Introduction

In a broad sense, constructivism has two principles. What a person knows is not passively received but "actively assembled" by the learner. Learning is an "adaptive" function. So, the role of learning is to help the individual operate within his or her personal world; instructivism has two principles. What a person knows comes from objective matter through his/her senses.
Learning is a form of acquiring truth and it can be measured. According to Rice (2007), constructivists “believe learning can be facilitated through the student creating her own knowledge”.  Rice also stated that instructivist “believe the teacher must guide the child in learning”. After analyzing this week’s readings, I find that both sides lack a clear definition of the “goal of instruction”. And the biggest difference between constructivism and instructivism appears to be related to degree of guidance during instruction. These observations prevent me from choosing a specific side. It is my beliefs that both theories have invaluable contributions to providing effective and efficient instruction, if they could some how combine their strategies and ideas.  Instead, their arguments force me to question the intent of the researchers. I have to ask myself, is this argument for the sake of providing the best instruction for the learner or for the sake of an interesting academic argument.

Proposal:The Goal and the Degree - Constructivism vs. Instructivism

Am writing my paper on education and the Goal and Degree of Guidance during Instruction.And two main concepts or arguments: Constructivism and Instructivism.And where I stand. According to Rice (2007), constructivists “believe learning can be facilitated through the student creating her own knowledge”. Rice also stated that instructivist “believe the teacher must guide the child in learning”.And Kirschner , Sweller, and Clark (2006) stated that “the aim of all instruction is to alter long-term memory. If nothing has changed in long-term memory, nothing has been learned.” Kirschner et al. also stated that “the goal of instruction is rarely simply to search for or discover information. The goal is to give learners specific guidance about how to cognitively manipulate information in ways that are consistent with a learning goal, and store the results in long-term memory.”Hemelo-Silver, Duncan and Chinn (2007) stated that “the goals of learning should include not only conceptual and procedural knowledge but also the flexible thinking skills and epistemic practices of the domain that prepare students to be lifelong learners and adaptive experts.”

References

1.     Hmelo-Silver, C., Duncan, R., & Chinn, C. (2007). Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry Learning: A Response to Kirshnerm Sweller, and Clark (2006). Educational Psychologist, 42(2), 99-107.

2.     Kirschner, P., Sweller. J., & Clark E. (2006). Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does  Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86.

3.     Rice.(2007). Went to a Fight and a Conference Broke Out: Instructivism vs. Constructivism.

Summary: Tyranny of the test

A Kaplan program like this can cost a school well into the tens of thousands of dollars. Kaplan coaches are taught to handle the strangenss of each new workplace by falling back on their highly scricpted lessons and by quickly indentifying school faculty as one of several possible archetypes.Whether they are "trailblazers" with their schools or dreaded "saboteurs." ( Kaplan's SAT program is one of an array of test-prep courses that the company is contracted to "deliver" in schools nationwide.

Many educators argue that the gains from prep courses are negligible and the programs themselves ultimately harmful, since they drain precious funds and class time.Kaplan has acquired Achieva, a provider of online course materials to schools, and SpellRead,a national "reading-intervention" company.Kaplan's mission transcends the dysfunction and malaise that we're told we will find in failing schools.

Research

(1) Help you determine what you want to write about
         a. Finding out what conversations exist
(2) Provide you with "ammo"

Getting started:
(1) Survey the texts that you have at hand
(2) Start with a general topic: more narrow than "land" (or "food" or "community/economics" or "education")
         a.Land and illegal activies
         b. Food and public park markets
         c. Education at the high school level
(3) Generate research Question(s)
         a. Do any cities provide public markets for their citizens?
         b. Do and city governments subsidize urban farming?
         c. How much cost for middle/lower income residents
(4) Research
         a.Places
             1. Online/Google
             2.Library/Research
         b. Types
             1. Primary: original docs (Newspaper,lab studies,legislative bills' eyewitness accounts)
             2.Secondary: analysis,summary of primary docs

I am my own worst enemy

"It wasn't my fault."

 

"I didn't mean for it to turn out like this."

How often we hear words like those in our everyday life. And my response is, "So what?"

