7/30/2019 Capstone Essay Education Theorists Part I

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Students learn best when teachers employ best practices in the classroom.

The objective for the teacher in the classroom should be for students to achieve

higher-order thinking skills. Benjamin Bloom, creator of Blooms Taxonomy,

theorized that students have the ability to attain higher levels of thought as they

move up Blooms Taxonomy. The Blooms Taxonomy levels are: Remembering,

Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and then the highest level is

Creating. I will use Blooms principles when analyzing the standards and

synthesizing how I will accomplish guiding the students to think higher-order

thought.

The second theorists principles that I will use in my education career is Lev

Vygotsky. Vygotsky developed much of the social learning theory that we are

familiar with now. The work of Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) has become the

foundation of much research and theory in cognitive development over the past

several decades, particularly of what has become known as Social Development

Theory. (McLeodhttp://www.simplypsychology.org/). Vygotsky believed that

students learn through the social experience of others. Vygotsky has developed

a socio-cultural approach to cognitive development. (McLeod

http://www.simplypsychology.org/). Vygotsky developed the Zone of Proximal

Development which stated that students can only reach their potential with the

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7/30/2019 Capstone Essay Education Theorists Part I

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help of a teacher, or another pupil with more knowledge. I want to apply this

philosophy in my future classrooms. I will incorporate principles of Vygotskys

Zone of Proximal Development in my teaching to reach higher levels of Blooms

Taxonomy.

Lastly as a future educator, I would like to employ Abraham Maslows

Hierarchy of Needs. This might not sound like something that you would

practice directly in education, but from my student teaching experience, I have

noticed that there are a lot of students that have problems at home. I think it is

the responsibility of the educator to monitor the behavior of students and also

what goes on at home with students. Abraham Maslows theory is a system of

levels: Physiology, Safety, Love, Esteem, and Self-actualization. In order for the

individual to excel, the individual must first have the lower needs met. It is this

same theory as to why there is the free and reduced fare lunch system at our

public schools.

To conclude, I think that it is our responsibility to look after the well-being

of our students so that they will be ready to learn. We also need to design

lessons so that the students will eventually achieve higher-order thinking.