AIL 620, Week 2 assignment, Kolb and My Community of Learners

1. AIL 620: Learner Literacy
Susan Chen
Presented by
Kindergarten Teacher, Shepherd, Experienced Learner
December 16, 2016

2. My Community of Learners
In my school, my students
are taught to be
Respectful, Responsible,
and Safe. My classroom
rules reflect this:
1. We keep our hands,
feet, and other
objects to
ourselves.
2. When Mrs. Chen is
talking, we are not
talking.
3. We always do our
best!

3. How do Rules help my
community of Learners?
According to Richard Davidson,
“Education that shapes the child's brain and likely
produces these kinds of alterations lay the foundation for
all future learning for emotion regulation and for social
functioning.”

4. Emotion Regulation
Emotions are part of life. There isn’t a time of the day where we don’t feel
something, whether it be boredom, excitement, anticipation, happiness, sadness,
or even a sense of nothingness. But what we do with these emotions are what
differentiates learners from non-learners, and bullies from non-bullies.
Davidson states, “if you do something to intervene in a way that changes behavior
it's got to be the case that you're changing the brain.” Therefore, teaching
rules, having children understand the reasons behind them, and leading them to
accept these rules internally stops possible negative behavior, thus causing a
change in the brain.

5. Social Functioning
Societies without rules do not last, and a population that does not have rules
internalized does not survive. Davidson states, “Qualities such as patience,
calmness, cooperation and kindness should really now best be regarded as skills
that can be trained.”
Although he states that early environment and family genes do NOT play a role in
emotion regulations for social functioning, I find this difficult to believe as I
see daily the effects of the environments our children come from, and unless he
is referring to taking the child completely out of those elements, I believe all
we can do is promote positive brain changes while we have them in the school
setting, and hope that these behavioral interventions are more permanent than
the ones they learn outside school.

6. So what does
this look like in
my classroom?

7. Every negative behavior
is a chance to learn.
Susie hit Bobby because he wouldn’t give her the pencil she wanted. He hits
her back because he doesn’t like to be hit. Both students run to the
teacher to tell on each other.
Emotionally, not getting what you want needs to be dealt with and the student needs to be
taught how to handle this disappointment. Emotionally, getting hit and how to handle
being hurt needs to be handled. Socially, this is unacceptable because as an adult,
there are harsher consequences.

8. Practicing what should have happened cements these positive behavioral
interventions. At the beginning of school, my class practices reaction
emotions and social qualities with each other DAILY. I give them a
scenario, and sometimes they will be given the correct responses, while
other times, they are left to figure out what is right as a group.
After the first few weeks of school, daily practices move to weekly, and then
as situations happen. Classes and children are different, and what happens
in one class may not happen in another.

9. How does this connect with
Kolb’s Learning Theory?

10. Concrete Experience: I wanted a pencil,
and my friend wouldn’t give it to me.
I experienced anger.

11. Reflective Observation: My teacher asked
me to share with the class how I felt when
I didn’t get what I wanted. My friend was
asked why he didn’t give me the pencil.
I reviewed the experience.

12. Abstract Conceptualization: Then, my
teacher reviewed the rule “We keep our
hands, feet, and other objects to
ourselves,” and I realized I should not have
hit him. My classmates said I should have
used “I don’t like that” words.
I learned from my experience.

13. Active Experimentation: The next time it
happened, I tried out what I learned and
the next time he wouldn’t give me the pencil
I wanted, I used my words, and he listened.
I tried out what I learned.

14. And now, my favorite quote
from Davidson’s lecture:
“If you are learning skills to calm you, you will improve the function of
the prefrontal cortex. It will be less jangled by threats that occur in
your environment and you'll actually not only show improved emotion
but you will also show improved cognition, you will do better on tests
like this of working memory which other research indicates underlies
a lot of academic performance.”

15. WORKS CITED
Davidson, R. (2016, December 1). Bookmark The Heart-Brain Connection: The
Neuroscience of Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning. Speech
presented at Bookmark The Heart-Brain Connection: The Neuroscience of
Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning in CASEL Forum, New York City.
https://www.edutopia.org/richard-davidson-sel-brain-video