      Actions have consequences and intentions may have little to do with them. In our victim-focused culture, this is hard medicine to swallow. It doesn't compute and it's not politically correct. Many of us want grace without justice. We need to belly up to the bar and face the consequences of our good intentions run amok. We've hurt people, we've failed to really, honestly apologize and failed to make amends. And the irony is that we ourselves remain imprisoned as a result. It takes time for the results of our actions to arrive. And because of the time gap between action and consequence, we are apt to become complacent or forget that what we do now determines what the future will bring.

    We can also overlook the significance of small actions. Don't! For just as a single spark can lead to a raging forest fire, the smallest act can have devastating consequences. When I was in 2^nd grade my teachers wanted to pass me to the next grade because I was not a trouble kid or was I. All the students that were in my class would be doing class work, home work, and test and listening to the teachers teach about a lesson in Math, English, and Reading. While practicing to draw, I became Pablo Picasso and creating a master piece on every paper. And on some days I became a bear around winter time and would hibernate for a class period. The result of me not doing the work and not putting any effort. I was held back in 2^nd grade and had the hardest time learn anything in school for the next few years.  And now years later and am still struggle with Math, Reading, and English.

      I hate being lied to. Short of violence, it is the worst thing you can do to me. The reason that I hate lies is because, like you, I wish to navigate carefully through life, and to do so I must be able to calculate my true position. When you lie to me, you know your position but you have given me false data which obscures mine. But when I was about 14 or 15 lied to my mother all time about different things. I lied about skipping school, going to the store, not realizing that every time I would lie that I was hurt her in some way. The worst one ever was when I was 14 in junior high and my mother let me going to a junior high basketball game that my girl friend at the time was playing. I went to the game and came home around 8:00pm that was a good time to make it home, but what I did after that was the icing on the cake. I asked my mother to go to the store around the corner. She replied yes but come back home right after you leave the store. So I left the house with other intentions my friends was waiting at the 3^rd house from mine and they had 3 girls with them. One of the girls that were with them was my ex-girlfriend that I still had feelings for or what people call back in the day’s puppy dog love. So we all went walk around do thing only god knows. While we were having the time of our live the time was pass by like lunch time traffic on Nicholasville rd. And when I made it home it was 11:00pm and it was like I walk in hell and was cornered by a raging hell hound. And was caged for a month of my life time with no TV, phone, games and the only light I would see is when I walked to school and home. As a result People who invest the time, money, or even care, People who lie have stolen these things from them because they obtained them with false information.

As time goes on I was 16 when I made the biggest mistake of my life. Because when in life most people act before thinking. And with the actions that other people make like your parents, friends, family makes have a reaction on you. 16 years old I joined a gang because I thought that I would belong to something or wanted to feel like I was someone. Joining the gang it was like having a large family that no matter what happen we were there for each other and would die for each other. We the talk around town, school, the mall, basically we just misunderstood kids. We didn’t have anyone to tell us the truth that we were just some kids that was heading down a path that you were guaranteed to die or see each other pass away. And what I was into would cost me my life or my family. I was the one they called a lost cause I fight, smoke weed, carried guns and just didn’t care for anyone. But now I look back and see that If had not move when I was 17 I would have been like most of the guys that was in the gang dead or lock up for life till this day. It would seem that a human’s action does not deserve praise or blame by reason of its being good or evil. And yet natural things are deserving of praise or blame .Therefore a human action does not deserve blame, by reason of its being evil or sinful; and, consequently, neither does it deserve praise, by reason of its being good.

Compare and contrast of rulers of two countries

     In 1933 and 1945 Russia and Germany was ruled by two of the most violent and insane leader’s history ever seen. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin ruled with iron fists. The way they ruled was different and similar

   The regimes established under Hitler and Stalin was incredibly similar with respect to the rise and control of the state. Both systems were based on entirely different ideology and goals. Hitler established the superiority of the German race and the need to expand as wanted by God. Hitler wanted the world. The government in Russia established a call to the proletariate to unite and rebel against their selfish employers. Some people may believe that Lenin had entirely good reasons for doing as he did, and felt he was helping the world as apposed to Adolf Hitler. Immediately after Lenin's death, a man very much the same in nature as Hitler, Stalin, came to control the Bolsheviks and throw Russia in a civil war in a quest for power. You now have two men of equal aspirations soon to be in control of two very similar governments.

