different learning theories in this course I feel more confident

teaching these students because I can base my pedagogical teacher philosophy off of the theories,

which feels like something to back up my decisions. It gives me piece of mind when making

decisions, or somewhere to reflect upon when I am stuck for ideas on how to improve academic,

social, emotional, and behavioural skills.

References:

Dewey, J. 1933. How We Think. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath

Kohlbery, L. 1968. “The Child as a Moral Philosopher.” Psychology Today, Vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 24-

30

Lee, H. W., & Juan, C.H. (2013). What can cognitive neuroscience do to enhance our

understanding of education and learning? (Links to an external site.) Journal of

Neuroscience and Neuroengineering, 2(4), 393-399. 

Mindset Works, Inc. (2017). Dr. Dweck’s research into growth mindset changed education

forever. Retrieved from https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/Default

Papert, S. 1999. “Papert on Piaget.” Time Magazine, March 29.

http://www.papert.org/articles/Papertonpiaget.html.

Schrader, D. E. (2015). Constructivism and learning in the age of social media: Changing minds

and learning communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Chapter 2. Neuroscience of Learning. (Links to an external site.) Learning

Theories: An Educational Perspective (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.