Significant Concepts about the Physical & Social Domains

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What are the most significant concepts that you have learned about the physical and social domains on the basis of your reading and experience with children? Explain why you chose these concepts. You can include personal experiences also.

Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains
The Three Types of Learning
There is more than one type of learning. A committee of colleges, led by Benjamin Bloom (1956), identified three domains of educational activities:
o Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge)
o Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas
o (Attitude)
o Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills)

Since the work was produced by higher education, the words tend to be a little bigger. Domains can be thought of as categories. Trainers often refer to these three categories as KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude). This taxonomy of learning behaviors can be thought of as "the goals of the learning process." That is, after a learning episode, the learner should have acquired new skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes.

The committee also produced an elaborate compilation for the cognitive and affective domains, but none for the psychomotor domain. Their explanation for this oversight was that they have little experience in teaching manual skills within the college level (I guess they never thought to check with their sports or drama department).

This compilation divides the three domains into subdivisions, starting from the simplest behavior to the most complex. The divisions outlined are not absolutes and there are other systems or hierarchies that have been devised in the educational and training world. However, Bloom's taxonomy is easily understood and is probably the most widely applied one in use today.

Affective Domain

The affective domain (Krathwohl, Bloom, Masia, 1973) includes the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes. The five major categories are listed from the simplest behavior to the most complex:
1. Receiving Phenomena: Awareness, willingness to hear, selected attention.

Examples: Listen to others with respect. Listen for and remember the name of newly introduced people.

Key Words: asks, chooses, describes, follows, gives, holds, identifies, locates, names, points to, selects, sits, erects, replies, uses
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My Reponse: 1. There are many egocentric stages in the development of a child. During many of these stages, students do not want to listen for a variety of reasons. I have taught preschool, primary school, and middle-school, and tutored high school students. It is important to teach attentiveness, listening skills, how to focus attention, and willingness to listen at all ages and stages in order to increase a student's awareness and openness to observe, examine, learn, and adapt both for success in school and in success in life.
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2. Responding to Phenomena: Active participation on the part of the learners. Attends and reacts to a particular phenomenon. Learning outcomes may emphasize compliance in responding, willingness to respond, or satisfaction in responding (motivation)

Examples: Participates in class discussions. Gives a presentation. Questions new ideals, concepts, models, etc. in order to fully understand them. Know the safety rules and practices them.

Key Words: answers, assists, aids, complies, conforms, discusses, greets, helps, labels, performs, practices, presents, reads, recites, reports, selects, tells, writes.
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My Response: 2. In education today, student apathy and disconnect ,with regard to engagement in content and process, seems to be a bigger problem in students at all ages. My experience has led me to believe that television, video games, and other electronic toys and devices have led students to a dysfunctional need for immediate gratification. Hard work is seen as unnecessary; and worse yet, as very un-cool. A teacher today often has differing degrees of challenge when attempting to encourage genuine and active participation on the part of the learners. It is difficult to get a student to truly attend and react to a particular phenomenon. Learning outcomes should emphasize a genuine and true value in responding, and an authentic willingness to respond. Today, it is important to actually teach students how to get satisfaction from being engaged in what they are learning, in the process of learning, in responding, and in the actual work of learning. You can build this habit through playful activities and lessons, and motivate students by offering many opportunities for success.
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3. Valuing: The worth or value a person attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behavior. This ranges from simple acceptance to the more complex state of commitment. Valuing is based on the internalization of a set of specified values, while clues to these values are expressed in the learner's overt behavior and are often identifiable.

Examples: Demonstrates belief in the democratic process. Is sensitive towards individual and cultural differences (value diversity). Shows the ability to solve problems. Proposes a plan to social improvement and follows through with commitment. Informs management on matters that one feels strongly about.

Key Words: completes, demonstrates, differentiates, explains, follows, forms, initiates, invites, joins, justifies, proposes, reads, reports, selects, shares, studies, works.
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My Response: 3. You may be an extremely intelligent person, but if you can't get along with others in a respectful manner despite all of our many differences, you will not become a successful individual. It is important to teach a belief that we should be respectful of individual and cultural differences. I was fortunate to meet Jaime Escalante. Here is information about him:
Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutierrez (December 31, 1930 - March 30, 2010) was a Bolivian-born American educator well-known for teaching students calculus from 1974 to 1991 at Garfield High School, East Los Angeles, California. Escalante was the subject of the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, in which he is portrayed by Edward James Olmos.
Teaching career
In 1974 he began teaching at Garfield High School. Escalante was initially so disheartened by the lack of preparation of his students that he called his former employer and asked for his old job back. Escalante eventually changed his mind about returning to work when he found 12 students willing to take an algebra class.[2]
Shortly after Escalante came to Garfield High, its accreditation became threatened. Instead of gearing classes to poorly performing students, Escalante offered AP (advanced placement) calculus. He had already earned the criticism of an administrator who disapproved of his requiring the students to answer a homework question before being allowed into the classroom. "He told me to just get them inside," Escalante reported, "but I said, there is no teaching, no learning going on".[citation needed]
Determined to change the status quo, Escalante had to persuade the first few students who would listen to him that they could control their futures with the right education. He promised them that the jobs would be in engineering, electronics, and computers but they would have to learn math to succeed. He said to his students "I'll teach you math and that's your language. With that you're going to make it. You're going to college and sit in the first row, not the back, because you're going to know more than anybody".[citation needed]
The school administration opposed Escalante frequently during his first few years. He was threatened with dismissal by an assistant principal because he was coming in too early, leaving too late, and failing to get administrative permission to raise funds to pay for his students' Advanced Placement tests. This opposition changed with arrival of a new principal, Henry Gradillas. Aside from allowing Escalante to stay as a math teacher, Gradillas overhauled the academic curriculum at Garfield, ...