      In any rise of power,these two men had very little history with which to work with which to model their revolutions. Times had been changing rapidly, technological improvements in the fields of manufacturing, transportation, and communication made this period of time very different from any other. Hitler spent his time imprison warping ideas of conquest and superiority of one race over another. Stalin planned his revolution while in exile in Switzerland. Then he made a deal with the German government; he was hid on a train and passed through enemy Germany to Russia. The conclusions with respect to methods of acquiring power and controlling it when they did get it were very much the same.

   Both rulers had full run of their respective governments. Stalin was already dictator of Russia with his power and loyalty of the people guaranteed by the secret police, the Cheka. This entity provided Stalin with an easy means of destroying the opposition and weeding out the undesirable to be sent to prison camps in Siberia, a virtual death sentence. For Hitler to ascend to that level of power he rammed the enabling Act through the German Congress which gave him the power to enact laws. Hitler decreed the only existing party shall be the NSDAP. He declared all association of, collaboration with, and support of other parties would result in imprisonment in camps similar to Russia's labor camps. With Hitler's Gestapo, secret police, he enforced

those rules and used existing policies to get rid of other unfit Germans. Political prisoners, homosexuals, Jews and other people sent to the concentration camps different colored symbols for easy identification. 

My Camping trip

   Every year my wife’s family and I take a trip to Cumberland lake campgrounds. As soon as you see the entrance sign, a sudden tingling feeling pass through your body knowing a week of relaxing bliss is about to be engaged in.Campgrounds have their own unique smell that nowhere else has. I roll down the screeching window, and I can almost smell the crisp earth, see the glassy lake, and taste the campfire cooked smores and hotdogs.  
  
    We'd set up our campsite as fast as horse trying to win the Kentucky derby. I can hear the fresh, cool lake calling my name. But the only bad thing is I can swim to save my life, but not for fun or enjoyment. Basically I swim like a bird trying to fly that has its wings clipped. Days on end I would seat watching carelessly at the glimmering water. I learned how to catch fish and clean their raw, scaly bodies. I will never forget the sharp, rancid scent. But as the sun sets, the lake would slowly grow cold. The sky filled with bright, twinkling stars. It almost looked as if someone spilled a container of glitter in the sky. The campfire would blaze, warming the cool summer air. I could feel the heat touching my face and the campfire smoke almost perfumed your clothes.

   We would cook hot dogs hamburgers, fish, corn, smores; you name it.  my wife’s favorite part was cooking marshmallows. She held it over the fire hoping for it not to catch on fire. But most of the time she would pull it out with it drenched in flames, dripping sticky marshmallow and burnt to a crisp. Yet, there was always something about campfire-cooked food that I loved.

   The next day begins bright and early. The sounds of the birds chirping, and mixing with the warm glow of the sun shining through my tent, act as my alarm clock for the day. As I exit the tent, and I inhale a deep breath of the crisp fresh air. It feels cool in my lungs. Being in the outdoors camping is one of the greatest feelings there is. There’s nothing better than the smell of a campground. You have all kinds of different food cooking over a camp fire.

   Camping is enjoyable for many different reasons. To me there are two parts of camping- relaxing and recreation. Both are equal in their own importance. On the relaxing side you have the scenery of everything, the sight of all the wildlife, and the sound of the nighttime bugs. All of this is relaxing, but there’s much more. Sitting around a warm campfire is relaxing. Going camping can be for two days or for two weeks. It could be across country or 20 miles away. For me camping is relaxing, fun, entertaining, and enjoyable. Waking up in the morning with slimy, mildewed tents was probably the only downfall in the experience.

    At the end of the week we waved good-bye to the campgrounds. Keeping the memories of the dazzling lake, crisp earth, twinkling stars, and sweet smells of campfire food. Having a ripping feeling of sadness, I'd leave with a smile on my face, knowing I'd be back next year.