Saturday, May 31, 2014

Class of 2014

My son, Damien Brown graduated today. Damien is a young man with autism, who was considered low-functioning when he was first diagnosed. Damien was fully special education when he started middle school at Clack. By the time he began Cooper High School, he was in all regular education classes with special ed supports. Damien graduated as a Texas Scholar and with AP credits. Damien is the editor of the Cooper Crest and a member of the Creative Writing Club. Damien plans on going on to college to become a psychologist. Damien has autism, but autism has never had him.


Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Piaget
  1. Children adapt to their environment. This is a desire that sparks their curiosity.
  2. In the concrete operational stage, children learn about conservation.
Vygotsky
  1. Vygotsky felt that social interaction provided the foundation for cognitive development.
  2. Everyone learns by building on previous experiences. This is known as scaffolding.
Behaviorism
  1. Positive and negative reinforcement both increase behavior. However, positive reinforcement increases behavior by adding a stimulus, and negative reinforcement increases behavior by removing a stimulus.
  2. In operant conditioning the manipulator uses a stimulus to create a desired response.
Information Processing
  1. Information must first go into the short-term memory before it can be “filed” in the long-term memory. There is only about twenty seconds in which this process occurs.
  2. If a teacher gives students a review for an exam, they tend to do better on tests than if none is given. The review gives them “specific strategies for learning.”