Activity 6.2

The video on math instruction brought to mind what we've been learning about information processing. One thing the teacher discussed was how math books are designed to not have students problem solve which as we have been learning this week and with Piaget's theories is an essential process and even analogous to learning. I was also reminded of Vygotsky's scaffolding when the teacher was discussing the layers of the math problem. The teacher using native attention grabbing tasks brought to mind James' theories of using a student's passive attention. Finally, the fact that the teacher discussed the importance of perseverance reminded me of this week's PPT and Dr. Usher's points around the importance of perseverance if students want to become more effective problem-solvers. Notably, I found it interesting how this math teacher has been using technology to enhance students' mathematical thinking after discussing possible fallbacks of technology on cognition.

Watching the Marshmallow Challenge video I was reminded of an activity I did a few years back when I was a camp counselor working with at-risk and disabled high school-aged youths. The campers had to create a flying craft out of one soda can, duct tape, and box cutters. The winner was the pair of campers whose flying craft flew the farthest. Their high stakes reward was 2 free sodas! Watching the campers go through the problem solving process I am now able to see many parallels to the Marshmallow Challenge. Many of the campers struggled with determining who the leader in the group was (or whether there should even be a leader). Some of the pairs would get really nothing done because they were unable to accomplish collaboration (no one wanted to get the ball rolling or one person would take over and not let the other contribute). Another issue I noted was many of the campers tried to make their flying crafts look like airplanes, a behavior which falls under functional fixedness as well as learning set. In the end, the campers who were most successful (like the marshmallow challenge conqueror) were the pairs who were willing to try something different, persevered, planned, and willing to keep modifying their flying craft.